Author: aaronrom

I cannot tell you how great you have been and how much I value your guidance.  I have learned a great deal.  You showed as much concern for the success of the grant for the college as someone from an in-house grants office would.  I did not expect that level of care from a contractor.

CME contracted with Aaron  to assist us with writing 2 grant proposals and from the start Aaron was fully engaged in the project and was not only responsive to any of our requests but was proactive in anticipating our needs and managing the very tight timelines associated with the proposal process. Without Aaron taking the point position on this project we would never have been able to submit a proposal much less successfully secure $175,000 in grant funding. Aaron was truly an integral part of our team.

Aaron steered us through the complexities of the STTR (SBIR) grant submission process, coaching us and communicating directly with our research institution.  Given a narrow 4 week time frame Aaron delivered with days to spare.

Aaron was hired at the 11th hour to complete a grant with no prior knowledge of our organization. He worked seamlessly with me to acquire the necessary information in guiding the process – a first for me – from start to finish. Aaron did not flinch in his organization or responsiveness. Needless to say, we submitted on time and were successfully awarded our grant request ($126,000).

Our organization is quite pleased with the grant written by Aaron Rome. In fact, the grant review committee member expressed that of all the grants that were received, ours was the most clear and concise. This is specifically attributed to Aaron’s professional experience and we are grateful to his contribution in securing the highest grant award in our organization’s 20 year history.

We are an association with a specific mission that many often know very little about.  Aaron took the time to understand our organizational history, focus and needs.  When it came to writing the grant, we were happy that he worked with us to create something that fulfilled our current needs and, I believe, laid a foundation for future opportunities.

One of the criteria that funders use to evaluate an applicant for a grant is whether the organization has community support. Community support can be defined in a number of ways, typically in the amount of in-kind (volunteer labor & materials, equipment, etc.) and financial resources committed. And the latter (the $) is by far the easiest to measure.

Why do funders value community support? Largely because the possession of this attribute by an applicant greatly increases the probability of success — that their investment will achieve the stated objective. Generally, foundations invest in nonprofit/ community-based organizations to achieve a return on investment that can be measured in public value. What they expect back is not a financial return but a benefit to the community that they are indirectly investing in via that organization — be that better schools, more services for those in need, a cleaner environment, etc. The same can be said about government agencies that invest in certain business ventures. While there are far fewer grant opportunities available to businesses, those that do exist often focus on job creation or increased affordable housing.  When investing in a company as opposed to a nonprofit — even though the company may be evaluating the effect on their profit margin — the funding agency is considering the measurable positive impact to the community.

Risk is implicit in any investment — whether socially or profit- motivated — therefore the entity giving out the money wants to limit risk of failure by investing in organizations with a strong track-record of success. Success is often predicated on, especially in the nonprofit sector, community support, because, these organizations accomplish more by leveraging all available resources.

20 years ago when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal I was charged with helping communities in arid regions of the mountains to build low-cost water supply systems. UNICEF, who was providing the funds, told me to identify ~20 communities where we would build the systems. Out of the hundreds of communities in need, we had to select 20. Part of our selection process was to visit each of the interested sites, hold a community meeting, inform the villagers about the requirements and benefits of the program, and gauge their support. Among the requirements was that each village contribute financially (I think the equivalent was about 1 day’s pay, or 100 rupees, per household) to setup a maintenance fund. This fund would be set aside before the project started, for future use when the system needed to be fixed or maintained. They also had to designate an individual from the community to serve as the technician so they would have the capacity on-site for future repairs.  And, they would need to commit to all the unskilled manual labor to build the project.

This process increased the implementation timeline by 3-6 months. So why did we do all this? We did not want our investment to be wasted. If the community could not demonstrate that they were willing to build it, and able to take care of the water source, tank, tapstand and supply lines, then we knew the system would fail in 2-3 years. This was a documented fact. The 20 sites we selected were those that demonstrated the highest commitment to the project. This determination was based on quantitative factors — the amount of funds raised by the deadline, selection of a qualified/ motivated technician candidate, and number of families that contributed to the fund. And there were qualitative factors as well — how badly did they want and need the water system and how well did they articulate this need? Were they excited and passionate? Had they completed other community projects in the past?

