The Art of Pithy Storytelling—Advice from Petey the Cat

Grant writing is about telling your stories effectively — showing the heart and impact of your work. And sometimes, you’ve got just a tiny bit of space to convey something deep and meaningful. Sometimes it’s just a 100 words. That’s when your writing needs to be pithy.

Do you recognize this gem?

“Ya gotta avoid repetition… shun redundancy… eschew reiteration… resist recapitulation… And also stop telling the same joke over and over!”

Sound familiar? Then I’m guessing you have a 7–10-year-old in your life who’s obsessed with Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man series. This particular moment is from Lord of the Fleas.

Petey’s advice isn’t just funny. It’s actually really good guidance for writers. Whether you’re trying to land a joke, write a grant proposal, or craft a social media post, clarity and conciseness are your best friends.

Pithy Writing Takes Practice

Combining brevity with depth is a skill that takes time and practice. But since we’re talking about keeping things short and sharp, I’ll keep this list of tips brief too:

• Know your stuff. The more familiar you are with your subject, the easier it is to write clearly.

• Frame it fast. Sum up the issue in a few sentences, then dive right in.

• Don’t muzzle your first draft. Write long if you need to, then edit later.

• Cut the clutter. Ditch clichés and extra adjectives.

• Don’t overuse punctuation. It helps keep sentences crisp.

• Experiment with phrasing. Try a few different versions of tricky sentences.

• Stick with the active voice. It’s more direct and engaging.

• Swap in synonyms. It keeps your writing colorful.

And above all — avoid repetition, shun redundancy, eschew reiteration, resist recapitulation. 😄

It Matters in Grant Writing

Funders read a lot. The clearer and tighter your writing, the more likely they’ll truly hear your story. Pithy writing doesn’t necessarily mean cutting emotion — it means focusing on what matters most.

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P.S. Dav Pilkey might be all about goofy, gross-out humor, but there’s a lot of heart there along with the silliness. Petey and Li’l Petey’s conversations often sneak in reflections on pain, forgiveness, and love — remember, even the lightest stories can hold deep truths.

Your Turn

What strategies or tricks help you write sharper, pithier prose — whether in grants, emails, or everyday writing? I’d love to hear what works for you.

Voting-Style Grant Competitions Are Unfair By Design

A metal slide bolt fastened across the seam of two dark wooden door panel (Image Credits: Unsplash Images, Zoshua Colah

I ran into a spot of trouble with a grant competition some years ago. It took me a few more years to realize the justice issues in the broken system that I was participating in. 

Here’s what happened:

My non-profit client wanted to participate in a corporation sponsored grant contest offering grants of $25,000 to fund “neighborhood need projects.”

The application process looked easy enough:

·  It had four short narrative questions asking about community needs, and how we’d use the grant to meet unmet needs.

·   Applicants could include up to three pictures

·   The first 2,000 submissions would be accepted.

·   200 finalists would be chosen

·    A public vote would decide which 40 community causes would win $25,000 each

We decided to go for it;

 So while the application was straightforward, it still required time and effort to:

·    Strategize how we could use $25k to maximum benefit for a group of young people

·   Create a budget based on actual costs

·   For the communications team to look through the photo archive and pull together pictures to fit our pitch

·  To draft a tightly worded response that fit within the very limited character count

·  For the ED’s edits and feedback

Together, we easily spent 10+ hours of our time on a ‘simple’ application

  Here’s where I made my mistake.

The competition officially opened its portal at 1pm. Now, the grant guidelines had said “spots fill up fast” and “Be quick! We are only accepting 2,000 submissions!” That should have been enough of a red flag.

I had figured, I’d get it done on the first day the portal opened—just to be on the safe side.

My plan was to finish up another writing project that afternoon, and then incorporate the edits from the nonprofit ED before submitting.

At 5pm, I logged into the portal, ready to upload my narrative and pictures.  

“We are no longer accepting submissions.” The portal was closed.

We had not missed a deadline—there was none. But 2,000 others had just beaten us to the entrance, and we were locked out.

One of the worst feelings as a grant writer is to feel you have failed your client. There was nothing to do but accept responsibility—and then move forward.

Reflecting on this experience, I know I could have done better. I could have been poised and ready to go at 1pm. 

Still, this competition held by a large corporation with vast resources was no merit-based competition at all. It was a popularity contest where winning relied on how good your marketing was and how many supporters you can mobilize to vote for you.

