When writing the grant proposal for the Nashville International Center for Empowerment (NICE), my eyes opened to a whole new style of writing and its challenges. In the Bridgestone grant application, each question required a limit of 5000 characters or less, resulting in about 250-500 words to explain NICE’s entire objective. As an English Writing major, I found limiting myself extremely difficult to overcome, but the challenge provided me the opportunity to utilize the paramedic method and determine what is vital to create understanding.
My work on the Bridgestone grant consisted of the inclusion of basic information (name, address, contact information, Board of Directors, Contributors), as well as Section Five, concerning NICE’s requested amount and how the funding will be used. In terms of genre, my writing utilizes the paramedic method to use words efficiently. In grants, the goal is to get to the point of each question with a direct answer and no “fluff.” To do this, I included active verbs and limited prepositional phrases, resulting in only using 2217 characters out of 5000 characters. While I was nervous about completing my section so soon, I learned after our revision process that some extra sentences and explanations are not necessary to answer each question. Previously, I wrote almost 4600 characters-worth of answer, but reading back I realized many of my sentences rambled on and resulted in no additional information for the grant reader. Grant writing is meant to answer each question succinctly, and as a writer I realized I needed to cut the “fluff.” As a result, I chopped my section in half and created a stronger answer in terms of its brevity which the grant reader will appreciate.
In terms of audience, I am familiar with the subject. Interning for the past three summers at The Mary Kay Foundation, I worked with members of the Foundation who were in charge of reading their domestic violence shelter grants and providing acceptances and rejections. Continually these members complained of grants who met the word count unnecessarily and rambled on for pages at a time without providing any new information—or any information in general—about their women’s shelter. Recalling these experiences, my goal in terms of audience was to not annoy the reader. The grant reader reads these pieces everyday, and after a while the grants blend together into a chaotic ramble of nonsense. In order to make NICE’s grant stand out, we keyed in on brevity and efficiency. Our sections were direct, and when we completed our sections we made sure to not add more to fill a character count. Further, our sentences are active and short, lending to easy reading and a refreshing pace for the grant reader. With these paramedic techniques, the Bridgestone grant is ready for grant readers to remember our efficient writing and our accurate content for further consideration.
To read our Bridgestone grant proposal, click here: BRIDGESTONE GRANT
Sincerely, Abbey Hull