Juxtapose this example with your own organization and the project for which you are seeking to fundraise. Have you lined up community support — in a way that can be documented? Does your community/ organization have a successful track record of completing similar projects? Have you raised funds for projects like this in the past? Are other organizations and individuals in your community willing to contribute time and money to enable the project to succeed? If you can answer “yes” to all these questions, your group is well-positioned to seek institutional funding. If you answered “no” to the majority then you could be viewed as asking for a handout. Keep in mind that for every funding opportunity there are $10  in requests for each available dollar. To succeed, you need to set your organization apart from the field and have a documented track-record to stand on.

Potential clients often ask Aaron about his success rate, and this is a legitimate question. However, the answer is nuanced. To interpret the answer, it is important to first understand the factors which impact whether or not an application for funding is successful. Several of these key factors include:

1. Organizational track-record and experience of management team
2. Alignment of proposed program with the request for proposal (RFP) or Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA)
3. Whether the program is “evidence-based”
4. Relationship with funder (i.e. awarded past funding or connection of some kind with funding agency)
5. Submitting a well-written and well-formulated proposal that is both responsive to the funding opportunity, and compelling
6. The subjectivity of the reviewers

Positioning a proposal/organization to win a grant (or contract) requires a partnership between the client and grant writer. Despite Aaron’s experience, skill and trackrecord, certain factors are beyond his control. In fact, some clients insist on submitting applications for grant opportunities which Aaron advises them they have no chance of winning. Consider the quantification of “success rates” below, in this context. Also, please consider that competition for grant funds is very competitive and no grant writer can guarantee funding will be awarded.

Client-Success Rate: 85%
Between 2020-2022 (YTD) Aaron helped 85% (n=52) of his clients to register at least one “win.” In most (n=46) cases, a “win” is classified as a grant award, which ranged from $5,000 to $10.4 million (median: ~$153,000). In a few cases a “win” is a contract awarded through a competitive process similar to that of a grant submission (n=3), or an article published in a peer-reviewed journal (n=3). For some clients multiple grants were applied for/ articles submitted; if at least one “win” was achieved for a particular client, for this analysis, that client-win goes in the “success” column.  Over the past two years Aaron has had only 5 clients who did not achieve at least one win with his help – unfortunately, you can’t ‘win them all’ but he came pretty close. Even in those few cases, however, the clients gained valuable experience/ learnings, and materials that can be used in future grant submissions/ promotional materials.

Metric	2021	2020	2019
Total $ Raised	$18,100,000	$7,600,000	$5,100,100
Median Award	$175,000	$200,000	$475,000

Application-Success Rate: 71%
Between 2020-2022 (YTD) approximately 71% of grant proposals/ contracts/ articles written by (for articles – edited) Aaron were funded/ published. Multiple proposals submitted in the same “batch” are considered as one – meaning, if Aaron wrote a batch which consisted of 5 grants applications for a client, and submitted all about the same time (this is a typical strategy with foundation grants – to benefit from economies-of-scale and increase odds of success), 1 win from this batch would result in a check in the “success” column. Similarly, unrelated funding opportunities (i.e., proposals to 2 different federal agencies) were accounted for separately. Combined, these two metrics (“Client-Success Rate” [85%)] and “Application-Success Rate” [71%]) make one thing clear. Aaron is very effective.

Value-Added: 100%
Even those clients whose proposals are not funded gain valuable insight and skills through the process. Such value includes: ability to better compete in future funding rounds; development of new content which can be used in future proposals or communication materials; improved capacity to apply for grants within the organization; better understanding of the proposal-writing process and how to craft a competitive application; better articulation of the organization’s core competencies and values.