When I talk to churches or charities about what they do, I am often amazed at the stories of hope and transformaton that they tell me.
Yet, when the same organisations come to write funding bids, those stories are too often lost. Yes, it can be difficult to share individual stories when those we are tallking about are vulnerable; yes, faced with the tyranny of word counts and specific questions on application forms, it can be hard to find space and opportunity to tell those stories; but it is those stories that can bring our story, our funding bid, alive.
And here’s a secret. Most grant funders, be they trustees or grant administrators are real people! And real people love real stories. Trusts receive many more applications than they can possibly fund and, if you can share your real stories with the real people assessing your application, it will go a long way to help your application stand out from the crowd and maybe even be funded.
There are, of course, other things you can do to make your bid stand out. Keep it short, keep in jargon free, use pictures, be clear about what you need and why… to name just a few, but don’t forget stories.
If you want help telling your story, often known as a ‘case for support’, why not contact me