Dear Future Pepper Foundation Grantseekers,
The first thing you really need to know as you begin this class is to hold your textbook close. This will be a hugely helpful tool as you begin the grant writing process. However, as you start to get a hang of this style of writing, it’s okay if you diverge a little in order to develop your own personal style; this will set you apart and make you a unique/skilled grant writer. If each section of the grant seems to be repetitive, that’s okay. Just make sure to collaborate closely with your group in order to make each section cohesive as if one voice was writing it. If you struggle with this, my suggestion to you would be to delegate a section or two a piece with your group as you revise the sections in order to read over them and thus ensure they remain cohesive in voice. One last piece of advice I have for you is to find an organization that everyone in your group has a strong connection to and then look to write a grant based on what the organization already has set up. Doing this will allow for a lighter courseload overall since you’ll be spending less time trying to come up with every little detail of a new program and more time on the process of writing a grant. This class is ultimately about learning the process of writing a grant, not being part of a non-profit explicitly. So try to focus on what each part of the process entails for when you’ll possibly be doing this alone in the future.
Best of luck,
Vic Wilbur
