How to Get Grant Ready and Submit Competitive Grant Applications | Leslie Annear, Clarity Content

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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. Do you ever wonder what you need to do to be grant ready? Well, today is your lucky day because I am joined by grants consultant Leslie O'. Neill. Leslie has won over $2.8 million for her clients in the last 12 months alone. Her business, Clarity Content, works with not for profit clients across Australia to. Today we're going to do a deep dive into what you need to have in place before you start writing your grant application so that you too can see grants success like what Lesley has helped others achieve. Thanks so much for joining us here on Grants Uncovered today.

Lesley, thank you so much for having me. Jessie, it's great to be here.

It's really nice to have you here. We met through our connection at the Grants Hub. So for those who don't know, I founded the Grants Hub and Leslie, we've got a grant writers page on there and Lesley has a listing on there of great grant writers across Australia. So that's how. Yeah, we met with each other.

That's right. And it turns out we have so much in common beyond the grant writing, grant research side of things.

Yeah. So true. You picked up on this connection that we both have this background in aid and development which is sort of random that we've landed in the same place here in Australia. How did you get sort of into that and then how did that lead you into becoming a grants professional?

Sure. It's. It's a bit of a back to front sort of journey I've had. I started out doing grant writing actually, just within the business sector, so working with a real variety of businesses on their grant applications. And I think most of us would agree that a lot of grant writing can be pretty dry and working with the businesses I was. A lot of it was. Was particularly dry and not my area of passion in manufacturing or. Yeah, coding. Coding stuff. It's not my. I'm not a very good specialized.

There's people that specialize in those areas. Yeah. Personally, it's not my area of specialty either. Yeah, yeah. So opportunity to outsource some of those pieces of work. Yeah.

So it was a wonderful experience and it sort of got me hooked on, you know, the incredible impact that's achieved with successful grant funds. But it did prompt me to make a bit of a pivot and transition and I moved into aid and development from there, which is obviously another field where grant writing and fundraising skills are really valuable.

Yeah.

So probably did about six, six years in aid and development to the point of selling all my things and moving overseas with my husband for a period of time. So that was a lot of fun. But on returning just. Yeah. Have now found, I guess, a bit of a sweet spot which I really enjoy. Working with a real variety of cause driven charities and businesses around Australia and helping them get grant funding.

That's cool. They, they really are quite similar stories because my husband and I, I started in aid and development really, but then my husband and I went and quit our jobs and left our house. We just rented it out and lived in Eastern Europe for like 15 months. So. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. You were in Asia, usa.

Yes. In Thailand, in Chiang Mai and then Bangkok.

Oh, wow.

And then move back to. To sort of after that experience. Thought I've had a bit. Probably had enough of the big cities and we're now on the surf coast in Victoria, which is lovely.

Nice.

But yes, sold everything and came back to. Not a lot.

It's a weird thing, isn't it? Yeah, it is a weird thing, but I think it adds, it adds obviously to your life now. And I think both of us have got kids as well. So for us teaching our kids, you know how privileged we are.

Yeah.

But I don't know, I always found as a grant writer and in that space it shows you the need. Like you're reminded constantly of the need for grant funding. Like it's not just about money, it's actually about that deeper level of impact that it is making.

Yeah, absolutely. Those outcomes and the benefit, the incredible benefit that can be delivered to communities on a local level, state or national level through. Through major grant wins. It's really exciting.

Yeah, that's cool. So where does your grant expertise lie now? What would you say?

Sure, I work, look, I work with a really diverse group of clients, largely within the non for profit sector. And look, grant writing is a bit of a different beast, I would say, between different sectors. So. So for a lot of my nonprofit clients, it's the same grants year after year that they're going for. And that's because they're mostly eligible for private trusts and foundations. And it's very easy to plan and prepare and build an ongoing sort of successful relationship with a lot of those funders. That's obviously a sweet spot for me too, with that community development background and everything that goes with that in the community space. Whereas for a lot of my business clients, it's more looking at major grants when there's a policy moment that suits them. So when a lot of funding is released for a particular sector and that shifts and changes over the years. So that that side of working with businesses is a lot more sort of fluid and there's a bit more variety there. And it really just depends on state and federal funding priorities at the time.

