My journey as a grant writer officially started in November 2011. The thought had been on the back burner of my mind for several months before our return from Germany. It was more of a thought of “now what?”; the “what to do with the rest of my life” question. We had just returned from a fantastic chapter in our lives, the kids are growing up and do not need micro-managing and college tuition is looming on the horizon, plus the fact I am still young.
Fortunately, I am blessed to have great, wise and insightful friends that are not afraid to share their thoughts. In one week I had three of them come at this question from three different angles. Unknowingly, they all had me heading in the same direction, the direction of working in the non-profit area of grant writing and development.
With that I was further affirmed by being offered a position at Jacob’s Ladder, Inc, a social, cultural, and educational enrichment program for gifted, at-risk children. The program has been around for twenty years helping kids in the fourth through eight grades get a handle on life and to realize the potential they have and that things can be different for them.
The program is great and solid, so I am walking into a place where I can learn tons and also help at the same time. I am getting into the rhythm of how to manage my time to meet deadlines and how to organize my Mac, all the while still being head taxi mom, cheerleader, homework checker and the other duties that go along with aforementioned.
As with any new endeavor there is a learning curve. The biggest challenge of this job could seem to be finding the correct grant match for the program or it could be the waiting to see if you have won the proposal, but I am finding the hardest challenge is the writing itself. How do you find fresh easy words to describe your wonderful program to the same people that have been reading the proposals for the last twenty years and already know and support your cause? How do you find the words to describe your wonderful worthwhile program to people who don't know you at all? How do you write “150 or fewer” clear, descriptive words that all can understand? These are major parts of my new learning-curve climb. But not to fear, I am finding that when it comes to this writing subject, greater minds and talents then I have had struggled with the same problem.
Thus I end these thoughts and continue along my journey knowing that I am in good company, for as Nathaniel Hawthorne once said, “Easy reading is damn hard writing.”
