ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


C&RL N ews ■ M arch 2003 / 155

C o l l e g e  & R e s e a r c h  L i b r a r i e s ne sw

There’s money out there for you

Writing personal grants

by Gerald T. Burke and Carol Anne Germain

D oes the idea o f submitting a grant seem  overwhelming o r too m uch of a bother? 
Does taking on the National Science Foun

tion (NSF) seem like an impossible task? Does 
the idea of getting “personal” seem  too, well, 
personal to be used for grants? You might find 
that som e o f your fears are unwarranted.

Grants com e in various sizes. With a little 
work, you’ll find one that will meet your needs. 
You d o n ’t n eed  to start with a large NSF grant. 
Taking o n  th e grant en d e av o r o n e ste p  at a 
time can m ake you a successful grant writer, 
and grants can help enhance your professional 
experience. They are available from a variety 
of sources and can help you fund training, at­
tend conferences, or conduct research.

To start with, th ere are m any falsehoods 
surrounding the acquisition of grants, such as:

• There’s too much competition.
• It’s too hard.
• Grants are charity.
• I have to write an extensive proposal.
Of course, if you never apply there is a 100

p e rc e n t ch a n ce th at you w o n ’t get a grant. 
Many grants require extensive documentation, 
su p p o rt letters, m atching funds, a n d  p rice 
quotes. H ow ever, n u m erous grant agencies 
have reasonable and attainable expectations and 
their grants still go unclaim ed. For exam ple, 
th e A ssociation o f S pecialized an d  Library 
Agencies’ Research Grant was cancelled in 2000 
because of insufficient applications.

da

Motivation
An im portant aspect in writing a grant is self­
­confidence. You n e e d  to believe in yourself 
an d  your initiative. If your letter is passive or 
reads like an apology, the sponsor w o n ’t fund 
you, even if your idea is clever.

Initially, m ake a list o f your professional 
accomplishments. Weaving these into the a p ­
plication will give the review er a better look 
at you.

Wants are im portant. List priorities, m ak­
ing sure they’re attainable. A trip to Hawaii to 
review a library collection may look suspicious. 
H ow ever, to review  eth n ic oral histories of 
Hawaii, a visit to the Manoa Library is essen­
tial and may get funded. Apply for something 
that interests you; y o u r ex citem en t will e n ­
courage funding.

Getting started
Start early. P rep arin g  th e g ran t ap p licatio n  
can be a time-consuming task. You may have 
to rely o n  others for recom m endations, price 
q u o te s , o r a d m in is tra tiv e  a p p ro v a ls . Set 
aside ex tra tim e so su rp rises are n o t catas­
trophes. If y o u r grant has p otential, it’s b e t­
ter to p u t it asid e until the n ex t cycle (u su ­
ally a year) than to w rite a hasty proposal.

Also, d o n ’t get stuck o n  the w ord “grant.” 
Awards, fellowships, scholarships, stipends, 
prizes, and professional development are fund­
ing sources frequently overlooked.

A b o u t th e  auth o rs

G erald T. B urke is hum anities bibliographer, e-mail: gtb03@ csc.albany.edu, an d Carole A n n e Germain is n e tw o rke d  
resou rces ed ucation  librarian a t the U niversity a t A lbany, e-mail: cg219@ csc.albany.edu

mailto:gtb03@csc.albany.edu
mailto:cg219@csc.albany.edu


156 /  C&RL News ■  M arch 2003

F u n d in g  so u rc e s
Many organizations maintain Web pages and 
produce publications providing grant informa­
tion. ALA has many grant resources at http:// 
www.ala.org/work/awards. Look into your 
institution’s research foundation. Grant noti­
fication services, such as Community o f Sci­
ence, e-mail upcoming grant information that 
fits your preregistered profile. Explore oppor­
tunities that unions offer. Review the grants 
sections of library publications. Join an awards 
com mittee. ALA has a volunteer jury panel; 
information is available at http://www.ala. 
org/work/awards/juryfm.html. Being a jury 
member is a wonderful way to experience the 
grant selection process.

O nce y o u ’ve found an interesting grant, 
you’ll have plenty of homework. First, research 
the funding organization. Its mission statement 
will provide insight into whether you would 
be supported. For example, the National Rifle 
Association won’t fund projects about gun con­
trol.

Next, review projects previously funded by 
the grantor. Do they have flexible criteria? If 
they focus on funding government document 
projects, and your main interest is information 
literacy, don’t give up. A study reviewing the 
use of government documents in the informa­
tion literacy curriculum may be an exciting pro­
posal to them.

Additionally, are there restrictions? Will you 
be committed to do something for the grant, 
like attend a conference? The grant adminis­
trators are a good source o f details. They know 
the review process, grant scoring, budget al­
low ances, and other inside inform ation. If 
asked, they may evaluate your draft applica­
tion or provide winning examples. The grant 
administrator may turn into your largest advo­
cate.