Despite good intentions, this kind of ‘competition’ is inherently flawed; the structure of the competition is set up so that the majority of applicants will inevitably fail. It is also biased against smaller nonprofits with limited resources.

Consider:

·         2000+ applicants -> pre-determined that only 40 will be selected

·         No public review or scoring criteria -> a lack of transparency about finalist participant selection

·         More robust marketing and mobilization systems + larger supporter base to ‘vote’-> more likely to win.

 Philanthropy is riddled with structural inequity, and this is prime example of how funders, unwittingly (giving them the benefit of the doubt here) perpetuate bias, limit access, and frankly waste a whole lot of nonprofit staff time.

How many small non-profits are devoting 10+ hours only to find the gates and gatekeepers shut the door before they even get there?

Nonprofits, I encourage you not to participate in funding processes that perpetuate unfair and unjust practices. Don't be complicit. Know your worth, and persist in building partnerships with funders who show respect through their processes and practices.

Cutting Through Budget Confusion

How do you submit a grant proposal budget for a special project that’s planned for the NEXT fiscal year, when your board has only approved this year’s budget—and next year’s budget won’t be finalized before the grant deadline?

Does this sound confusing? Familiar, perhaps?

Train tracks in Sri Lanka with tropical foliage on either side. Photo credit: Unsplash Images: Raissa Lara Lütolf (-Fasel)

Here’s a real-life budget conversation with a client:

[Timeline]: It’s mid-January.

Client:

The Situation: “Our fiscal year ends on June 30. The board will not approve the budget for the next fiscal year until the end of May. However, the grant proposal deadline is in mid-March.

The Problem: Foundation X is requesting organizational and project budget figures for the next fiscal year.

Complicating Factor: Our board chair believes foundations don’t want to see unapproved budgets and suggests we submit this year’s budget instead, along with an explanation of our fiscal year timeline, and then provide the new budget once it’s finalized.

What do you recommend we do? Please advise”

Recap: It’s January. The grant application deadline in March requires budgets for the next fiscal year; but the client’s next fiscal year’s budget won’t be approved until May. My client needs to provide realistic and compliant budget information to the foundation, but the board chair’s suggestion is throwing things way off track!

My Dilemma: Should we:

• Submit this year’s approved budget numbers, which are official but won’t reflect next year’s reality, or

• Provide next year’s projected numbers, which are not yet board-approved, but are based on program projections and likely to be more accurate?

Sigh.   

 What I Did:
I told the client that, based on my reading of the RFP, the funder is asking for budget numbers that align with the grant period. I encouraged my client to check with the foundation’s program officer about their preference for how we should present the budget numbers, given the realities of the nonprofit’s fiscal year and budgeting process.

Let me say that I loved working with this client for many reasons, namely their heart and soul was 100% in the work for the right reasons, and I was well supported on every application which was a total team effort.

But this type of “complication” where we lacked clarity repeated several times.

Reflecting back, I still believe that my advice to request guidance from the funder was the right thing to do in the moment. But it should not have ended there.

There was a deeper challenge. One of misalignment. Without a time frame adjustment on the budgeting process, this situation would keep repeating every year—and I did not call it out.

Non-profit leaders;

This all goes back to basics. Step back. Reflect. Plan.

You DO know when your fiscal year ends (no surprises here), please don’t wait for the last week of your fiscal year to get your next year’s budget approved.

If you know that grant application deadlines for the next fiscal year take place 3-6 months before your fiscal year ends, plan your budget board approval process accordingly.

Also, if your board really DOES need to be involved in grant writing, please have an established process for engagement and approval. Ad hoc ‘support’ from those who don’t understand the budget timeline process is not really helpful.

And most of all,  dear non-profit EDs; please don’t put your grant writers in this position of playing detective or chess grand master—where we are rubbing our eyes, trying to figure out how to wangle a budget and make it fit into a shape it’s not cut out for.

You Can’t Write About Things You Don’t Know Enough About

[This blog is dedicated to all the Nonprofit Pros Who Didn’t Sign Up to Write Grants… But Got Stuck Doing it Anyway!]

Keep reading for lessons learned from my grant writing journey.

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The ED. The new intern. The finance guy who’s also good at words and got roped in.

Hand raised. That’s me and how my grant writing story began.  

In my early days as a consultant, I was hired via an agency to provide short-term report writing support for a nonprofit client. I arrived at the client’s location and was given a short tour around their facility which operated a food pantry for senior citizens. “They can buy food with Monopoly money,” is what my point-of-contact lady told me. Let’s call her POC lady for short.