So, yeah, that's a really good thing I think we can throw in here is that big grants, particularly for business, they do tend to follow federal, state government policy shifts. So what we see in policy now will no doubt be released in funding in some form, you know, within the next budget or the next budget sort of time frame that they're rolling out. So what we see, you know, we can't guarantee now what the grants will be or what they will look like. But if you're in a business and you can hear mention of, look, let's go with increasing female participation in stem, that's probably a good example actually. You know, that that policy shift was happening and now we're getting all the grants coming out because of that. So we've got female founders programs. You know, there's a lot happening in that space. So that's a good example. If you're listening to this and you can't yet see a grant for what you're in, particularly if you're in some of those really early hot topics, you know, keep track of funding because highly likely there'll be funding come out in the future in line with some of that government policy.

Yeah, absolutely. It's. It's so important to stay on top of things and, you know, it, it just varies so much between states as well. You know, I've had a client just recently applying for multiple millions within Western Australia to address a policy shift around waste processing and creating a more circular economy over there, which is really exciting and, you know, obviously something that's needed across Australia. But for them, the stars just aligned. And at the time when they were looking at really expanding their work, the state government was releasing millions of dollars into that space. But it's not something that's available year after year that you can plan for as much. It's got to be able to jump in when the time is right basically.

Yeah, you do, you really do. And you know, as you say, the state, state based funding is so different from one state to the next. So I've always been the nature of my role at the grants. I was, I had to be across national based funding so you could see the differences really clearly. Now I'm living in Queensland. We've just moved to the Sunshine coast from. Yes, not complaining from Victoria. So. But you see. Yeah, it's pretty good. Not complaining, not complaining at the moment. It's. Yes, things have a lot. You say the have aligned for that business and the stars definitely aligned for us to be here at the moment. But even in say my social media feeds I've noticed the grants clearly are changing. So what's popping up is all Queensland based funding compared to the Victorian funding. And they are, they're totally different grant programs. Different states have got different priorities. South Australia has recently come out with a whole heap of funding around, you know, recycling and that's one of the big focuses that they want to be doing and you know, more eco friendly, friendly products. Some of our other states are implementing policies but the funding's not yet there for some of those things. So those shifts are really interesting to keep track of.

They. Yeah, they are. And look, it probably makes it a bit of a nightmare for organizations and businesses working nationally to stay on top of it all, but yeah, a little bit of an easier task for those that are state based.

Yeah, yep. As you say, the not for profit funding, if it's attached to Fair Foundations and Trust, tends to be quite cyclical. So either quarterly, six monthly, it's at the end of the quarters usually, or annual, you know, end of June is always a big month. We were just, you know, we've been chatting about how March is a really big month for grants. So some of those organizations obviously apply, they can forward plan their grants calendar essentially. Yeah, absolutely. But you still have your one off grants that come up and I think that's where we want to get into this conversation around grant readiness. What does that look like? I would imagine it stops you working with some clients that contact potential clients that contact you because they're not grant ready. Would that be the case? Like what does grant readiness look like to you?

Yeah, look, it is something that I talk about again and again with new client queries is, you know, people have this real desire to start applying for funding. They've got this fear of missing out that, you know, Their friend has said, you know, there's, there's this available, there's that available, you need to get on it. And, and I think that's absolutely something that should be pursued. But I think a lot of people miss those initial sort of foundation steps that are needed to be successful at winning grants. It's not just about finding one that, that matches what you do, but making sure you're in a position to be competitive. Otherwise you can end up wasting a lot of time and money chasing after money when you're not quite ready. And so I guess typically, you know, it falls into maybe two groups of queries that I get. The first is from startups who are after funding, and that's a really hard one. There's not, there's not a huge amount of grant funding around for startups. Most funders want to, want to give money to people that they can, can trust that are going to deliver outcomes. And it's really hard to prove that when you haven't done, got a strong track record yet and you haven't got other partners on board or other income streams secured. It's, it's really very unlikely, I'd have to say.

