Our Biggest Win Yet – $11.6m!
Exciting news for all of us at Clarity Content! I’ve just been informed that one of our clients won – BIG time – from a recent grant application to the NSW WestInvest Fund.
Amity College is a low-fee, independent, multi-campus school. We spent just about the entire month of July last year writing an extensive application for the development of their new primary school in Leppington. And I do mean EXTENSIVE. So many late nights, daily meetings, and hundreds of pages of writing and supporting documents.
But guess what?
Now Amity College have been awarded a $11.6 million grant. This is HUGE – for the school and for their local community. The Project will include a school oval, passive play spaces, a community garden and an adventure playground that will be made available for use by the local community.
It’s an absolutely transformative amount that will accelerate the school’s development many years beyond their forecasted growth. A month of very hard work has paid off handsomely.
This was a gamble and we made sure to put our very best foot forward in hopes of a high-stakes win. As WestInvest was a new program, it was hard to feel confident about our chance of success – but the amount of funding on offer was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
Maybe you’re looking at an opportunity like that as well. Can I tell you that these kinds of massive, multi-million dollar opportunities don’t take place every year. From my experience, most industries get incredible opportunities like this once in a blue moon; perhaps once every 10 years if they’re lucky.
So when the chance arises, and assuming you’ve got a good organisational background, governance and proven outcomes, you’ve really got to throw everything at it.
Amity College made the decision to invest in their application. Had they missed out, they would have still had the peace of mind that they did everything they could to have a fighting chance. Now that they’ve won, there’s no looking back.
I can’t imagine the sinking feeling of other businesses and schools in that region right now who scraped together an application with hope rather than with considered investment.
Can I encourage those of you with big grant opportunities to consider – now or in future years – when it’s really high-stakes the competition will be fierce, so you’ve got to go big or go home.
The stars of government policy and your organisational strengths don’t align all that often. If you’re lucky enough to find your business in this position, take the risk and invest all you can to win big. It can truly set you up for years to come, and accelerate your work far beyond your most positive projections.
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We were able to apply years of grant writing experience to make sure the already-excellent work of the school could be seen clear-as-day on paper. Remember that you are assessed only on the materials within your grant application – not your website, your annual report, or your national reputation. So make sure the content of your application and budget is exceptional.
If you need external support with your grant writing, Clarity Content specialises in large applications of $500,000 and above.