2023 / 08 - THE WRITER’S GRANT TOOLKIT

“I hate talking about myself.” Sound familiar?

As writers and artists, grant management and application may be part and parcel of our creative careers. However, I’ve learnt that the process that goes into grant application can easily translate into other forms of administrative support creators desperately need.

And yes, grant management, applications, and generally administration can be a struggle - especially when it takes away from what you really want to do - create. Yet, grants are helpful resources that can help you get to where you want.

Therefore, this issue is here to give you an overview (and checklist) on how you can make your administrative processes as painless as possible.

Get Ahead by Preparing and Updating

There are many hacks that can help us with getting grants painlessly. Regardless, I do believe that they centre on one main concept - Getting Ahead.

No, not in the hustle, cutthroat way you might be thinking about.

Getting ahead by preparation.

“But Jo, how can I prepare for something when all the grants don’t have fixed deadlines and are always changing?!”

So glad you asked.

When you apply for grants to fund certain projects you have in your craft, the details of the requirements differ from time to time. Having gone through several grant applications, the information they ask for all boil down to getting a snapshot of who you are and what you will be asking for resources for.

This is a working checklist for what you can prepare to make your application process less painful:

• Your Creator’s CV

• Bibliography & Portfolio

• Identity Kit

• Project Prep Kit

• Sample Budgets & Rate Cards

• Schedules & Summaries of Current Known Grants

Let’s dive a little deeper, shall we?

Creator’s CV

Objective here: To show that you are a creator with a track record or solid understanding of the craft that you are seeking funding or support for.

Not the Resume or CV you use to apply for jobs.

This is the Resume you use to describe the key projects and milestones you encountered through your creative journey. For this, resume rules apply, but for your writing / illustrating / crafting / creative journey.

Keep it short (1-2 pages), keep it simple (top 3 projects and your role in them), and format it well. Grant administrators often just need to know your contact info, a summary of what you do and your work, and your latest projects.

Bibliography & Portfolio

Objective here: Similar to Creator’s CV, but with more detail and a greater visualisation to show your progress as a creator.

Quick story time - I still struggle with my writer’s portfolio. Because it’s all words and many people don’t like walls of text.

My tip here? Place each project into capsules, like so:

For Fiction: Include a key visual (I sometimes use a cropped screenshot), a paragraph summarising the plot of the story, publication avenue (WIP / Anthology / Festival etc…), Genre & Status, Target Audience.

For Non-Fiction: Highlight key projects by including a key visual (to indicate the project), a summary, your role, the skills you had to use, a panel or a page of sample text, and a few bullet points on lessons learnt or impact.

Depending on the job or the grant, panelists might want to see a greater variety or focus on your writing niche. So it’ll be good to archive your projects into these capsules of information so that you can use them as needed.

Identity Kit

Objective here: Letting the panel of decision makers know you as a person, not just through your work

Sometimes, you can answer all the exam questions correctly, but still not get the job or the grant because the decision makers have no idea who you are. This is where you introduce yourself to them.

Many grants and events will often ask for your 50-100 word creator’s bio, so to quell that nagging “I hate talking about myself” line and get to it, you can use these points to craft your own (or send them to someone and have them craft one for you. hehe.)

• Who you are (“Joelyn Alexandra is a Singapore-based…”)

• Your niche (“...puzzle-thriller author…”)

• Your objective (“...who is looking to…”)

• Your track record and/or memberships

• Your interests (keep this to three)

Again, make it simple - you can even choose to prep a short (50-100 words), medium (half-page bio), or a longer bio (pretty much your creator’s journey) a la Maureen Johnson if you would like.  

Project Prep Kit (Objectives, Scheduling, End Product, Impact)

Objective here: Giving the panel of decision makers a quick overview of the project you’re seeking help for.

“But Jo, every project is different! I can’t use the same document to…”

This kit is how you get people excited about what you’re going to create.

Yes, every project is different. However, do take a bit of time to get some key information of your project down -

• Project Title - this can be tentative.

• Project Objective - why is this project necessary or special to you?

• Rough Schedule - you don’t have to go into detail now, but have a rough schedule in mind, and remember to buffer more time for your own benefit!

• Your End Product - This is important, because decision makers want to know what they are funding.

• Impact - Bonus points if you can visualise the impact your work will have either for yourself or the community. If not, you can also think about how your work will affect other works or your peers.

While your project direction may change before you seek resources, it’s always handy to have a foundational pack of information at hand to tweak.  

Sample Budgets & Rate Cards

Objective here: Giving yourself a headstart with budget documents or a good overview of how much to ask for, grant-wise.

Many grants and funding opportunities require you to put up a sample budget with your proposals. If you have a general list of items you need for your project (including services and your own expenses), this will make your life easier.

Personally, this is the ratio I’d use for grant application - 50% Production, 20% Creator Expenses, and 30% External Labour.

And this is a sample list of items you can look for rates and costs (this example is for a writing project):

• Equipment - Laptop, Keyboard, Tablet

• Software - Canva Subscriptions, Scrivener, Affinity etc…

• Production - Printing, Distribution

• Services - Editor, Proofreader, Publicist, Administrator, Assistant, Designer

• Daily Expenses for a stated period of time

Be thorough with what you need, especially if hiring a freelancer to help you with your project will be of great help. It’s always easier to cut than think of things to add on to maximise your resources.

Schedules & Summaries of Current Known Grants

Objective here: Having a schedule and summary of currently-known grants can give you the time to prepare things in advance.

Note: This is not something you will be asked to submit, but if you have this in your back pocket, you’ll thank yourself.

This doesn’t need to be complicated - an excel sheet or document that has the name of the grant, what it funds, the funding organisation, and general date range for submission can give you a picture on how you can schedule your administration.

And that’s my grant preparedness list for you!

Do you want me to dive into these items in greater detail? Let me know in the comments!

Mindset Considerations:

Keeping this short and sweet - Preparing now and Scheduling updates will spare you a lot of headache in the long term. Even if you do decide to hire an administrator to help, you’ll still need all this root information.

And remember, it does not need to be perfect - you will always grow, update, and change according to how confident you get with your niche and self.

What Can I Do as a Writer?:

1. The list can seem intimidating or overwhelming at first. You can first break it down into smaller tasks first - For example, your creator’s bio will likely need to be done sooner rather than later, and used more.
   

2. Schedule your updates. The initial gathering and formatting of information is going to be quite time and energy-consuming initially. However, scheduling your updates will allow you to use dedicated time to progress towards an administrative foundation that can help you in the long-term. If even that sounds like a pain to you, then…
   

3. Ask for help. Ideally, you can get a grant writer or a virtual assistant to aid you with these administrative tasks. However, if you have a peer who is willing to help you with your administrative and publicity content, that works too. Just remember to pay them - friend or no friend. However, do also note that even if you did ask for help, you will still need to gather and send information to people who are helping you as well. They are not mind readers, after all.
   

I hope you will be able to glean something helpful from my reflections moving forward as well!

Thank You!

And that’s it from me this round! If you like what you’re seeing, have any questions about publishing that you would like me to look at, or just want to say hi, do drop me a comment or send me a message. I would definitely like to hear from you.

Keep the pages turning!