By Lisa Jackson, Vice President of Grants
The Grants Department is busy preparing for the many competitive and non-competitive continuations to be filed. Unfortunately, the funders have grouped the due dates for many of these applications during the first 10 days of February, so our Grant Development Officers will be extra busy!
The non-competitive applications are shortened application packages like annual reports, with WestCare filing almost four dozen each year. While these are non-competitive, it is still mandatory to maintain the multi-year grants.
In contrast, the competitive continuations are full applications where WestCare can renew existing funding. Thankfully, we have an excellent idea of what works and how each program should operate. While WestCare has received funding in the past, there is no guarantee that we will continue to receive the grant. Still, we always make a sincere effort to highlight our services and experience to the funder. We prioritize this application type since we have clients who depend on us to continue the program’s services. WestCare will complete around a half dozen competitive continuation applications this year.
‘Continuation season’ is the perfect time to make improvements and emphasize the results we have enjoyed with the grant funding. We can discuss efficiencies that demonstrate our experience and promote our strong programming.
In closing, the next couple of months will be a busy time for the Grant Development Officers and the program staff that have applications that need renewing. The Grants Department is here to help and we are looking forward to meeting with you over the next few weeks to create plans for developing continuations for 2023. Together, we will make the best of these opportunities.
