One way you can reduce this financial pressure is to apply for government grants. For most of us, the idea of applying for a grant is seems like a headache. The process, paperwork and politics don’t appeal to everyone.  But getting a grant may not be as hard as you think.

Grant Proposals for Small Business: Getting Started

The difficulty in applying for a grant is knowing where to start. Instead of trying to do it all by yourself, try the following:

• Go to local networking events. Ask around and see who has recently applied for (and won) grants. Invite them to lunch and ask them to walk you through the process. Take notes.
• Connect with others involved in the grant development process. In many small towns, this may be the town clerk, mayor’s office or some other local governing body.
• Most government Request for Proposals and Grants are published on the Internet. Identify the main point of contact and see if you can meet the person.
• Contact successful grant winners. You can find out about these from the local Chamber of Commerce, procurement websites or others in the business community. Unless you’re a direct competitor, most grant recipients will be willing to share lessons learned.

Once you go through this fact-finding process, look at your options:

• Is it worth your while to apply for these grants?
• Do you have the skills, experience and knowledge to win the contracts?
• Who can help you write the grant applications? Maybe you can hire a grant writer for the first bid, see how it’s done, and then write the next proposal yourself.

Let’s say you decide to go ahead. What happens next?

Grant Proposals for Small Business: Identify an Opportunity

You increase your chances of winning government contracts if you put yourself in the shoes of the people awarding the grants:

• Why are they giving these grants?
• What underlying problems are they trying to solve?
• Why are they offering this funding now?

When you see the grant application process through their lens, you can position your proposal to address these concerns.  And remember, many of their concerns won’t be written down in black and white.  Why?  Because they may not have the time, effort or skill to document these problems.

This is the reason you need to network at local business events. The more you do so, the greater insight you’ll get into why grants are offered and how to get one.

How to Develop Your Grant Proposal

The next step is to identify a grant application or RFP that you want to complete.  What’s the difference between a grant application and an RFP?

• A grant application is a request for funding. For example, if the local authorities have a budget of $200,000 for education-related grants, then you can apply for funding in this category.
• An RFP is a Request For Proposal. It identifies a list of requirements and then asks you, the bidder, to propose a specific solution or service. The agency will compare bids and hopefully chose the one that offers the best value for money.

With this in mind, consider the following when writing your grant application:

• Issue. Addresses a local or national issue (e.g. improve public safety). Be specific and focus on an area where the local community benefits.
• Cost. Outline how much funding you require to complete the project. Be specific. If you want $24,000, then ask for it. Don’t be vague or ambiguous.
• Duration. Estimate how long it will take to finish the project from the start date.
• References. You’re not going to get funding without experience. Provide examples of other, similar projects and show where and how you reduced costs and improved operations.
• Research. If you’re applying for a grant to develop a new product, service or software, then support your business case with research data and other statistics.
• Team. Include short portraits of the team members. Explain what they contribute to the project and any special qualifications that will ensure the project’s success.

How to Improve Your Grant Success Ratio

Even though you’ve done a lot of hard work, you may not win your first grant application. There’s always a learning curve.  Instead, after the grants have been awarded, see if you can arrange a meeting with the team that awards the grants.  One angle is to ask for a little direction on how you can improve your grant application the next time. This demonstrates you’re committed to the long haul and humble enough to ask for direction.

Of course, it’s all about how you phrase the letter. Don’t come across as feeling slighted that you didn’t win or trying to question their judgment.

By cultivating a relationship with the grant team, you’ll gain a better insight into their thought processes and also understand the values that underpin their awards. Once you’ve grasped these points, you can weave them into the fabric of your next application.

See the difference?

What has been your experience when applying for small business grants? What part of the process was most difficult?

The post Grant Proposals for Small Business: How to Get Started appeared first on Small Business Trends.

What Is a Social Media Policy?

Here’s one definition:

“A social media policy is a set of guidelines that describes how employees should interact with customers online.”

In general, most policies provide guidelines for:

• Corporate blogs
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Remember, you don’t have to create individual policies for each social media site. Instead you can create a master policy document and develop short chapters for each specific site. This makes it easier to manage the document and keep changes under control.

