You never have enough time to apply for funding. It all seems so easy at the start but as you get into it, the task becomes greater and greater until despair takes over.
You hear about an upcoming funding round and you get your head around what it is that you want to do. You jot down a couple of notes on paper and wait for the official process to begin. That’s when the fun starts.
It turns out that the forms are much more complicated than you had expected. They start off with information around equality, diversity and inclusion, not that there’s anything wrong with that just you weren’t expecting it. There are no wrong answers to these questions but you are left with an uneasy feeling that what you have entered will somehow be judged.
You’re then asked about your businesses viability, needing to dig out your accounts over the last few years to check that you’re eligible for any grant and haven’t exceeded de minimis or Minimal Financial Assistance rules. What counts and what doesn’t can be an art rather than a science.
Finally you’re into the meat of the bid, letting the reviewers know what you are aiming to do. How many people will be looking at the document? If there will be more than one, do you need to repeat some of the information in each response to a question so that they get the context or will you be accused of repeating yourself and padding out the bid? You follow the guidance and try to include all the information that is requested but some is not relevant and you’re left with the dilemma, do you say that it is not relevant to show you have read the brief or just ignore it.
And then comes the word count. The guidance says you have up to x number of words allowed for each section but what does up to really mean. If the word count is 500, then 10 words is up to that number. Once again you’re in a quandary. Do you aim to maximise the word count even if you fill it with verbage or do you go for brevity. Do you believe that the people reading the bid are intelligent enough to understand what you’re trying to say or spell it out for them as if they are new to the job? I’m sure there is a correct answer but I don’t know what it is.
Finally you reach the end and commit the bid to fate. You feel exhausted and hope it was all worthwhile.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 