If you don’t know where you’re going, any road you take will get you there…

Stephen Covey authored The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Habit number two advises “Begin with the end in mind,” which is very important to grant writing.

Mr. Covey communicates the importance of knowing where you are trying to be when crafting a roadmap to get there. In grant writing, beginning with the end in mind means focusing on the expected outcomes and then establishing your proposed approach and design to get there. Articulate impact first when asking for someone else’s money!

Then there is the axiom, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road you take will get you there.” Many people attribute this to Lewis Carroll from his 1865 book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It is not a direct quote but is the intent of Alice’s conversation with the Cheshire Cat.

The theme of both authors—Covey and Carroll—does support using S.M.A.R.T., an acronym for the content of outcomes, goals, and objectives. But I’ll leave that missive for Part 2.

As we turn from ‘literature’ to ‘literal’, with grants we seek a significant return on investment. These are the important and measurable values quantifying successful results. For example, positive movement of quality-of-life indicators among your target population. An outcome statement (or goal or objective) requires a clear structure to be understood as such. Major gift donors, social entrepreneurs, and sources of philanthropy expect meaningful results from the dollars they invest in you. To funders, a quantifiable impact strongly asserts the positive change in the lives of your primary customers.

Imagine you are a health practitioner seeking funding for a program to reduce smoking among your patients. First, you identify active smokers. Your goal after 12 months may be to reduce that number by 25% (your end in mind). You will do this through a year’s worth of interventions such as classes, direct encouragement, support groups, and therapies. You measure participation and activities as outputs. During and after the program year, you quantify and report measurable successes. This can be derived from observations, interviews, and surveys. Healthy changes from your activities use numbers and percentages as results and trends (outcomes).

For outcomes, “begin with the end in mind.” When planning, “if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” Together, the structure of your goals, objectives, and outcome indicators should predict your expectations through S.M.A.R.T. impact statements aligned to your proposed implementation… and that will be the subject of Part