Employee Handbooks & Social Media Policy

From one angle, you can develop your social media policy as a subset of your employee handbook.  This means that when someone joins the company, the guidelines for interacting online are covered under that chapter in the handbook.

Or, you can create a standalone document and refer to the employee handbook where necessary. This reduces the word count as, for example, you can reference legal information and HR policies in this document.

Getting Started

Like many things, taking the first step is the hardest part of developing a social media policy. So where do you start?  One approach is to look at companies in your sector, examine their policies (many are public), and use these as building blocks for your documents.

When you’re examining the policies, consider the following:

• Tone – Is the policy formal or does it use a more relaxed conversational style? Which do you think works best? Some documents use phrases such as ‘The user shall…’ which sound a little harsh. Try to adopt a tone that is professional, helpful and respectful.
• Length – Some policies are very short, whereas others are dense and read like legal documents. Again, see which works best for you. There’s no right or wrong.
• Level of Information – Some policies provide general guidelines, whereas others provide more granular information, for example, detailing how to respond to a negative comment on the company blog.
• Scope – Do the policies cover social media networks on an individual basis or do they take a broader approach? Which approach would work best for your company? Which would be easier to manage?
• Usage – Can you see your staff using these documents? If not, why? Look for examples that you enjoy reading and that you feel would work well for your team.

Creating a Draft Document

If the idea of writing a social media policy fills you with dread, then take heart. It’s not that difficult and I’ll show you why.  In the same way that Rome wasn’t built in a day, creating your policy documents will take a while… but you’ll get there.  The trick is to break it down into manageable tasks — for example, one policy per week.

For instance, let’s start with a policy for your Facebook page:

• Purpose – Describe the purpose of this policy in one sentence. Keep it focused and remove any ambiguity. Write in a positive tone.
• Objectives – Outline how this policy will help readers (i.e. your employees and Facebook fans) to interact.
• Policy – Write a short policy that outlines your expectations, position, and actions you may take if these guidelines are breached.
• Contacts – Include contact information if the reader needs clarification.

Help or Hinder?

Why do so many people feel that social media policies are a bad thing?  The main reason policies don’t work (or get a bad reputation) is that they make it more difficult for employees to do their work. Maybe that’s not completely true, but for many employees, these policies feel like an intrusion and one more rule to follow.  How can you get around this?

I think it’s the word policy that upsets people. If this is the case, shift the tone of the document and refer to them as  guidelines, instructions and examples to give your employees more confidence when interacting online.  Then, after you have created the policies, hold an informal workshop and introduce the document.  Remember, most employees want to do their jobs well. But they sometimes get frustrated when they have to change the way they perform their daily tasks.  The workshop should reduce their anxiety and give them the direction they need.

When you start the session, work through the following items:

• Assumptions – Remove any assumptions or misunderstandings they may have about the policies.
• Examples – Walk them through sample policies so they understand how the policy applies to their role.
• Scenarios – Keep the session practical by discussing scenarios where the policies will help them.

The scenario part of the workshop is very important.  Show real-world examples of where social media can cause problems, such as:

• Staff sharing confidential information by accident
• Responding to negative comments and getting into flame wars
• Leaving remarks on competitors’ websites

Then show how to manage these problems more effectively. Your employees will see the value of the documents and be more inclined to use them.

Publish

Once you’ve finalized the policy documents, send a PDF to all employees. Ask them to the read it carefully and reply if they’ve noticed any gaps, errors or typos.  Then post the policy on your website, blog and other social media channels. Remember to add a date, version number and document owner so you can track document changes.

Monitor

Developing policies is a process of refinement.  Every six months, review the documents and update where necessary. For example, if you’ve launched a mobile site, you may want to include policies for this in the document. More importantly, look at the feedback you get from your team and see how this can be used to refine the text.

Conclusion

Writing your first social media policy is easier than you’d think. See it as a small project that you’re going to tackle over the next four weeks. Create a team with good writing skills and knowledge of social media, then work towards a deadline.

If you’ve already written social media policies, what’s the most difficult part of the process for you? Once you’ve created policies, how do you implement them?

Image from Dirk Ercken/Shutterstock

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