{"id":57236,"date":"2021-05-11T00:00:05","date_gmt":"2021-05-11T04:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=57236"},"modified":"2021-05-10T22:19:02","modified_gmt":"2021-05-11T02:19:02","slug":"sharpen-up-your-application","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/sharpen-up-your-application\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharpen up your application"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Who are you writing for?<\/h3>\n

One of the most basic pieces of advice for writers is \u2018know your audience\u2019.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I often find that people write their grant applications for a completely amorphous audience like \u2018the government\u2019 or \u2018the Department of [Whoever is Funding the Grant]\u2019. That\u2019s just not true. Your grant application will be read by a very small, very specific audience of maybe 5 \u2013 7 people. It is much more effective to write for this\u00a0very focused imagined audience<\/a>\u00a0than for a huge, amorphous undefined audience.<\/p>\n

You generally don\u2019t know the actual people who are assessing the application. However funders often provide an indication of who they will draw upon for advice. For example, the Victorian Local History Grants Program says that the applications will be read by at least five people who are:<\/p>\n

representatives in the fields of history and\/or heritage, cultural and social history, archives, museum collection management, curators, academics, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander programs, multicultural programs or other related areas.<\/em><\/p>\n

2020-2021\u00a0<\/em>Local History Grants Program Application Guidelines<\/a>\u00a0[727 Kb PDF].<\/em><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a massively useful list. Already, you\u2019ve moved from an amorphous audience to an audience of 5 or so people, drawn from this list.<\/p>\n

What do these people value?<\/h3>\n

When people write their applications, I suspect that they imagine an audience like themselves or an audience that is sympathetic to their cause. Social historians imagine an audience of social historians. Archivists imagine an audience of archivists. That is a really good thing to do \u2013 it means that they write a strong application for a core audience who will understand what they are trying to do.<\/p>\n

The problem with this approach is that the application isn\u2019t just going to be read by that core audience. It is also going to be read by people outside their discipline. People who might not get it.<\/p>\n

You can deal with this problem by revising the application for the people outside of your core area. If you are a social historian, imagine what would be convincing for a museums collection management expert. If you are writing a heritage grant, think about what someone who manages multicultural programs might find convincing.<\/p>\n

They are coming from different points of view but luckily they all have one thing in common \u2013 they value evidence. Evidence-backed statements will make your grant application much, much stronger.<\/p>\n

What are they looking for?<\/h3>\n

The funding agency tells you what they will and won\u2019t fund, and how they will rank the applications. They provide you with the criteria that they will use to rank the applications (and often the weightings that will be applied to each criteria). They try pretty hard to be transparent about what they want.<\/p>\n

Your job, in writing your application, is to show how you can meet those criteria. Because you don\u2019t know who else is applying and what they are writing, you can\u2019t know how good your application is, compared to everyone else\u2019s. All you can do is write the best application that you can. The selection criteria tells you what the funding agency thinks \u2018best\u2019 means. Please listen to them.<\/p>\n

To be convincing you will need to provide evidence for each of the criteria. That means that it is worth thinking about what sort of evidence will work for different criteria. Here are some examples of common grant selection criteria and brief notes about what evidence you might provide to demonstrate that you know what you are doing. You believe in what you are doing \u2013 you just need to be clear about\u00a0why<\/strong>\u00a0you believe that.<\/p>\n

Criteria: Has\u00a0clear aims, objectives and well defined strategies<\/strong>\u00a0for the delivery of the project evidenced by a well-developed project plan with realistic milestones and timeframes.<\/h5>\n