Yep. And startup funding, like a lot of people think startup funding means it's literally to start from the, you know, from the literal ground up. So, yeah, I've had people ask me if they can get a grant for their laptop to start an online business like that. That's not possible. That is not what we talk about when we're talking about startup funding.

No, not at all. There needs to be so much more than just a good idea. I do also never want to say never in that, in that I have worked with a group and they considered themselves a startup and we were able to secure some grant funding under 100,000, but still a really decent contribution to where they were at. That said, their version of startup was years of planning. Major corporate sponsors already on board, major community partners who were leaders in the field already on board and in a partnership relationship. So so much of that groundwork had been done. Their project was so clear, their budget was so clear, the outcomes and monitoring process that they wanted to implement was also very clear. So while they considered themselves a startup, all that sort of groundwork had been done and that, that meant for them that they were in a position to apply.

So, yeah, it's a next level. It's not. Yeah, there's, there's work that has to be done before the grant.

That's right, Yep.

Yeah.

And I think, look, even for some established businesses and charities, there's still some work that needs to be done. You know, a lot of sort of mid sized charities I find, get so, so busy doing the valuable work that they are doing that the, the grant side of things sort of falls by the wayside and they get in a bit of a cycle of I guess, of urgency of finding out about a grant opportunity right before it closes and then either putting together a really rushed job that's not really not going to be competitive or just abandoning the idea altogether and missing out. So yeah, I think for those mid sized groups it's often about that preparation that we sort of touched on before of knowing what is around the, that you're eligible for and planning out your year ahead of time.

Yeah, I've heard you talk to, I've heard you talk before about lost opportunity cost as well. And I think that's probably what you're getting to. The, you know, what you're referring to is that when people are missing those grant opportunities because they're not ready or they're, they're busy doing the work, which is an oxymoron in itself because, you know, they're doing the work because that's what they need to be doing. But there's also, there is a lost opportunity cost attached, as you say that, you know, is, it's a big loss for organizations potentially if they are missing some of those grants purely because they're not ready before the application stage.

Absolutely. I really think for a lot of groups they should sort of value what that lost opportunity cost could be for them. Because you know, it might be $100,000 a year, but it could be, it could be much more. It could be 500,000, 800,000 depending on what sector you're in. And I think if in any other part of your business or operations, if that much money was on the line, you really would devote a bit of time and resources into protecting it or securing it and growing that side. I think, you know, one of the benefits of grant funding, especially for charities, is that it's a huge, it can be a really huge sum with, in comparison to other forms of fundraising with comparatively little input required. And when I say that it's still a lot of hours of work, but if you're comparing it to massive fundraising campaigns and the manpower that, that takes different ballgame. Yeah, absolutely. So it can be a, an incredibly valuable add on to your income.

You mentioned earlier that organizations need to do some foundation steps to be grant ready. What would you say those foundation steps Are like, what does grant readiness actually look like?

Sure. I think there's sort of two different fields in which I'd say you need to take some steps in both of these areas to be grant ready. The first is that planning stage of really committing some hours to planning out your year and what it looks like, how many grants you're eligible for, how many you're competitive in and really using the time wisely and planning for it. If you can't do it yourself, allocate it to a staff member. Like, make sure that there's a couple of hours every month devoted to staying on top of that calendar and the opportunities that are coming up. If you haven't got a staff member, think about outsourcing it. Particularly if you know that, you know that lost opportunity cost could be significant, then think about, you know, what a reasonable investment in the space is. It's a really, you can get a really incredible return on what you put in. So that's one part, and then the other part is, I guess, making sure that your project work really is quality and competitive in comparison to your peers. So this is probably particularly true for those in the startup or early, earlier phases of their operation. And within the community development space, you know, a lot of funders are becoming much more successful, sophisticated, much more aware of community development theory and processes and they're actually, you know, really across issues affecting your sector.

So.

