The next Bid Writing Boot Camp Courses will be on the 27th and 28th of June 2017. The Autumn courses will be on the 21st and 22nd of November 2017. It will be at our usual venue in Central London: Lumen.
Cost: £420 including VAT
In over 30 years of experience of developing winning major funding proposals, I have learnt that there are two essential ingredients:
- Bringing together potentially divergent teams and coalescing them into a cohesive bid writing unit
- A writing style that grabs the attention and communications clearly and persuasively.
This two-day event will appeal to people with experience of grantseeking and a desire to embrace new ideas and the reach the highest standards in proposal writing. As part of the course you will be able work on your own bids – improve them with the latest techniques and reach the highest standards demanded by the most sophisticated funders. This will be a rare chance to learn and put into practice in the same event.
We will also concentrate on how to manage the complex inter-departmental teams required to produce proposals for large funders such as the National Lottery Boards, major foundations and government departments. The first day will concentrate on the logistics of a successful bid; the second day will be full of effective writing techniques.
The main tutor will be Bill Bruty, a highly experienced fundraiser and Fellow of the Institute of Fundraising.
He’ll be accompanied by a specialist in the logistics of co-ordinating complex proposals and a profesional writer, equipped with bundles of great ideas to how to get a message across with style and effectiveness.
This course is suitable for anyone who has to grapple with several complex proposals as an essential element of their job – you needn’t be a professional fundraiser. We will cover how to squeeze your complex project into a succinct enquiry email, how to produce a robust and eye-catching concept note and then how to address the most complex questions posed by funders. We will also work on techniques to compress your writing into limited word counts – without losing meaning. Finally we will impart two techniques to make your writing memorable.
As a result of attending, participants will be able to:
- Decide whether to pursue a request for proposals.
- Understand the complex terminology within funding calls.
- Use at least three management techniques to engage co-ordinate colleagues in the bid development process – becoming a credible internal project manager.
- Describe their work in an attractive manner by using less than 140 words.
- Use a logical format for writing a concept note.
- Use a technique to convey the same meaning with fewer words.
- Use two techniques for writing with impact.
- Follow Joseph Pulitzer, Graham Greene and George Orwell’s rules on persuasive writing.
Download a PDF with full details of our Bid Writing Boot Camp