Russell Smithers"Experience is the only teacher we have" – Swami Vivekananda

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”, Henry Ford

“Vilfredo Pareto was an Italian economist who basically theorized that 80% of a country’s wealth was owned by 20% of the people. His principle has since been heavily adopted by personal development experts as a working model of time management, more commonly known as the 80/20 rule. The 80/20 rule (Pareto’s Principle) states that 80% of all the results in your life is achieved by only 20% of all the actions that you make.”

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January 11 2008 I attended a course on funding applications, so why am I publishing this now? I wrote this draft on the 11th and having just reviewed it, I thought I would publish it.

The topics covered were;

• Applications for Awards for all and Reaching Communities
• Where to go for other grants
• The emphasis on outcomes
• What the funders want to see
• Sustainability

Here are some of the key things I remembered.

There is allot of funding available for a range of organisations, although it is getting more difficult to get funding this shouldn’t deter people from applying.

The most important aspect of an application is the outcomes, a few points on this;

1. What are you trying to achieve
2. Demonstrate who benefits, including who and how many people
3. Do not whatever you do ask for less money than you need. Funders know projects won’t work if you don’t have all the money you need. Ask for the real cost!
4. Use numbers not percentages. Percentages mean nothing to some one reading the form.
5. Kick start funding, some organisations will only fund one project, which is good to get started, but then you need another funder to continue for regular annual support
6. Once you have received funding, and used it for what is was meant for, it is easier to get more funding
7. Make sure you fill the form in correctly, %40 of lottery applications fail
8. There are people who can help you
9. Try and get 3 people to check your application form like some one who is;

• from your organisation
• not involved with the organisation
• experienced in making funding applications and advising others

Obviously there is allot more to the course than just these snippets, but I thought a quick post with a few pointers may help some people. I might write more about funding in the coming years depending on how my life plans out.