Librarians, have you ever spent hours, days, or even weeks, writing a grant application for what you felt was an exciting new program, service, or collection, only to have it rejected? If you have, you know that’s a lousy feeling. 

And although most granting agencies will give you feedback on why your library didn’t receive funding, it still may not be clear to you how to do better next time.

Today, I’m going to give you four tips for writing a better grant application and increasing the chances that you’ll be funded. You can find complete show notes at masterfullibrarian.com/ep-16.

 I’ve had the privilege and responsibility of being a library grant reviewer several times.  And most inexperienced applicants make the same, or very similar, mistakes.  There’s no reason for you to make those same mistakes.

Tip One – Use Good Metrics for Measuring Impact

In my opinion, this is the number one mistake most applicants make in requesting a grant.  I don’t know of a single funding agency that doesn’t want to see that your program, service, or collection is going to actually make a difference to your users. Otherwise, they don’t want to give you any money.

You have to provide metrics for how you’re going to measure that impact. 

And in case you’re breaking a cold sweat at hearing the word “metric”, relax.  A metric, according to Merriam-Webster, is just a standard of measurement. 

You don’t have to have come up with some complex, highly technical, 100% infallible method.  It just means you have to be able to show that you started out over here and ended up over there.