#44: U.S. Census Bureau Tool Kit for Grant Writers

Here's a handy guide to working with census data that you might want to bookmark.

I often forget just how much information is available and in how many different ways. And, strangely enough, it never occurred to me that they would have people available to help me find just the data I need. (Each regional office has Partnership and Data Services staff to answer our questions.) I always thought of them as the big data bank in the sky!

U.S. Census Bureau Faith Based Tool Kit: "Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Tool Kit

FINDING CENSUS DATA FOR GRANT WRITING AND COMMUNITY NEEDS ASSESSMENT

The United States Census Bureau is the leading source of quality data about our nation's people and economy. While the Census Bureau is not a funding agency, it does provide information needed for grant proposals and Federal fund distributions. This tool kit is intended to provide a simple, easy approach to obtaining Census information for grant writing and community needs assessment.

Photo by Qaanaaq

#43: Getting to the point with bullets

As a grant writer, you probably break up long pages of text with bullets. I know I do.

Anne Holland from MarketingSherpa offers two tips on writing bullets. Although her suggestions focus on pitching a product to customers, I think her tips are just as relevant to pitching a proposal to a funder.

Her tips:

1) The eye scans the beginning and the end of a list, skipping over the middle. So organize your bullet lists like this:

• Most important point
• Second most important point
• Less important point
• Less important point
• Third most important point

2) If you put your most important (key) words in the spots below marked as “Word,” your copy is immediately more powerful.

• Word word word word blah
• Word word word blah blah
• Word blah blah blah blah
• Blah blah blah blah blah
• Word word blah blah blah

Make those words physically different from each other. Not just different words -- make sure they begin with different letters, too.

Photo by Lycid

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