Faithful readers will remember that my oldest son and long-time colleague Jake Seliger, lost his battle with cancer on August 7, 2024—two years on, but this wound will never heal for me. I’m listening to the 2002 memorial “Concert for George” held one year after George Harrison’s passing as I write this. I’ve seen the […] The post Marking the second anniversary of Jake Seliger’s passing: when…
S + A has been writing Department of Education (ED) TRIO proposals since dinosaurs walked the earth. The ED TRIO programs have been around for decades—they are outreach and student services programs designed to help individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds (i.e., low-income, first-generation college students, and those with disabilities) succeed in education from middle school through […] The…
Reading about the seemingly bottomless Minneapolis government grant fraud investigations in recent weeks, I’ve noticed one aspect not covered in either the traditional media or emerging “citizen” journalism: complete silence from the leaders of the philanthropic community including large national foundations, significant philanthropists like Michael Bloomberg and MacKenzie Scott (who usually won’t…
Good grant writers pay attention to the details of everyday life, whether at home, on a walk in the woods, or traveling to distant places. This is because and as we’ve written about before, a compelling grant proposal is really just a story that needs enough detail to convey the project concept and engage the […] The post Book Review: Raising Hare: A Memoir is a wonderful tale of the natural world…
UPDATE DEC. 22: Much to my surprise, HUD posted the new CoC NOFO today on grants.gov with a new deadline of Feb. 25. I have not yet had time to determine what changes, if any, are in the new NOFO compared to the rescinded one from Nov. 15. Here’s HUD cryptic note at the top […] The post Reality TV comes to grant writing as the HUD FY ’25 Continuum of Care (CoC) NOFO is rescinded amid courtroom…
Note: This post is more from the heart than I usually write for Grant Writing Confidential but seems appropriate as we approach Thanksgiving. It is, however, tangentially related to grant writing because, at its most basic level, writing a grant proposal is story telling Don’t be afraid to inform your grant writing with memories and […] The post Making lentil soup and cranberry bread on a cold…
In the past few months, CEOs of two of our larger nonprofit clients have told me, “There are 84 words that President Trump has banned in federal grant proposals.” As Goldfinger said to James Bond in the eponymous novel, “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action”. So, I decided to not […] The post Us grant writers finally get our own urban legend: the 84 words that…
Faithful readers know that we write many Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) grants for Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). This is Service Area Competition (SAC) season, so we’ve been writing some. Any grant writer who’s worked for FQHCs is familiar with HRSA’s UDS Mapper Tool, which has been around since 2010 and is needed […] The post When HRSA replaces it’s inscrutable…
There and Back Again is Bilbo Baggins’ account of his adventures in The Hobbit. I recently took a car trip from the Phoenix area where I now live to Minneapolis where I grew up. Rather than Thorin and Company, I had Woolley, my 100-pound Golden Retriever, as my boon traveling companion. Woof! Here’s the BigBoi […] The post There and back again—a drive (or dive) into the heartland from Phoenix to…
My oldest son, Jake Seliger, lost his two-year battle with cancer on August 7, 2024 at age 40—a life well lived but only half lived. Jake was an accomplished writer and long-time colleague a Seliger + Associates, as well as a husband and post-mortem dad—his daughter Athena was born on the following October. Athena will […] The post A One Year Remembrance for Jake Seliger: The Wheel of Time Stops…