Welcome to the grant writing and funding podcast, the world's top ranked podcast since 2017 on grant writing and, you guessed it, funding. I'm your host, Holly Rustick. And here at GWF, we have a movement for grant writers to secure $1,000,000,000 in

grants for amazing causes in the

world and 25 to $30,000,000 in their grant writing businesses.

We are well on our way there with hundreds of millions of dollars of grants already secured and millions of dollars secured in client contracts through our two signature programs, the freelance grant writer academy and the grant professional mentorship, where hundreds of students at any given time are working on replacing their full time income on flexible hours, writing grants from home for causes and missions they are passionate about. To learn more about our movement, be sure to check out our newsletter, write grants, get paid, and go to grantwritingandfunding.com to check out our free grant class and resources. Now let's get into our podcast episode so you can learn how to win grants and advance impact in the world.

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever submitted a grant that made total sense to you but still got rejected? And you think, oh my gosh. The idea was solid. The mission was strong.

The need was real, real, and yet no funding. You gotta know. Here's the truth most people don't talk about. Grants are often lost not because the idea is bad, but because the reviewer gets confused, irritated, or loses confidence. Once that happens, all your points will disappear very quickly because, yes, you usually get scored on points.

So today, I want to pull back the curtain and share grant reviewers secrets, what funders are really looking for, and what I've seen over again on the reviewer side of the table. So I'm Holly Rustic, CEO of the Freelance Grant Writer Academy and the Grant Writing and Funding podcast, and I've been a federal reviewer for over a decade. I've reviewed hundreds of grant proposals both at the federal level and inside our Freelance Grant Writer Academy through our benefit feature of having unlimited grant reviews. At the freelance grant writer academy, we help aspiring and seasoned grant writers replace their full time income on flexible hours writing grants from home. So what I'm sharing today is not theory or best guesses.

It's based on real scoring rubrics, real reviewer discussions, and real funding decisions. Here's the first thing you need to understand, and if you get this, like, everything else just is going to make sense. Grant reviewers are human. They're often reviewing dozens, sometimes hundreds of proposals in a short period of time under tight deadlines using strict scoring criteria. They are not sitting there trying to decode your intentions.

They are trying to answer one simple question: Can I really score this based on the rubric? The proposals that rise to the top are not necessarily the most emotional or beautifully written. They are the ones that are clear, organized, and easy to score. If a reviewer has to hunt for information, flip through a bunch of pages back and forth, or guess what you mean, that proposal starts losing points almost immediately. And I would say, as a federal grant reviewer and as grant reviewer in general, when you start to see, like, things in the beginning, just all the red flags, and we're gonna talk about these red flags today, when you start seeing them, it's almost like you score Gramps really, really low or really, really high.

There's some, yes, of course, in the middle, but I would say that the bell curve isn't true here. Like, you do kinda go one side or the other. You don't necessarily go to the middle as much, and it's kind of like as soon as you start seeing a grand, if you're seeing red flags, you're like, okay. This is gonna score low, low, low, low, you almost, like, judge it more. You're more judgy about it because of the red flags immediately, and that could be psychologically psychologically too just because if we're looking at something and we're like, okay, they already have these red flags.

They're not really credible. And then your whole mind around it is just kinda like, meh, it wasn't that good. So you you score them low. So you guys gotta listen today. You gotta listen.

Alright? Because scoring grants as objective as they try to be, there's subjectiveness to it. And there's even more subjectiveness to non governmental grant reviewers, right? They can be a lot more subjective. When I started being a federal grant reviewer and a grant reviewer in general, my grant writing immediately got a million times better because I was clear about who the audience I was writing to, and that's so important.

So one of the most common mistakes I see, even from experienced grant writers, is treating the scoring criteria like a suggestion. It's not. If the application asks, describe organizational capacity, high scoring proposals use that exact phrase, clearly label answer the question directly with examples, sometimes citations, etcetera. They don't bury the answer in paragraphs of narrative without saying this is what organizational capacity is. Right?

They are trying to use different words. It just doesn't you're not gonna score high. As a reviewer, when your language mirrors the rubric, I can score you faster and higher. And one quick review or reality check, if something is in a link, in appendix, or available upon request, it usually doesn't exist to the reviewer. If it matters, it needs to be in the proposal.

And thank you to Grant EZ Management Software for sponsoring today's podcast episode. We love GEMS, Grant EZ Management Software, because GEMS is a software tool that organizes all of your grants. It also gives you an opportunity to invite your nonprofit clients into the software, and you can put every single grant you've submitted. You can also put every single note with funding sources that you've connected to. At a click of a button, you can see everything that's pending, everything that's been secured, everything that's been denied, and your clients can see that as well.

We love that GEMS actually says, hey, bring GEMS into your meeting with your nonprofit clients so you show them exactly where you're at with all of the grant writing strategy as you are working with them. And there's even a time tracker inside of GEMS so you can track your time with all of your clients. Never miss a deadline again. Never miss a document again. Go ahead and join GEMS, Grant Easy Management Software.

