Monday, October 16, 2006

"Please, Sir, May I Have Some More?"

That's an approximate quote from Oliver Twist, right there. You know the scene from the movie, I'm sure. It's when Oliver, dressed in his fantastically chic ragamuffin clothes, bravely approaches the mean head-of-the-orphanage guy, holds out his empty bowl and makes his sad little request for more gruel.

I'm feeling much like Oliver these days because I am preparing to approach a foundation for additional funding to support deeper, more intensive Latino outreach work at R & V's school. Everything we did last year has created a solid base for this next step, and I'm determined not to miss the opportunity. But the amount I'm seeking is enough to buy a 500-series BMW, which I find sorta embarrassing, and for which I feel apologetic. As in I'm so sorry to bother you, but can you please give me tens of thousands of dollars just for being, you know, me?

What I fail to keep in mind as I'm researching and writing these grant proposals is that foundations do not look for reasons to turn you down; they look for reasons to say yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes we can have more gruel.

1 comment:

Gura said...

just remember Ver, if it's a fairly large foundation, that kind of money is drop in the bucket for them, plus it lets them say that it went through diversity in education and outreach to the Latino community. Alot of corporations have local charity funds and anything less than $50K is completely minisculed by the kind of money they spend on ads and other things to get their name out there in communities.

besides only the mean ones would deny you "su'more" and that wouldn't make them very charitable funders.