You know, I've, I've had it before where just in, in casual conversation with grant funders, like, you need to, you need to be able to really back yourself and your approach to community development and you know, in the space of solving homelessness, be able to say why you're taking the model and the approach that you are and why you're not pursuing, for example, you know, shared equity in housing. I've had that question from funders before of like, well, why, you know, we think this approach is great. Why aren't you doing that? So you need to be really well informed obviously of why you're doing what you're doing, having a really clear program logic, developing a theory of change, a monitoring and evaluation framework. You know, I've seen recently a number of funders request to view your own theory of change. And it's a real sort of shift that I'm seeing in this space. And you know, I think Jesse, you and I are probably very familiar with that sort of thing from an aid and development background.

But it's so common in that space. But it's, honestly, it's a relatively new thing to be seeing that in Australian grant funding, you know, this is next level, you know, 10 years ago, from my experience. Feel free to, you know, contradict what I'm going to say here, but I wouldn't have seen that question 10 years ago.

No.

And you know, not within Australian, the Australian funding context. I think that's definitely a shift.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But it's, I think, I mean, I think it's a really positive one, but I think it's, I think it's really important for people to be aware too of, of that, of the, you know, what's needed to be competitive is probably a lot more than what was needed five or 10 years ago, of course. And so, yeah, spending a bit of time investing in those areas can be really beneficial because yeah, grants are competitive. There's no low hanging fruit. I'm often asked, I don't know if you get asked that as well, Jesse. I'm often asked. Oh, you know, we just tell us what, what the easy ones are. What's the low hanging fruit like? Oh, they're really, there's, there's not really, you know, many grant opportunities that I'd say fit that category.

I think some of that low hanging fruit is done internally usually. So a lot of people would do that themselves. You know, a fundraising committee might find a small grant. Yeah, you know, some of the, if we think of the supermarkets, I won't name any specifically, but a lot of them have small grant programs that. Yeah, you know, that's low hanging fruit to me. That's.

Yeah.

Whip up an application property and you might win it, you might not. It doesn't matter too much because it's not a huge time investment.

Yeah.

To put those in. But when we're talking about funding for charities and if you're really wanting to grow and build on what you're doing, you know, there's not much low hanging fruit now in the grant space for that.

Yeah, there's, I mean, there's still some incredible grant programs that offer significant funding for a really broad range of activities. So they're excellent ones to be aware of, but they're highly competitive. And I've heard from a number of grant providers in, in since COVID that applications to their grant programs have increased by around 40%. So already competitive programs have just gotten even more competitive. So it is really important to be able to put quality content in. And yeah, I often sort of use this analogy that it would be like if I wanted my child to win a scholarship for high school and was sort of Putting him up for all these tests and, and you know, paying for him to sit these high school entry tests. But I knew there was a weakness in his maths skills. Like what I really should do is pay for tutoring just in maths for a period of 6 to 12 months and then put him in for all the tests for scholarships. So it's a very sort of close analogy. Yeah, that's great. Of what I think charities and businesses should maybe think about, of, you know, what is that area of weakness in comparison to their peers that needs a bit of work to be considered extremely competitive in comparison to others in their field. So six to 12 months of time, effort and maybe a bit of money in developing a theory of change, looking at all your program sort of processes and monitoring and even paying for a proper evaluation of your work can really add so much to a grant application for years to come.

And it does actually usually help organizations run a better program or roll out a better project anyway because they've had to think about the monitoring and evaluation of it or you know, some of those questions that you need to prove beneficiaries, numbers, all of that. It helps you actually think about your project in a deeper way that I think that's where we can see some of the benefits of these bigger grant applications, you know, that can really help an organization think through those things before they get to the grant or managing the grant funding itself.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that managing the grant funding is a really good point. Once, once you have those processes set up, it is so much easier to manage and to acquit funding in a very honest way. You know, I know a lot of people end up receiving funds and then they make an impact, but then evaluating it can be. It's difficult if you don't have proper processes in place. But yeah, that groundwork just makes it all so much easier.

What do you think is the hardest part of grant application pre work?