T h in k in g  big/actin g sm a ll
O nce you’ve gotten some background infor­
mation about the grant and the benefactor, 
i t ’s tim e to start th in k in g . F o llo w  the 
“T h in k in g  B ig / A ctin g  S m a ll” m e th o d . 
Thinking big involves com ing at the grant 
with a novel approach. Acting small means 
taking on a reasonably small project. Better 
to have a few  su cce ssfu l little grants than 
one huge failure. A project in the $200 range 
will b e  relatively straightforward with few 
extraneous details.

A novel idea grabs grant readers’ attention. 
If you request funding just “because you need 
it,” the likelihood  o f su ccess is slim. Think 
about ways in which this project benefits you 
a n d  others. Are you applying to an organization 
that sponsors a co n feren ce  w here you can 
present the material? D oes this organization 
have special interests that you can include in 
your research? Can you take what you’ve learned 
and teach others? Clearly, the grant will profit 
you; however, if you can prove it will benefit 
others also, it may b e  more attractive to the 
grantor.

W ritin g  th e  p ro p o sa l
Like any writing assignment, personal grant 
w riting p resen ts a n u m ber o f ch a lle n g e s. 
There are two important tools you can use: 
outlines and narratives. Using outlines can 
help you shape ideas and frame narratives, 
and honing narratives can help you perk up 
your prose style. Both of these can give your 
p erson al grant p ro p osal the extra ed ge to 
secure your goal.

First, let’s look at outlines. They can help 
organize ideas and processes, and they can be 
used anytime in the personal grant writing pro­
cess by sketching out ideas, organizing proce­
dures, and structuring and revising narratives. 
Outlines com e in three major forms: scratch, 
informal, and formal.

Let’s say you want a grant for a Zip drive. 
You make presentations at numerous confer­
ences, and your Power Point presentations re­
quire large files. The Zip drive will make them 
portable without using floppies. To get started 
using this example, a scratch outline might look 
like this:

Title: get a grant 
request

Zip drive
reasσns

conferences to do 
snappy graphics 
floppy blues 
Zip fix

fu nding
anyone with $$$ 

budget 
???

Now that you have a general feel for the 
parts o f the grant, a little research would al-

http://www.ala.org/work/awards
http://www.ala


C&RL News ■  March 2003 / 157

low you to revise and focus the scratch outline 
into an informal outline. The revision might 
look like this:

requesting
Zip drive

reasoning
presenting at numerous conferences 
developing presentations with many 

graphics
eliminating floppy diskette complications 

finding
Ja n ice  Newkirk Award— ENY/ARCL 

budgeting
$ 1 5 0 -2 0 0

For most personal grants, working from a 
well-thought-out and balanced outline is suf­
ficient, but a grantor may require an outline as 
part o f the proposal; if so, remember to use 
the standard alphanumeric structure found in 
most writers’ handbooks, such as the B ed fo rd  
H andbook1

P ro p o sal n a rra tiv e s: p erk in g  up 
p ro se s ty le
Narrative is a “loose” word in grant writing. 
Here, we will use it in the traditional sense, 
i.e., an account of events. The important idea 
is to write clearly. Grantors will be reading 
quickly, so it’s important that your proposal is 
easy to follow. Think of grant writing as a road 
map to your ideas. If grantors can’t follow your 
directions, they get lost—and so does your grant!

There are a num ber o f narrative tips to 
help perk up your prose: eliminate jargon, 
avoid b u re au cratese , write in the active 
voice, use parallel structure (when possible), 
avoid com plex sentences, and write in short 
paragraphs.

• First, there is the issue of jargon, which will 
confuse, not impress, the majority of grantors:

“With the enhanced capability o f my 
high-speed I/O peripheral data storage 
unit connected through a USB data port 
with 12 Mbs throughput, I will be able 
to design and execute multimedia … ”

• Second, avoid language laden with 
bureaucratese, like the following example:

“You can include a page that also con­
tains an Include instruction. The page

including the Include instruction is in­
cluded when you paginate the document 
but the include text referred to in its 
Include instruction is not included.”2

Be careful not to muddy your proposal by 
trying to make it too precise. Remember, if 
readers do not understand your request, they 
will not fund it.

• Third, keep your narrative lively by using 
active verbs and maintaining the active voice 
as much as possible. The following URL has plenty of 
active verb examples: http://www.grantproposal. 
com/proposal_verbs_inner.html.

• Fourth, use parallel structure for balance 
and organization. Ideas are parallel when they 
are expressed in parallel grammatical form: 
words with words, phrases with phrases, and 
clauses with clauses. For example:

— A successful grant requires creativity, work., 
and dedication , (word, word, word)

— The committee members re a d  th e g ran t 
proposal, discussed its m ajor points, and d ecid ed  to 
accep t it. (phrase, phrase, phrase)

Parallel structure expresses your ideas in a 
balanced form, which gives strength and grace 
to your proposal. A reader may not say “nice 
parallel structure,” but he or she will find your 
prose lucid.