Sign up for a free demo today, and you can also get a $50 off coupon code when you mention g w f, Holly, h o l l y. Go to grantwritingandfunding.com/gems. Also, budgets must match the narrative. This is one of the biggest and fastest ways to lose points. Your budget and narrative must line up As a reviewer, it is incredibly frustrating to go back and forth between the narrative and the budget.

It's also incredibly frustrating to have to do the math to see if the numbers align, and it's incredibly frustrating to try to figure out where the cost came from. So if something appears in the budget, but it's never mentioned in the narrative or something is described in the narrative, but it's missing from the budget, that's an automatic red flag. And here's the part most people don't realize. Once a reviewer sees one obvious mistake, they start scrutinizing everything else. And if they don't see those obvious mistakes, they don't scrutinize everything so much.

Just saying what's real. Alright? But if they do see an obvious mistake, they start double checking calculations. They question assumptions. They look harder for additional errors.

One glaring mistake invites more criticism across the entire proposal, so cleaned, aligned budgets build trust. Misalignment destroys it. Another major factor reviewers care deeply about is credibility. Funders aren't just funding ideas. They're funding your ability to manage money and implement programs.

Credibility can be demonstrated in many ways: previously secured and successfully implemented grants, other funding sources that show financial stability and program implementation, board members with grant management, financial experience, or CPA expertise, strong partnerships that clearly support the project. These are all ways that you can build credibility. It doesn't have to be, oh, we want a million dollars from, you know, HUD. It can be these other things. Even if you're getting money from fundraisers and you're showing how you manage the money and how you implemented the project, those are wins.

You don't need to be the biggest organization. Right? But you do need to show reviewers that you can handle the responsibility. Inside the academy, we teach grant writers how to strategically position credibility even for newer organizations because credibility lowers risk, and lower risk scores higher. Right?

They're able to give you more points for this section. This is so, so important, and this is where a lot of people are just gonna have relief if they can see that you have credibility, and they'll be like, okay. Even though something over here was a little off or didn't exactly make sense, like, I understand that they know how to do this. Right? And I always tell people this.

This is the two things, my mantra for grants. If you wanna get grants awarded higher, you gotta think about two things. One is you need to show you can manage money, and you need to show you can implement projects well. Right? Those are the things.

And showing credibility is an easy part to prove that. So what funders really want across nearly every funder, reviewers are looking for the same core things. Clear mission alignment, measurable outcomes, feasible plans, credible leadership, and proposals that are easy to score. The strongest applications leave reviewers thinking, this organization knows what they're doing. Right?

That feeling of confidence matters more than most people realize for if they're gonna give you a nine or a 10 in that section. I mean, it it really is just having that confidence that, okay, this this organization knows what they're doing. So once again, clear mission alignment, measurable outcomes, feasible plans, credible leadership proposals that are easy to score. Alright. Another thing I wanna talk about is stop the fluffy, needy writing.

That drives me nuts, y'all, as a reviewer. Alright. This is my pet peeve, and this one costs more points than people think. Fluffy, needy language. Phrases like we humbly request, we desperately need, this funding would mean everything to us.

These don't help your proposal they weaken it. Funders don't want to rescue organizations they want to invest in capable ones. Strong proposals use confident language: We will. This funding will support. The program will achieve.

Confidence builds trust. Neediness, it erodes it, and it erodes that credibility because they're like, oh, they really don't know what they're doing that they're talking like this. So if you want better grant results, remember this. Write to the rubric, align your budget and narrative, demonstrate credibility, eliminate fluff and confusion. And if you wanna learn grant writing and get unlimited grant reviews and build a real flexible income by pricing, offering, and selling your services.

That's exactly what we do in the academy. So if you're not sure you're doing all these things and you wanna get those unlimited reviews, like, make sure you go check out the freelance grant writer academy while the doors are open. Go to grantwritingandfunding.com/academy. I wish you luck on writing the most amazing grants and let me know when you guys get them awarded because we are on a mission to secure a billion dollars in grant funding by 2030. Come be a part of our movement and you can learn how to write better grants and get them one.

All right. I'll see you later.

Bye bye. I hope you enjoyed today's podcast episode. And if you are still struggling with how to write a grant, it still feels overwhelming. Maybe you're new to it or maybe you're a seasoned grant writer with no processes in place on how to write grants. So every time you onboard a client, it is a lot of work.

Make sure you subscribe to our private podcast on how to write a master grant template. When you sign up, you even get a free downloadable master grant template and a workbook. You'll get five episodes that walk you through how to write our master grant template framework that has helped hundreds of people inside our freelance grant writer academy win more than $238,000,000 in grant funding. Go to grantwritingandfunding.com/private-podcast. And if you love this podcast, please do me a favor and leave a review on your podcast player as we love to read each and every review, and this helps other people find the Thank you for listening to our podcast today.