Expert: Take care when filling out grant applications (with related video)

Ron Flavin is a government grants and incentives specialist who helps governments and other organizations to thrive, prosper and achieve their goals. He has helped his clients to secure more than $160 million in funding over the last ten years. Flavin has won grant funds that have enabled his clients to deploy new programs and complete other tasks.

“These funds have enable my clients to deploy new programs and strategies, conduct research, commercialize innovative technologies, reach new markets and customers, increase market share, extend their brand, address community problems and issues and grow internationally,” says Flavin (photo at right).

Some of Flavin’s recent accomplishments:

—  Secured $6.6 million to fund a telecommunications project in rural Northern California,
—  In 2013  he wrote eight funded Carol M. White PEP proposals (out of only 60 awarded nationally), resulting in awards of more  than $8.2 million,
—  Helped a startup to obtain $9.3 million to commercialize a new technology,
—  Secured $1.1 million to fund an innovative biomass demonstration project for a California startup company,
—  Obtained $3 million to fund a tribal economic development project, and
—  Assisted a state government in obtaining $7.7 million to fund a telecommunications project

In this video interview,  Flavin discusses grants that are available to local governments. “States offer a number of grants that support local governments. Federal agencies have grants available to local governments that pay for infrastructure repair, telecommunications projects, construction services, job training —just about any type of project,” says Flavin.

In the interview, Flavin outlines his favorite resources that governments can use for finding grants and incentives. Flavin’s favorite resource for finding federal opportunities is the Grants.gov site.

Flavin, who works as a professional grant application reviewer for federal agencies, offers this advice for government administrators on obtaining grants and incentives: “Close to 90 percent of proposals that grants administrators receive don’t get funded, and that may be due to an application that hasn’t been filled out properly. Pay attention to the instructions on the application and answer the questions correctly,” says Flavin. He adds, “Don’t hesitate about getting help from someone with experience on filling out the application.”

In this video interview, Flavin outlines some of the needs and tasks that local governments can fund through grants.

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