I think it's probably, possibly not the hardest part, but the most avoided part is that planning and thoroughly researching your options and it probably sounds so boring, but honestly a bit of time in developing your calendar and properly planning the year, it just can deliver so much, so many results for you. You know, I find some start some organizations in that sort of urgency cycle, their staff just get over it, 100% over it and no one wants to touch grants anymore.

And it's just that grants burnout.

Yeah.

Time and time again, just grants burnout.

Yeah. And it's a bit, I'm trying to think of the Words like people feel a bit disillusioned that they're never going to go anywhere or get any money, but they still feel obliged to apply because you know, they're not doing the right thing otherwise. And you know, a lot of people do a last minute job, they write the bulk of it and submit it on the day that it's due.

A lot of people do that. Yes. Obviously not recommended, but you know, it does, it happens a lot.

Yeah.

There's often also a little side tip here. Most grant application websites will crash on the day of the application being due because so many people are on there at the same time, particularly in the last couple of hours. That's when the most crashes will happen. So, you know, try and avoid that where you can. Yeah.

And look, it just results in a weak application that you sort of may as well not have bothered doing because, yeah, the supporting documents that are needed for most applications, you need, I would say at least a week beforehand to get them looking really good. So you need, you know, proper supporting letters from your partners, not just a sentence with a signature. You need a detailed budget, you know, not an application for several hundred thousand with a few line items that are each 50 grand, which I've definitely seen.

Yeah, I've seen budgets that don't even add up at the bottom. You see a lot of things that if you're doing your grant application pre work, those things will get picked up just throughout that process.

Yeah. And all those, even though they might, you know, seem like small errors, they absolutely erode confidence that you would be able to effectively manage money from the grant funder. So yeah, like my preference is to start about four weeks out from any, any due date for major applications and sort of two weeks as a minimum. Because then you've also got issues of, you know, the finance person is on holidays or the person who sits over these facts and figures is suddenly falls ill. So you do need a bit of time to put together a really quality application.

Yeah, it's that competitiveness that you mentioned earlier. It's not just eligibility, it absolutely has to be more and more about competitiveness. There are so many organizations in Australia that you are going to have more competition now than what you've probably had before. You know, it's, it's difficult now to probably just start up an organization and suddenly win grant funds. Yeah, people need to start with some of those smaller grants, local government grants, get some grant wins on the board, some of that probably low hanging fruit that is. You know, there's not a lot of it. But there is still some of that around. Yeah, start with some of those and build towards some of these bigger grants. So what Leslie and I are talking about here today, I think I don't want smaller community groups and sporting clubs and things to get turned off grants, full stop. But, you know, we're talking here about big grant applications, really anything from, I mean, I don't probably want a specific figure on it, but say 100 grand plus. I don't know what you think, Leslie, about that, but there's this certain trigger point really, where we're talking about bigger grant applications here. So M and E frameworks, all of that, that is not expected in small grant. Small grant giving, you know, up to 10 grand, that stuff is a little bit different. But this is bigger stuff that we're talking about.

Yeah, I, I would say probably the minimum size grant I usually work on is 30 to 40K. And that's probably the, the starting point I've been thinking of. But yeah, there's. And I should have qualified that as well. Like there's definitely other smaller grants like you say, Jesse, There are that, that lower hanging fruit, some of the, the banks, big banks and insurance agencies and supermarkets like you say. You know, definitely lots of opportunity there as well, without the, the paperwork burden of those things that we mentioned.

So, Lesley, we've talked about bigger grants and smaller grants. A lot of people say you should get a grant for that. I'm sure you've heard that, you know, being told to you before someone will ring you up, you know, my friend told me I should be able to get a grant for that. Like, yeah, it's a common thing that gets said. What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, it is definitely a common thing that's said. I think, you know, it plays into people's fear sometimes that there's so much there that they're missing out on. But I think it also can overlook the work and the risk that there is in applying, receiving a grant and managing it. It's not just free money. There's a. There's work involved beforehand, there's work involved afterwards, and it sort of, you know, can gloss over the fact that grant funds are there to achieve someone else's objective. It's not there just to make your idea happen. You know, if you think of a Venn diagram, you've got everything that you want, you've got the objectives of a funder and if you're lucky there'll be an overlap somewhere. But it's. It. There's going to Be constraints there. It's not going to fund everything you want because that. It's very unlikely that the overlap of those two priorities are going to be complete. So, yeah, you've got, you've really got to be careful there. I think of making sure that when you are successful with funding that your priorities genuinely are aligned. Or it can be a bit of a nightmare, to be honest, if you're really tied with a large sum of money to certain objectives, which you are with grant funding.

