Two Reasons Deadlines are Missed, Besides Plain Old Procrastination

While procrastination is certainly a sure fire way to miss a grant deadline, two other issues are leading causes of missed deadlines: bureaucracy and short deadlines. The good news is that neither of these factors have to inhibit your organization's ability to benefit from grant funding. They can be cured.

The first solution is simply a matter of revising in-house policies and procedures. Some organizations require layer upon layer of administrative approval before a proposal can be submitted, delaying the start of what’s already going to be hard work. This is totally unnecessary. Formal approval should only be required sometime between when the grant is submitted and when an award is actually accepted (the organization can always decline the award if they must).

Short deadlines always pose a problem and are beyond an organization's control, but there are ways to minimize their impact. Strategic planning is part of the solution (knowing what kind of grants you want before you even know the grant exists). The other solution is having ESP - knowing which grants will be available before the RFP is even published. How is this possible? It’s a pretty good parlor trick and I hate to share it.

Like most magic tricks, it is simple albeit very time consuming to learn and perfect. It's a matter of knowing what’s making headlines and what’s going on at the funding agencies. Grants are intended to solve social problems. The social problems getting the money are the ones making the front page. Thus, in the grant world, it is imperative to keep up with the news. Keeping up with the funders is a little more laborious. I work primarily in federal grants, so I also keep up with what’s going on in the federal government, especially the budget. I know which agencies are having a payday and which are getting cuts. Then, I pay close attention to the agencies - who is being appointed to head them and what are their priorities.

For example, when I learned that Kevin Jennings was being appointed to head the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools at the federal Department of Education, I anticipated that OSDFS funding would begin to lean heavily toward school climate. (Kevin is a career advocate for LGBT students and teen suicide and bullying prevention are his main priorities. This was only reinforced by watching the news and seeing several high-profile, bullying-related, teen suicides making headlines throughout the country.) My first reaction was to press school district administrators to conduct a school climate survey ASAP so that needs assessment data would be at the ready as soon as the RFP’s hit the streets.

As much as I hate to admit it, I’m not psychic; I just spend a lot of time paying close attention to what’s going on around me.