Opinions

As Kiwis, we are known for our strong work ethic. DIY is indeed in our DNA. Technology has encouraged us to work smarter, not harder, and this has helped us be as productive as possible. Grant makers work incredibly hard to review, analyse and uncover grant applications that provide the most value to community driven projects. Grant makers do everything possible to ensure applicants have every opportunity to apply for funding, but is this kind-hearted approach causing our grant makers to work too hard?

A large portion of grant makers review incoming applications fortnightly or monthly, resulting in a task that can be quite daunting! Adopting the mind-set of ‘quality over quantity’ could help grant makers shift their focus onto thought out and well-planned applications. As several grant seekers rely heavily on funding, applications can sometimes be submitted under pressure to meet the deadline. This can cause a surge of mediocre applications that grant makers need to filter through.

The solution to ensuring quality applications is to minimize the number of available grant rounds each year, resulting in grant seekers having more time to plan their applications and less opportunities to apply again if it is declined. This will encourage grant seekers to invest more time into ensuring applications are better quality and meet the criteria. However, this doesn’t mean grant makers will be giving out less money! Due to less opportunities to apply for funds, the average requested and approved amounts for each grant round will increase. This allows the community to still receive desperately needed funds, but encourages quality applications to help our grant makers’ work smarter and not harder!

Here at BrandAdvantage, we are committed to working with our clients to explore workflow changes that could improve productivity, ultimately allowing more grant funding to be put back into the community.

This entry was posted in blog on September 28, 2020.