Imagine an assessor reading your funding application, they are more than likely to have a whole pile to read and depending upon the quality and interest  their attention is going to vary. You need to grab their interest at the start to increase your chances of getting their attention, so how to do this? how do you get the readers attention? Here are some ideas….

 Ask a question

Why do that? When you open your bid with a question you create curiosity and get the assessor thinking which straight away engages them with the application  and at the very least leaves them wanting to know the answer and to read more

Provide shocking statistics

Do yo have an statistics that make your project stand out? I often quote statistics to emphasis the extreme sparse population of Powys and the high unemployment , comparing it to national levels to give  are reference point. Having 10% unemployment sounds bad but if the national average was 4% it sounds terrible

Carefully chose statistics will make an assessor take note of what your project and the extreme problems you are trying to tackle. But make sure the statistic is directly relevant to the problem you’re trying to solve.

Share an anecdote or quote

Provide the assessor with something to bring the application to life. Ive previously quotes the opening lines from an Inspiral carpets song ‘This is how it feels’ to relate to a mental health project.  ‘This is how it feels to be lonely, this is how it feels to be small, this is how it feels when your life is worth nothing at all’ It did the trick and we go the funds. Ensure the quote is relevant to the project, in the case of the mental health project we were after funds to provide counselling and help people resolve their problems.

Telling stories can help establish empathy with the assessor  and help them to see the problems you are tackling. equally a quote from a service user or professional can very vividly help explain the issues and problems people encounter

Get inside their head!

Creating a mental image in your assessor’s mind, and get them to use their imagination or to visualise a scene relevant to your work. to do this simply ask the reader to imagine a situation where…… picture a person who….

Other ways that you can do this is through the use of similes or metaphors, again they encourage the reader to use their imagination and help to bring the problem you are addressing to life.