I’ve been involved in back to back funding bids recently. In both cases, the different people involved have all been trying to find the right words that distill their ideas into something that will capture the imagination of the funders.
I was reading an article by @hackofalltrades which I empathise with on showing evidence for funding. Proving that you can walk on water and how you’re putting in places measures to make sure you can walk on water. And mitigating the risk by stating that if there was drought, you would still be able to walk, of walking on…fire.
Although deadlines do put you under pressure, the questions they ask really get you go back to first principles. And if you really believe in your proposal, then you’ll deliver it anyway, so just think of it as stimulus for your project plan. So it’s maybe not the content of funding bids that’s despiriting, maybe it’s the design.
What if a funding bid template was an infographic where you had to sketch out how the project was going to work? This infographic is the closest I’ve seen of an application centred around a visualisation (@davidwilcox)? Or even a play that role played the different “work packages”.
If you’re asking yourself how you might create an animation, I would recommend @animoto. It’s very easy to use and produces a really dynamic video all mixed to the beat of the music.
Step 1. Think about what story you want to tell your audience
Step 2. Think about the visuals that can help you do that and upload them (images and videos)
Step 3. Throw in some text in between the visuals that bring out the messages even more
Step 4. Arrange and re-arrange the text and visuals until you’re happy with it
Step 5. Find a tune that speaks to the story but listen to the lyrics*
Step 6. Choose whethere you want a fast and furious video or something slow and sultry
Step 7. Put it in the animoto oven and wait a few minutes
Step 8. When your video is ready, click play and feel the…rush
Step 9. As you watch your animation, you’ll see the images move to the beat of the music, so experiment with tunes that mix it up in terms of layering different beats, breakdowns or breaks**
Step 10. Export to Youtube or download as a video and you too can show off how good you are at using !
