Last Thursday 19 September 2024, I was announced as the winner of the Australian Evaluation Society’s Awards for Excellence in Evaluation – Emerging New Talent award for 2024! I was absolutely stoked to win this award. The award recognising someone who has made an outstanding contribution to the field but… Read More »Winner – 2024 Awards for Excellence in Evaluation – Emerging New Talent
I’m delivering a workshop for the Australian Evaluation Society next month! It’s all about qualitative methods in evaluation – focus groups, interviews, surveys, etc, and how to make the most of them. I’ve designed this workshop to be an accessible, practical overview of qualitative methods and how to use them… Read More »Workshop: Introduction to Qualitative Methods in Evaluation
This is an extract from my course Grant Writing For Freelance Grant Writers. If you’d like to learn more, you can join the course here. If you’d like to discuss how to apply this thinking to your own work, send me an email or book in a strategy call today.… Read More »The five different types of grant maker
Earlier this year, I was featured in a series on LinkedIn created by my colleague Gerard Atkinson about neurodivergent workers. I’m pretty open about having an ADHD brain – I genuinely see it as a strength, even though it does make some things harder for me. It helps me think… Read More »How I Work Neurodivergently
A few weeks ago, I got a LinkedIn message from David. A few other grant writers I know got the same message. Looks like David was doing the rounds, searching for the right grant writer for him. Good for you, David! Unfortunately, David’s message included the following: Regarding the financial… Read More »Never pay a grant writer on commission. Let me tell you why.
I was chatting with a colleague the other day about the difference between “evaluation questions” and “research questions”. She said my explanation was really helpful, so I thought I’d share it more widely. Evaluation is sometimes called applied research, but it’s a bit more than that. The definition I like… Read More »“Evaluation questions” vs. “research questions”
In my Facebook Group, The Freelance Grant Writers’ Network, we recently had a question about how to address the question of “success rates”. I was pleased to see that most grant writers who responded said that they aren’t often asked about their success rate. But it does come up sometimes.… Read More »Why you shouldn’t use “success rate” to hire a grant writer
I think a lot of grant writers sometimes forget who their audience is, and what they’re looking for. It’s a key piece of advice for all types of writing – write for your audience. That includes grant writing. For me, I actually learned grant writing backwards – I first came… Read More »Who is the audience for grant applications?
I think in grant writing, it’s common to focus on the grant writing, and forget about the project design. But actually – it’s great project designs that get you funding. Great grant writing will make sure that your idea shines – that it’s clear that it’s what the funder is… Read More »It’s not just about grant writing – your project design matters more!
One of the disappointing realities of grant writing is that you can submit a brilliant application and still not secure funding. A lot of people want to believe that if you can just submit a good enough application, then you will get the money. That’s why some grant writers like… Read More »Two-thirds of top-rated grant applications are UNsuccessful