Also, use parallel structure in outlines. If 
you look at the Zip drive proposal outlines 
earlier in this article, you will notice how the 
revised outline is much more coherent because 
of the use o f parallelism.

• Finally, avoid complex sentences and keep 
paragraphs short. The ideas behind your pro­
posal need to be understood easily; besides, 
grantors’ attention spans shorten when they 
read large numbers of applications.

Budget
For personal grants, the budget issue can be 
tricky, but remembering a couple of simple prin­
ciples will resolve most problems.

First, adjust for time. Most personal grant pro­
cesses take months or longer, so remember to cal­
culate the possible increase in cost over time. In 
today’s economy, a lot can happen in six months.

Second, “pad a tad.” Adding a little leeway 
in your estimate will help cover unexpected 
inflation or minor missed necessities, but don’t 
overdo it. Experienced grantors are good at 
detecting “grant inflation.”

(c o n tin u ed  o n  p a g e  1 7 0 )

http://www.grantproposal




170 / C&RL N ew s ■  March 2003

interim report at Midwinter 2004 and a final 
report at Midwinter 2005. The task force will 
coordinate with the ALA Endowment Task Force, 
especially ACRL’s representative to that group.

D e feated  th e  M e m b e rsh ip  C o m m itte e ’s 
proposal to include section and chapter repre­
sentatives on the Membership Committee and 
recommended that these representatives be ex­
officio members and that the Membership Com­
mittee be encouraged to share a draft o f their 
proposal with section and chapter leadership 
before bringing it back to the ACRL Board for 
approval.

A p p ro v e d  th e  e x p e n d it u r e  o f  $ 1 3 ,3 0 0  
in FY2003 to support and to fund association 
strategic planning efforts, such as focus groups 
at the ACRL National Conference in Charlotte 
and a forum at the ALA Annual Conference in 
Toronto.

A p p ro v e d  s ig n in g  a n  a g r e e m e n t w ith  
Tecker Consultants for strategic planning in 
FY2004 at an estimated cost of $52,000.

A pproved exp en d itu re o f  th e accumulated 
donations in the Friends of ACRL Professional 
Development Scholarship Fund, supplemented by 
a portion of the accumulated donations in the 
unspecified funds, to a total not to exceed $7,500 
to fund additional scholarships for the ACRL 
National Conference in Charlotte according to the 
criteria and procedures being used for the scholar­
ships previously budgeted.

A p p ro v ed  th e  ACRL M em b ersh ip  Busi­
ness Plan.

A p p roved  allottin g c h a p te rs $ 1 .5 0 , a 50 
percent increase, for each national personal ACRL 
member living within the geographic region served 
by the chapter, for fiscal 2004. ■

( “T here’s  m oney out th ere... ”con t.from  p a g e 157)
Finally, investigate for any hidden costs. Fre

quent y, there are costs associated with your grant 
process that you do not want to forget; for in­
stance, if your grant involves continuing educa­
tion, don’t forget to include the cost of books.

The Zip drive grant is a good example of these 
principles. If the grant will b e awarded in six 
months, will the Zip drive model you are basing 
your request on still be available, or will it be 
replaced by a new and more expensive one? Also, 
did you add the price o f shipping to the overall 
cost? Padding would take care o f that. Finally, 
the hidden costs: most Zip drive units do not 
include a parallel communication cable or Zip dis­
kettes; these can cost an additional $20 to $40 
that the grant could cover.

You might consider approaching the budget 
like G oldilocks— not too much but not too 
little.

Conclusion
Before sending your application out review it. Is it 
complete? Reread criteria to make sure you’ve 
answered all the questions and provided requested 
materials. Some grants are automatically rejected 
if instructions aren’t followed to a tee.

Some small details to check: correct number 
of copies, length, attachment limitations, spelling, 
grammar, content, and deadline— too late is too 
late.

Don’t forget the big details:
• Have you proved you have a good idea?
• Will your idea benefit others?
• Is the project realistic?
• Can it be completed with requested funds?
• Is your budget concise?
• Have you gotten their attention?
Have others review your draft. They will pick 

up errors you didn’t spot. If you do not receive the 
grant, do some follow-up work. Ask the grant ad­
ministrator for recommendations and for your scored 
application. This will provide insight into your grant 
writing weaknesses and strengths. Find out if you 
can resubmit an edited version of your proposal in 
the next cycle. Always keep trying; the likelihood 
of getting all requested grants is slim. Win or lose, 
write a thank you note, it’s a nice extra touch.

Personal grants help you get more than just 
funding, receiving them is personally reward­
ing and affirming. Grants support projects you 
might have abandoned due to lack of funding.

Cultivate a grant nose. In other words, always 
be sniffing for creative ways to cash in on your 
ideas.

Notes
1. Diana Hacker, B ed fo rd  H a n d b o o k  5th ed. 

(New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000).
2.  Lynn Q . Troyka, Sim on & SchusterH an dbook 

F o r W riters. 5th ed. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: 
Prentice Hall, 1996). ■