I was then taken to the back office, and guided over to a pile of paper files by POC lady. “We are late, we are so late with our grant reports. We were supposed to submit this grant report last month. I just had a call with the funder who wanted to know when we would submit the report, and I said I would get it to them today. So I need you to get started right away.”

Now, consultant-me of today would have seen that red flag right away—and laughed. Consultant-me of 15+ years ago froze. When I unfroze enough to move, I buried my head in paper files, trying to make sense of a proposal that made no sense, while trying to write a report about a program I didn’t know anything about. Let’s just say that partnership did not last long.

If you are the new ED, the intern or the finance guy with writing skills—take the time, in fact insist, that you get enough time to get to know the programs before you start writing about them. Whether you are writing a proposal narrative or developing a monitoring and evaluation plan or reporting on a program you MUST know what is going on.

I call it digesting information.  In order for me to write convincingly about your organization’s mission, programs and impact I need to first wrap my head around what you do.

This also means, I need time to read your existing materials and ask plenty of questions and understand the ‘why’ behind what you do. I need to understand your strategy. I need to understand what sets you apart.

Six years ago I asked a new client whether I could come by and see their programs in action. It was a book club meeting for folks who had returned after being incarcerated. I also sat in on other program activities like a job-readiness workshop and a community-dialog night. You can learn a whole lot by being a fly on the wall.  

The fact is, you can write about things you don’t know about. But it will probably be full of fluff and gobblygook—and the reader will see through it.

 Like every other quality product, good grant writing means putting in time up front. You don’t need to stress about knowing everything, but you need to know enough.

 Got a good grant story to share? I’d love to hear it!

The Secret Sauce to Keep Winning Grants

Photo Credit:
RAJAT KUMAR SINGH . Unsplash Images

One of my nonprofit clients consistently wins funding on approximately 80% of the grant proposals we work on together.

 This is not a ‘humble brag’ about my skill as a grant writer—it takes more than solid writing skills to keep up this level of success.

 I’m going to lay it out clearly why I believe this organization sees such strong results:

  #1: Reputation:

Most of their institutional funders are repeat funders who give year after year. There is no shortcut to getting here—it takes years to build a reputation of trust with your constituents, partners and funders, so everyone know that you are in it for the long-haul.

 #2: Accountability:

Their reports are 100% on time. They put in as much strategic thought into the report as they do into the grant application, sharing data and stories that are relevant to the individual funder.

 #3: Clear Grant Strategy:

Each application is assigned to the annual grant calendar. Each month’s work is scheduled ahead of time.

 #4: Sufficient Time:

Each month we plan out our work for the next and map out our funder deadlines and internal deadlines. The team knows whether or not there is capacity to pursue new/unexpected opportunities when they pop up.  I for one, do not thrive on the thrill of last-minute submissions, and always build in a buffer of time to allow for the unexpected.

 #5: Clear Process & Roles:

Know how too many cooks can spoil the soup? Here, the cooks know how to line up in order. We have a strong drafting and editing process in place, and each person knows their role. It minimizes back-and-forth inefficiencies.

 #6: Collaboration:

As an consultant, I need to be up to speed on any new changes in strategy, programs and significant staffing changes. This might sound obvious, but there are often new events and unexpected challenges to catch up on. Each month, before I start the drafting process, a development staff person and I meet virtually to outline every single application and report together—so we are literally on the same page.

 #7: Communication and Trust:

We do our best to keep to our internal deadlines, and share drafts, edits, and research on time. But we’re human. Twice (in five years), I had to hand off work unexpectedly due to a health issue. Both times, we’d built in enough time for someone else to take over. Both times, I was met with understanding and support.

 #8: Strong In-House Writing Capacity:

While I provide extra grant writing and reporting support, they have excellent in-house writers who know their programs intimately. This is really an ideal situation, where the consultant is brought on for extra capacity and not lack of internal expertise.

 #9: Shared Understanding of Decision-Making:

There is space for critique and idea sharing by all, and there is space for pushback by all parties. There is also a shared understanding that final decisions around content and direction are made by the client.

 Not every grants team needs to be structured the same way. Sometimes one person manages the entire effort, and sometimes there are 3–4 staff actively involved; which might sound like a recipe for disaster (and sometimes is). Grant writing is deadline-driven and can be very stressful, but taking the time to build a process that works for you and your team can make it a much more rewarding experience

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