A Record-Breaking 3 Hour Grant Opening Window - with 3,000 applications received 😳

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Hi, I'm Jessie Ballantyne and I love grants. I sold my house to fund the launch of the Grants Hub because I truly wanted to make grants easier to find. In the very early days, I ended up running the Grants Hub from the ICU ward of a children's hospital. Let's just say I'm committed to the cause of helping you find grants.

If you're looking to get real with grants to learn what works and what doesn't, to hear from grant experts from.

Across the country and have some fun.

While we do it, then Grants Uncovered.

Is the podcast for you. Yesterday there was a grant program in Australia that opened at 9:30am, closed at 12:30pm with 3,000 applications received. I was lucky enough to get my application in on time, so I want to share with you how I managed to do that and and give you tips so that you can then apply for grants that close really quickly after the opening time. That was a grand total of three hours of opening. Stay tuned and listen to the rest of this episode if you want to find out how you don't need to.

Miss out on grants that open and close within three hours.

Attention health promotion charities, this one's for you. The NIB foundation is searching for registered charities across Australia to apply for their Health Smart grants to receive their share in $240,000. Six grants of $40,000 are available to charities in Australia. The six successful charities will also be given the chance to have their funding doubled through the People's Choice vote, where two of the six charities will receive an extra $40,000. Charities who specialise in health promotion and.

Primary prevention and have a track record of engaging and empowering people to be.

Health smart in their everyday lives are encouraged to apply. In 2021, the Health Smart grant will be expanded to New Zealand, offering three eligible charities. A grant of 40,000 DOL charities can submit their expressions of interest from 1 June, that's today. The Guidelines and Expression of Interest form are available to view now@nib.com au foundation. That link is also available in the show notes. Good luck everyone. Yesterday I had a really interesting grants experience and I wanted to share it with you because I think this is possibly going to become more common when grant programs open and close really quickly after they've just opened that morning, particularly with programs that are coming out that are quite accessible to a lot of people. They're not a complex application form and.

You know, there's just a lot of people that can apply for them.

So I had this experience where I.

Applied for a grant.

Now, this is not for Grants Uncovered. It's for something completely different that I'm working on. And I won't tell you about that concept now because it's still in the process of happening. But I, I'm feeling a little vulnerable sharing this one with you today because to be honest, I haven't actually submitted a grant application for myself for a very long time. So I'm feeling a little bit edgy sharing this with you just in case I don't get the grant and then you're going to wonder, you know, how credible I really am as a grants person. But anyway, look, it's called Grants Uncovered. This podcast. We say we're going to get real about grants. Here's my real experience that happened yesterday with this grants program. I think there's some key learnings here that we can actually take away.

I do expect that this kind of.

Thing will happen bit more frequently.

So basically there was a Queensland government grant that businesses could apply for.

Now, I won't go into all the details here. I might put some links through in the show notes. I just need to make sure it's not going to jeopardize my own chances of, of being successful in this grant round.

Basically, the grant opened yesterday morning at 9.30am and they said it will close on the 30th of June or earlier if enough applications were received. Now, most of us who were looking at the grant knew it was going to be highly popular.

What I wasn't expecting is that it would have filled within three hours. So they actually had a live tracker on their website yesterday and I woke up at about 5 o' clock in.

The morning and I was just refreshing my browser, waiting for the program to open.

They said it would open yesterday, but they didn't put the actual time on it. So from about 5:00 in the morning.

I just kept refreshing my browser and then eventually, just after 9:30, I looked.

And it had opened.

So I put the application straight in and I had mine in by 9:45. How did I do that? Is what I want to walk through with you today. Because programs now sometimes do say we will close on 30 June or earlier if we've had enough applications now. You know, three hours is. I have never seen that before, ever.

I've been in grants for quite a long time now and I have never.

Seen that happen ever. It's.

It's gotta be a record breaker.

I don't have that as a confirmed.

Fact, but I'M pretty sure that would.

