Kate Sunners is the Communications and Grants Strategist at Strategic Grants.

A natural-born storyteller, Kate’s career highlights include manuscript and book reviewer, freelance copywriter, and marketing coordinator. At Strategic Grants, she lives her passion every day in writing, editing, and fine-tuning compelling grant applications for charities and NFPs.

All too often, we can focus too much on getting the facts out of our brains and onto paper when explaining what we need, what we would do with the money, and why the funder should give it to us, without thinking about how it looks to the reader! Kate’s skillset and perspective give her insight into the storytelling nature of successful grant applications, and why it’s important to create a narrative that potential funders can understand and which inspires them to give.

We wanted to learn more about this aspect of the grant-seeking experience. So, we spent some time getting to know Kate a little better and getting her take on what makes a great grant application.

Interview with a Storyteller - Kate Sunners, Strategic Grants

What is it about storytelling that you are passionate about?

Humans are hard-wired to understand the world around them, and themselves through narrative. It’s hard to think of anything else that is quite so important to the experience of being human! The ability to craft information into a narrative that conveys an experience or a concept or an emotion that can be immediately understood by another person is pretty amazing, and critical to the work we do at Strategic Grants.

What inspired you to start working at Strategic Grants?

Like most people, I stumbled into fundraising, but with a background in writing, marketing and social science, my role at Strategic Grants fits like a glove. It was a pretty exciting proposition for someone who wanted to end up in the nonprofit sector to suddenly find a role where I could learn about and assist the fantastic work of multiple charities!

Grant applications usually require a lot of facts and figures to progress. How does storytelling/narrative fit into it?

Facts and figures are definitely important, and sometimes get forgotten about, but you have to remember there’s a human being reading your application! Once you have the facts and figures about the need for your project, the evidence for why it will work, and the budget figures, you need to be able to create something from them that’s digestible for a grant assessor, who may not have a great deal of time.

Storytelling in a grant application means taking a funder on a journey from never having heard of your organisation before, to understanding what you do, and why it is important, and hopefully to deciding that your project is worth funding.

You need to create a logical flow, telling the story of your organisation, the problem it addresses, the solution you’ve come up with and how it’s effective. It’s always good to remember, that as well as you know your organisation and project, the funder may never have heard of you or know anything about the issues you are working to alleviate.

The characters of your grant story are the beneficiaries of your work – there’s no space in a grant application to focus on individual’s stories, that’s best saved for project updates, funder reports and Case for Support documents – but it’s important you give enough information about the demographic your project will serve for the funder to connect with them. This might be where you tell the story using your stats and facts, but remember, the best grant applications are those that balance heart and head!

Don’t forget that without the funder, there is no story! They’re a key character whose motivations and goals also need to be reflected in your grant application. Show them what the positive outcomes can be with their involvement!

Applying for a grant is a well-worn process. How do you come up with new ways to make an application stand out?

The first part of any writing is to know and understand all the pieces of the story inside out before you start typing!

With grants, this includes: the mission and history of the organisation, the project specifics like budget and timeline, the evidence of need, the demographic served, the aim and projected outputs and outcomes.

I also need to understand the audience – the funder who is going to be reading the proposal, so some time is spent reading their information from annual reports to profiles of previously funded projects. This is why it’s so important to plan ahead with grants to allow yourself time to do those two important things: read and absorb!

In terms of making an application stand out, the ones that do well are those that understand the funder’s intentions, are clearly well-planned and researched projects that present strong evidence of need and outcomes! Having said that, if the writing is impenetrable, it might not get the attention it deserves.

I like to draft, then redraft, put it away for a while, and come back with fresh eyes and a vicious red pen. Never be afraid to throw out whole passages, or to move sections around if the flow of the document isn’t quite right or there are bits that fit better in an answer to a different question.

I think social, environmental or systemic change are always exciting, so I try to think of punchy ways to communicate how the organisation is achieving this.

Can you give us an example of a successful grant application you’re particularly proud of?

One of my favourite applications was a tender my colleague and I collaborated to pull together for a healthcare project for people experiencing homelessness. As a lover of evaluation and social research, I always find it incredibly satisfying to be able to showcase an organisation’s approach and work using evidence, and tenders call for an awful lot of evidence because generally they’re for an awful lot of money. It was an even better feeling when we learned the tender was successful!

In your experience, what are the main things potential funders are really looking for in a grant application?

One of the best summaries I’ve heard from a funder about what they were looking for was: preparation, understanding and diligence!

Funders are looking for the maximum outcome per dollar spent, which means well-planned projects with clear and measurable outcomes.

They want to know that you are a trustworthy organisation with a good track record, with good governance and sustainability practices in place. They want to see projects that align with their own values and reason for funding, that are also in line with the grant-seeking organisation’s mission and strategic plan.

If you could only give one piece of advice to organisations seeking grants, what would it be?

Don’t skip process and strategy! Writing is only 20% of a sustainable grants program. 80% is project planning and prospect matching, having clear dictation around who is responsible for what and when, building relationships with funders and having processes in place to measure and understand your organisation and projects’ performance.

If I can be cheeky, I’d like to throw in one piece of advice to individual grant writers too: find a mentor!

As you can see, there is a lot that goes into writing a successful grant application! We are very proud to partner with Strategic Grants to provide you with tools you can use to succeed in your applications, and we are honoured to work with passionate people such as Kate.

If you'd like to know more about the Strategic Grants solution and how it can help, check out their product pages:

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