Last week I attended a Grantwriting course offered by the Graham School -- the Graham School is the continuing education school at the University of Chicago. I am by no means an expert after three days of class, but I did learn from someone with a great deal of experience. The instructor works in development here at the U of C, and did a fantastic job with the course. We had guest speakers, stacks of resources, discussions, in-class exercises, and lots of fun. I picked up so much information from this course, I don't think I could blog about all of it, and I'm not sure it would be useful to other people if I did. That said, I thought I'd sketch out a few elements of vocabulary & jargon in the hopes that others find this useful.
Types of Funding Agents
I was struck by how widely funding agencies can differ -- in structure, in governance, and in expectation. In addition to operating differently based on their type, they also have their own individual organizational culture, like anywhere else. Our instructor compared the process of researching funders to researching for an important job interview -- it's important to know who you're talking to, and what's important to them.
