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Grant Writing
Grant Writing |
Predicting Outcomes Predicting outcomes doesn't require a crystal ball, reading tea leaves, or calling the "Psychic Hotline". What it does require is looking at all of the alternatives you have identified and attempting to reasonably foresee what are the potential good and the potential bad outcomes for each alternative. Can you have identified the problem well, listed all of the possible alternatives and still have an outcome you couldn't predict or foresee? Sure! That happens all of the time, because there are those thing that happen that there is no way humanly possible to predict or foresee. As an example, you want to take someone you've just met to a nice dinner to impress them. You've carefully considered all of the alternatives from cuisine to the actual restaurant that would do the trick for you. You feel confident and you feel you're really going to get "lucky". You picked an alternative that you thought was the very best choice available and was recommended to you by each and every resource you sought when gathering your information. However, the outcome was an absolute disaster! You didn't know that this just happens to be the restaurant where your EX started their new job today and she was your waitress. Did you follow a good decision making strategy process in selecting this restaurant? Did you make a good decision on the selection of this particular restaurant because of the extensive research you did, the many alternatives that you considered, the quality of food, the usual atmosphere and price? Sure you did. Unfortunately you had an unforeseen factor that led to a bad outcome . . . one that really sucked in fact! However, by following a methodical decision making strategy, you are far more likely to get the results you need and desire; rather than if you chose to do nothing (default), did things as you have always done them (habit), made an impulsive decision (impulse), or decide to just follow the crowd (imitation). Someone once said that the definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over and over again, and expecting different results". EXAMPLE 1: Chief Competent decides he really needs to recruit some new members. Putting this request on the sign in front of the fire department has yielded zero (0) applicants. He has thus found this alternative alone is insufficient and deficient. He needs to try additional alternative methods, but will still keep the sign up, because the more reminders people see the better. He decides to supplement the sign outside the firehouse with adding other alternatives, by putting an article in the newspaper showing how many alarms and activities the company has had in recent months, contacting the local radio and television station and having them run some recruitment ads for him, to meet their public service announcement (PSA) requirements and by getting the members to out flyers on car windshields at the mall and around town. A) What are the potential outcomes, good & bad, for each of the three (3) alternatives he chose to pursue in his recruiting initiative? Might this make the sign outside the firehouse be more effective and noticeable? B) What are the potential outcomes, good & bad, from the synergy of deciding to pursue these three (3) additional advertising alternatives at the same time? C) What outcome is predictable if Chief Competent makes a default decision and decides to do nothing or follow any of these three (3) alternatives? EXAMPLE 2: Treasurer Beancounter of Engine Company Alpha decides to take his idea and his identified alternatives about the Sunday night beer, food, gambling, and entertain for the "bingo night widows" and the younger men and women of the community to the company for discussion and a vote. He is prepared to show the company that there is now way for them to compete with Engine Company Beta's bingo and that they've lost money in trying to do so. A) What are the potential outcomes, both positive and negative, of presenting this idea and the information to the company? Are there more than the simple two of "yes" or "no" votes? B) What are the potential outcomes if Treasurer Beancounter says nothing about his idea as an alternative to the losing bingo? C) What are the potential outcomes if the company votes to continue the Wednesday night bingo? D) What are the potential outcomes if the company votes to try this new idea for a new event on the new night? E) What other decisions might need to be made if the company votes to adopt the new idea for revenue generation? What might be some of the decision making limits? What about the levels of decision making control? Might other decision making methods be realized for some of the smaller decisions that will become subsequent? Which decision making methods are most likely to occur? What are some of the potentials problems that might need to be addressed? What are the alternatives, positive & negative for these problems/issues/decisions? What are the potential outcomes for these alternatives for the subsequent problems, issues and decisions? EXAMPLE 3: Chief Competent considers the potential and most likely outcomes he has available with his four (4) most viable alternatives to get a new replacement pumper for the existing apparatus that is about to completely break down and perhaps also replace his squad, that only carries personnel and no equipment, with a smaller and used first responder apparatus. To come up with the funds, the Chief has identified these most likely outcomes, based off of his alternatives.: Alternative A) Go cry to the municipality to buy the new apparatus or both new pieces of apparatus, if they have the money. The most likely outcomes are yes or no, or potentially as a third outcome, the municipality will tell him to also look at grants, lease the apparatus, and/or look for other sources of funding to supplement what the municipality can afford. Alternative B) Apply for a state and/or federal grant, which he may or may not get, and wait for months on their decision and hope he gets a grant. The most likely outcomes ar yes or no and he won't know for months. Alternative C) Apply for a lease purchase for the new pumper or both pieces of apparatus and hope he can get it and a decent interest rate. The most likely outcome is that he'll get the lease, IF he gets the support and underwriting by the municipality to guarantee payments. Alternative D) Contact VFD-Funding as a professional consultant to review the options, help write the grants, help secure the lease/purchases and to look at all viable means of funding the acquisition(s). The most likely outcome is a yes, because VFD Funding can get financing for any new or used apparatus or equipment for any fire department, they can arrange leases with only a one page application (some cases no application necessary), they can have a lease arranged in 24 hours, they write grants too, they don't require any up front money for their fees, and they only charge 1% of the total value of the project as their fee on any lease/purchase they arrange and ONLY after they deliver the funding. EXAMPLE 4: Lieutenant Lucky from Engine Company Beta answers a day time alarm. This is his lucky day, because the chief, the assistant chief, and the captain are all at work 30 miles away. This is his first command and he gets to wear his new red hat on the scene for the first time as well. In addition to himself, he has a crew of a driver/engineer and four firefighters, with two of them having less than one year experience. Upon arriving at the scene, after dropping off one firefighter to hit the plug, he sees that he has a fully involved garage that is about 10 feet from the occupied residence. A southwest wind of about 25 m.p.h is pushing the flames and smoke onto the main residence. He wants to do a forcible entry on the garage and mount an aggressive initial internal attack on the fire, for which he is famous and what got him elected, but he has a limited crew, with half having limited experience, and if he calls in mutual aid now, he's got about a 15-20 minute wait, before the second engine company arrives. He thus has a choice of either making the aggressive internal attack, or use his second hose line to establish a water curtain, then to occasionally get water on the northeast wall of the garage and attack the fire this way. Per his desire for an aggressive internal attack: A) What are his decision making limits? B) What is his level of decision making control? C) What is/are his immediate problem(s)? D) What are his alternatives E) What are the potential outcomes if he launches an aggressive internal attack? What are the potential outcomes if he goes with his water curtain and external attack option? F) What may be his next two (2) decisions? G) What are his other problems that require a decision? What are their alternatives? What are their potential outcomes? (H) What are some of the decisions he might make, after the fire is out, for future events? EXERCISES: 1) Think of a problem in your personal life and identify at least two (2) positive and two (2) negative alternatives. Predict at least two outcomes, one positive and one negative, for each of these alternatives. 2) Think of at least three (3) problems occurring at your fire department and identify at least three (3) positive and three (3) negative alternatives for each. Predict at least two (2) potential outcomes for each of the three (3) alternatives you have identified for each of the three problems occurring at your fire department. 3) Think about the last two (2) alarms you answered with your fire department. What were some of the decisions that needed to be made? What were their limits? What was the level of control of these decisions? What decision making methods were used? What were the problems? What were the alternatives to some of these problems. What were the outcomes of these decisions? Last modified: August 06, 2008
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