Image by Pixabay Hello, and Happy New Year! If you have followed our asynchronous workshop series, How to Design a Successful Innovation Grant, from the beginning — and have completed most of the “homework” — then this means you have trekked the most difficult part of the journey! It gets easier from here, I promise. The series began in September, and it will end in March 2022, the same month Innovation Grant proposals are due to the Virginia Western Educational Foundation. Hopefully this approach will help you slowly explore your ideas — on your own time, at your convenience — as you continue to juggle your regular to-do list. If you’re just now joining us, it’s OK! You still have plenty of time to catch up. Let’s review some of our Lab Lessons so far, including: #1: Grant proposals are not time wasted … even if you FAIL #2: Know the rules of the game #3: Focus on NEEDS first, solutions second #4: Begin with the budget #5 Relationships are the secret sauce Lab Lesson #6 is what inspired this series: Baby steps work. Haven’t they already? If you have been diligently completing each step of the series since last… Continue Reading Innovation Grant Lab series: What does success look like? (January)Read More
Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay Hello, and CONGRATULATIONS! If you have followed our asynchronous workshop series, How to Design a Successful Innovation Grant, from the beginning — and have completed most of the “homework” — then this means you have trekked the most difficult part of the journey! It gets easier from here, I promise. The series began in September, and it will end in March 2022, the same month Innovation Grant proposals are due to the Virginia Western Educational Foundation. Hopefully this approach will help you slowly explore your ideas — on your own time, at your convenience — as you continue to juggle your regular to-do list. If you’re just now joining us, it’s OK! You still have plenty of time to catch up. Let’s review some of our Lab Lessons so far, including: #1: Grant proposals are not time wasted … even if you FAIL #2: Know the rules of the game #3: Focus on NEEDS first, solutions second #4: Begin with the budget Lab Lesson #5 is my favorite: Relationships are the secret sauce. Always. I’ve obsessed about relationships for over a year on this blog, starting with this post. When I left Virginia Western,… Continue Reading Innovation Grant Lab series: Add some secret sauce (December)Read More
Hello, and welcome back to our asynchronous workshop series: How to Design a Successful Innovation Grant. The series began in September, and it will end in March 2022, the same month Innovation Grant proposals are due to the Virginia Western Educational Foundation. Hopefully this approach will help you slowly explore your ideas — on your own time, at your convenience — as you continue to juggle your regular to-do list. Let’s review some of our Lab Lessons so far, including: #1: Grant proposals are not time wasted … even if you FAIL #2: Know the rules of the game #3: Focus on NEEDS first, solutions second Image by Shutterbug75 from Pixabay Let’s move on to Lab Lesson #4: When you have a grant application in front of you, where do you even start? You begin with the budget. Yes, the money. This is where your plan gets very real. And the budget tells the story. If you’ve been following each step in this series, you also know there are some specific rules about the budget. So let’s go back to the 2020-21 Innovation Grant grant application, which notes: (1) Total requests will be considered up to $10,000. This is the… Continue Reading Innovation Grant Lab series: How to budget (November)Read More
About Shelley
Shelley Lyons is glad to be back on campus as she is a Virginia Western alum, and has served as the Administrative Officer for Grants Administration at Virginia Western since early 2022. Prior to VWCC, her career focus was within the Human Services and Arts fields. She wrote her first grant in 1996 on a whim and has continued to plan and learn since that time. She most enjoys seeing a well-planned project come to fruition, where funder, project manager and beneficiaries can all feel success and see impact.
Recent Posts
- Welcome to Grantology February 3, 2023
- Innovation Grant Lab series: Finish line! (March) March 2, 2022
- Innovation Grant Lab series: Is this a good investment? (February) February 2, 2022
- Innovation Grant Lab series: What does success look like? (January) January 5, 2022
- Innovation Grant Lab series: Add some secret sauce (December) December 1, 2021