Yeah, you are.

Yeah.

It's essentially a contract.

It is.

It's not free money, it's a grant, it's a gift. It's a grant. However, we want to say it to your organization, but that's got terms and conditions attached to it.

Yes. And you. And you need to meet them or the grant money can be claimed back. So, yeah, I think it is important to consider, consider the work involved before and after. Make sure it's a good fit and make sure you've got capacity to deliver that it's not going to derail your mission. And, you know, I've had. Had a lot of clients too, have looked at grant opportunities and said, you know what, we just have to change ourselves too much to fit. And so we're not going to go there.

Yep. That's so good to hear. I've been wondering about doing an episode on Mission Drift, which is. Right, what you're talking about here. So that chasing of the money can cause some serious mission drift that can not only railroad an organization, but I've actually seen it close certain organisations down. So, you know, they get into that space where they've chased money, but they've gone so far away from what their core goals were that they no longer can do it, really. They can't do it or they lose their other supporters or individual donors. You know, grants are one part of revenue for an organization, so people need to be mindful of that. I think, you know, when they're thinking about what grants to go for, don't just chase the money, you know, try and avoid that Mission Drift.

Yeah, absolutely. That's a really good point. And you know, you've also. You've also got to have the financial legs for that project anyway. It's so rare that a Grant will fund 100% of a project. That's really unheard of. I would say, you know, keeping it under 50% of your overall costs is the way to be competitive. So, yeah, you know, it's. It's got to be something that you're able to make happen, or in the process of making happen anyway. So thinking that grant funds can solve, you know, your whole problem or your whole sort of organization's mission, it's not, it's not that sort of a gift.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's where, you know, a funder will look into an organization's capacities beyond just the grant as well. So that's, you know, that they will see some of those holes within that too. But yeah, go for the grants that you should be going for and align with your values and your mission. Yeah, that's probably a key takeaway, I think, from this.

Yeah, absolutely. And I look, I think most groups fine too, once they finish the grants, like you've said, that are in alignment with their mission, that they're competitive for, it's actually not too much work to manage effectively. You know, it's not. It doesn't have to be an overwhelming space where everyone feels overworked or, you know, just regretful that they're not putting in quality work. Once you've sort of done that refining work of looking at what, what you're competitive for and what aligns with your own mission, then it's often really manageable and you're only putting in effort for projects that you have a genuine chance of success.

Lesley, I've really enjoyed this chat today. I think we could probably keep talking for hours.

I think we could. It's so exciting finding someone else who loves talking about grass.

There are some of us around who actually do like grants.

Good.

It's great. So look, that's one of the reasons for starting the podcast was just to have some of these conversations around grants that people are not necessarily having or, you know, that broader groups can now tune into some of this and get into the nuts and bolts of grants and, you know, key learnings from it. So I've loved this conversation today. I'd love to bring you back again another day and we could take on a different topic altogether.

Excellent. I would love that. That's great.

Lesley does all grants consulting, so I'll put in a little plug for her here. She has not asked me to do this, but Leslie works with organizations and businesses, particularly those who are purpose driven, and she does everything to do with grants. So the pre work, some of these, grant readiness. Lesley, you do that as well?

Yeah, can definitely help in that area.

Yeah, sure. So some of this and then the actual application and the acquittals. She is busy, but definitely jump on her website. I'll put a link through to it in the show. Notes so it's Leslie from Clarity Content. Thanks again, Leslie, so much for coming on today and for all your time.

Thanks for having me. It's been great.

Thanks for joining me on Grants Uncovered. If you'd like show notes, head over to grantsuncovered.com. see you next time.