Pursuing the Art of Grant Writing
By Jasmine Rios

The art of grant writing is an ever-evolving form of prose with the objectives to inspire, persuade and fulfill the requisites of a philanthropic audience. As in all art forms, the rewards of grant writing can be profoundly gratifying if you are passionate about the cause in which you seek support.

In pursuing this area of expertise, you’ll quickly discover this line of work is in high demand in the San Diego dance community. Only most organizations are simply unable to hire full-time experts in the field. It’s no wonder some dance organizations are turning to volunteers to help generate their grant proposals.

Volunteer grant writers, freelance grant writers, anyone new to the trade, will need to become aware of several essential grant-writing rules of thumb to become effective in acquiring grant funds. Conversely, they also need to “beware of” a number of grant information companies that claim to have all the right answers for qualifying for “free government grants.”

General grant research typically begins online. The most logical key words or phrases used to begin a search are: grants, grant sources, grant seekers, grant programs, etc. The first list of Web links that will appear will include a few genuine grant information sources (usually Web sites that end in .org, .gov or .edu). The grant information sources you should beware of are generally .coms that use gimmicks to lure people into enrolling in their costly membership programs. If you come across a company that mentions the phrase “free government grants,” you’re in fraud territory. (To read the entire article, please see the May/June 2008 issue of Dance San Diego!)

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