How to secure repeat funding from the same funder again and again

So, you did it once: you convinced funders to fund your organisation. You proposed a crazy good project which the funders loved and deemed worthy of supporting. You appeared trustworthy: neither of the other trustees in your organisation was your aunt, and your bank account was not registered in Guernsey.

Thus, your project got the funding: the funders rejoiced and you rejoiced and delighted were the angels in the kingdom of heaven.

A true partnership, one might call it.  A perfect match. Almost like a marriage. But better. 60% of marriages end because of misplaced expectations. This is rarely the case with funding. You need to mess up pretty badly for a grant to be revoked. You have done so much to prove your merit. In case you’re doubtful of that, read our previous blog post to remind yourself just how much you have done. There you go. A lot.

However, the trick is not to keep the grant. It is to repeat the stunt and secure funding from the same funder again and again and again and again… Think of renewed marriage vows. And think of yourself. And, also, think of weddings. When you imagine yourself and renewed marriage vows and weddings at the exact same time, one thing, I propose, you will find is that the rate of admiration  you feel in yourself is greater in the former than in the latter case (renewed vows being the former and first marriages being the latter, for anyone confused). A working hypothesis for this working hypothesis is that renewed marriage vows often need more work and effort and determination and luck than weddings themselves.

This proves that securing funding is better than marriages in more than one respect. Not only is it less likely to fail, the partnership becomes easier over time. Securing funding from the same funder again requires less work and effort and determination and luck than securing funding for the first time.

I’m pretty sure that I’m on the right track to win you over to grant-applications over however romantic ideals you have of weddings.

But it is only fair to be honest about the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth of repeatedly securing funding. It is not a stroll in the park. It is repeatedly securing funding.

And it has a few tricks.

First of all, its advantages relative to marital relations notwithstanding, a distinct drawback of a funder – funded organisation relationship is that, contrary to what one might expect from a spouse, it is fairly easy for your funder to forget about you. If you asked and secured funding from a funder a few years ago, it may be that the trustees of the fund have moved on (however painful that may be for you) and found other projects to enthuse about. Ideally, this is not the case and you can write your new application as if you were writing to an old, generous friend. Sometimes, however, the old generous friend has another couple of hundreds of friends, and they might need a gentle reminder of who you are. If this being the case has any potentiality at all, your very first action should be to point out any past relationship. This should raise their attention immediately since having been selected for funding in the past indicates that you are a serious candidate for a new grant: your profile and projects have already proved themselves.

At least, this is the rational explanation. There is another highly empirical human-ethological observation which justifies starting your new application with introducing yourself as a past beneficiary. This observation is as follows: people like what they know as much as they like what they think they know. This is the faultless logic behind people asking for mentorship in corporate finance appealing to shared kindergarten-careers. I’m mentioning this only because you might think that, since the grant you once secured was small, its memory must have, by now, faded into oblivion – and therefore, it’s not worth mentioning. This is never the case.

Some uncredited and frankly quite dodgy sites on the web recommend pretending to have been awarded a grant in the past (yes, really) – similarly to how buskers always start playing with a couple of coins already in their hat. With high stakes come high gains, these dark figures behind the aforementioned sites say.

Maybe.

Or maybe you’ll be put on the blacklist of a series of grants never to secure any more fund in the future. Don’t do this.

Onto the next step. Once the introduction is nicely done, it is time to let the funders hear what anyone wants to hear the most in this narcissistic world: their praise. And, highly practically, their praise is your praise. Do not spare them any detail of what you achieved with their skilfully distributed grant. Tell the story where the hero is ostensibly the youngest prince (you) but where clearly the hero wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without the help of the fairy godmother (the funder). Be subtle, like the greatest fairy tales. But not too subtle, like the greatest fairy tales. Don’t be too proud to attribute some of your greatest successes to the grant you received: keep in mind that a fairy godmother is relational – they are only successful insofar as their beneficiaries are. If these logical relations are too confusing, practice a little cognitive dissonance. Just like in the best marriages.

Finally, once you have grabbed the benevolent attention of the funders and demonstrated to them that their funding in the past were placed in the right hands, your task is easy as pie: just write a terrific proposal that the funders will feel reluctant to say no to. Some people would argue that making a pie can, actually, be rather laborious.

These people are making pies for the first time.

You are not.

Make the most of it!