Be a record breaker in a timeframe for a program to fill. There were 3,000 applications received in those three hours. That's an awful lot of applications happening.

Full credit to that website for holding.

Up to that sheer volume of applications that they were receiving as well. Now, the program, the reason I could apply within 15 minutes of this program opening and have my application submitted and the confirmation email sitting in my inbox was they had released the full program guidelines, application forms, all attachments, you are required. That information was released on the 17th of May, so. So that's two weeks before the grant actually opened. Now again, this is becoming more common. Sometimes a funder will release the guidelines without all the other things. That's fairly common. But to actually see an example of the application form, you couldn't fill it in. It's an online application like most grant programs are, but they had made the full application form available beforehand. So last week and over the weekend I sat there and I went through and I basically created a word document and I dropped the questions in and I wrote my text and I put.

My word counts on and I made.

Sure where it was a hundred words that I'd written 100 words or less. If it was a 200 word maximum, I worked on that, I made sure it was only 200 words. Now, some of them, in my first go, of course they were well over 200 words. So I cut them down. Basically when I got to opening, you know, my application yesterday, the live form, I could literally just cut and paste all my information straight across and it was all accepted. Now this is what you want to be able to do with these programs. You've got to prepare, you've got to plan ahead.

And now I would strongly recommend blocking.

Out that day in your diary, if you can, for the date that that program will open up. Now, there are a range of Queensland government business grants opening. I know, you know, there's a range of programs like this happening across Australia where they, they great grants. This one was only for $5,000. So it's just a small little grant. It's not a game changer in, you know, it's not like a hundred thousand dollars. You're not going to get your business off the ground with this grant. But it's a really helpful, it's a really helpful amount of money that you could use on a range of things. Um, now here are a few things I did so as well as just preparing all of that information in advance over the weekend and making sure that I Had my word counts, right? I registered for my Smarty Grants. Um, I, I did my Smarty Grants registration. Now just remember that Smarty Grants is. It's the most common application platform across Australia, but it doesn't transfer from one to the other. So you've got to have separate Smarty Grants accounts for all the different funding providers that use it. Secondly, I had to make sure my eligibility was right, so I had to actually change something within the business structure to make sure it wasn't a big one. I just hadn't been GST registered, so I got my GST registration done. That's not a biggie. It took, you know, the accountants didn't.

Take very long to do that at all.

But it meant that I was eligible versus if ineligible. And realizing that on Monday morning, that would have been too late and I would have missed out on the grant. There was a stat deck required for this grant application, which, honestly I haven't seen it before.

But I went and got my stat deck done. So I filled in this form and.

I took it down to the police.

Station on Saturday morning and I was going to get them to sign it.

And lo and behold, the police station was actually closed.

I could have rung a buzzer, but I don't think this warranted an emergency situation. So I was sitting, sitting on my phone in the car and I'm working out who else can sign this stat deck for me.

The pharmacist could.

So I went down to the pharmacy. Thank you very much to him for filling in my stat deck for me. It meant I could apply for this grant on time.

And, you know, to be honest, I.

Probably would have missed out if he.

Hadn'T been able to do that for me. So that's just another little thing that would have been another blocker for people yesterday that some couldn't apply because of those little things. The financial forecast, that's really tricky. This concept that I'm working on, it's brand new, so trying to forecast your financials is really tricky. But at the end of the day, you've got to put a number in and you've got to be able to justify it. So just think about that before you get to the application form. And then there were also written quotes, so you could. Well, you had to actually get at least one written quote to support your application. Now, in as well as getting that side of things prepared before the application, here are another, you know, bunch of things that I did to try and strengthen my application. Now, as I said, this is a disclaimer I have absolutely no idea if.

This application is going to be successful. We never know with programs like this.

That get this much interest. Here's what I did.

Let's find out later if it works. I'll let you all know whether I get this grant or not. If I don't, it's going to be a little embarrassing. So just don't hang in on me. But here are a few things that I did yesterday. Well, I actually done them earlier, but here's what I dropped into my application earlier.

So I aligned my application to the program focused. That's number one. Like this one was about creating jobs or upskilling, you know, allowing you to work on areas of your business that you don't have the skills in. I made sure my application was directly in line with that. You've got to do that with any grant program that you're doing. You must go back and read out what the funders goals are for the program, the objectives they want from it and what are the key things that they're looking for. Build that into your grant application. Secondly, I touched on this earlier but showing the predicted revenue forecast. Now you want to be able to justify that there wasn't space in this application form to justify the revenue growth that you'd put in as a figure. But I know I need to keep those calculations and my workings in case they come back and ask any more questions on it. I don't actually think they will in this particular program. But you need to be able to justify your figures and know how you got to that.

And then also remember what targets you.

Set for yourself if you do win the grant. Thirdly, this was a small grant, so as I said, it was only $5,000. But any funder, particularly in the business space, is going to be looking for a good return on investment. So I would recommend trying to pick a project that that will give a fund a return on investment. They probably will this. You know, you can't apply for a grant for your electricity bill in any.

Case in this program.

But they're the ones that are not quite so you say they're not sexy projects to funders. They're just not as good grabbable. The need is still there.

There is no doubt that, you know.

I'm an advocate for funders providing grants for operational costs. But in the case of this little grant, electricity wouldn't have been eligible.

I'm just using that as an example.

But pick something maybe that fits directly within their guidelines and something that's going to make the funding assessor feel a little bit more excited about what you're proposing next. Now, this wasn't a requirement, but on the quote that I submitted, this is a Queensland government program targeting businesses. Now, in the supplier section, I chose to go with a Queensland supplier for my quote. Now, there was no requirement for this to be done. I have no confirmation that this is going to make any difference to whether my application was is successful or not. But I do think it makes sense to be choosing a Queensland supplier when it's a Queensland government grant from the business department wanting to boost businesses. If they choose to award me, that will mean that my new business concept will be supported, which is a Queensland based business. Plus I'm bringing in a supplier that is also a Queensland based business. So that's essentially helping out two businesses at the same time. As I said, I don't know if that will make any difference or not. It's not a requirement, it's just a decision I made to try and make my application more competitive. Finally, my last point is, as I touched on earlier, if you are finding these grant programs that say opens on 31 May or 1 June, whatever it.

Is, today's 1 June, there's some of.

These grants out there opening on 1 June, closing on 30 June or earlier, if enough applications are received, you've got to block those dates out in your diary. You've got to apply as soon as you can because you might miss out. Now, I know some people that missed out yesterday, they had a meeting in the morning. You know, there's so many different stories that will come out of this particular grant. At the end of the day, it is what it is. So do anything in your power to apply for these earlier. Particularly in this case where all of the information, all of the application form, everything was available beforehand, where you could literally create it in another document and cut and paste into the live application.

Form on the morning. So that's my experience with this grant yesterday. It was very insightful.

Writing my own grant application again, I.

Also felt quite nervous.

It reminded me of when people tell.

Me they feel nervous submitting grants and it's like you've just got to do it. And I was telling myself that yesterday you've just got to do it, just put yourself out there, just apply for it. But it was very good to be on that front end again doing it for myself instead of just applying for other organizations. Let's see what happens. So I'll keep you in the loop with this one and I'll let you know when I hear back. And whether I'm successful or not, I will be open with these we are getting real about grants and just take.

All those tips on board. So align your grant to the program. Focus. Show your predicted revenue or forecast. Be able to justify your figures if that's what you asked. Choose a project that has good return on investment, choose a supplier that makes sense for that particular grant program, and.

Block out the date in your diary so you can apply as quickly as possible. Thanks for tuning in guys. I'll be back next week. Thanks for joining me on Grants Uncovered. If you'd like show notes, head over to grantsuncovered.com see you next time.