The problem: You could use an injection of funds, and investors aren’t quite the right fit.

The solution: Grants provide funding in exchange for impact reporting rather than a percentage of the company. Determine what grants you’re eligible for and when applications will be accepted. Delve into the evaluation criteria and define every way in which your initiative meets each one. For young organizations, this may require developing an organizational chart, mission statement, or other self-identity documents. Build a budget that reflects standard market rates, specifies any matching funds, and ensures that you will have enough funding to execute the promised deliverables. Draft responses to each question, emphasizing how you meet the evaluation criteria and employing the grantor’s terminology whenever possible without exceeding word limits. Ensure you’ve met the formatting requirements for initial acceptance of the file, and submit it before midnight local time on the deadline.

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The problem: Your findings merit policy reconsiderations, and you're unsure how to make this complex information compelling to policymakers.

The solution: Everyone is vying for policymakers' attention and funding. As a result, they are constantly spreading their time and expertise across a wide array of subject areas, weighing the merits of many worthy causes against each other, and making tough priority decisions based on predicted medium- and long-term outcomes. To get a policymakers attention on your findings, it's crucial to quickly establish a clear link between the implications of your work and the depth of benefit that the policymakers' constituents can expect to see as a result. The most effective policy briefs are 2 pages in length and employ intuitive visuals and strategic copy and formatting to draw attention to the must-have messages at first glance.

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The problem: You have lots to say, and you know your work won’t gain traction or win support until the right people understand your messages.

The solution:  You need a communication strategy! It's a clear step-by-step plan for sharing who you are and what you're doing through compelling text and graphics that speak to all the right people. A great communication strategy is founded on team work identifying the intersection of your target audience's problems and the benefits of your solution. Next, investigate the communications strategies of others attempting to solve the same problem, as well as the preferred platform, voice, and style of your target audience. Then, develop a suite of big promise, headline, tagline, and support text copy. Finally, calendar a publication strategy that speaks to your audience and works for your team. 

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The problem: The general public should be hearing about your work -- it's relevant to current events, you have news to share, and you know it's important to let others know what you're doing. 

The solution: Publishing an article (in a news source platform) or a blog (on your own website) is a great way to raise awareness among the general public. The most effective articles and blogs draw immediate links between your work and points of strong community interest, avoid dense technical detail, offer ways for interested individuals to learn more or get involved, and are published on high-visibility platforms. 

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The problem: You want to let your networks know about your work -- to share good news, attract top candidates, build public awareness, and convey your team's  expertise on the topic. 

The solution: We all use the Internet, but very few of us take the time to make it a better place. Sharing knowledge amplifies your impact and helps others do the same -- that's the power of the pen! The most important component of any social media post is the value you bring to your readers. Since your work is so value-packed, it's just a matter of breaking that value into bite-sized pieces of information that can stand alone. There's no need to start this work from scratch; a freshly written report, policy brief, or article is the perfect resource of social media content. 

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The problem: The next phase of your work must be supported and informed by clear, documented findings that will stand up to the scrutiny of policymakers, funders, and your organization's leadership.

The solution: Robust research results that are easy to read support good decision-making and helps keep stakeholders onboard. Determine the top points the report must absolutely convey, along with their sub-points; organize these into a complete report outline. Comb through existing team assets -- ranging from academic manuscripts to raw datasets -- to begin to flesh out the outline. Leverage reliable online resources to build out background and additional justification, and informational interviews with key team members to capture as-yet-unwritten project knowledge. Conduct a validation session with all team members to ensure alignment with their vision and accuracy of the subtleties of their areas of expertise. Finally, recruit a pair of entirely fresh eyes to complete an in-depth copyedit of the file, including formatting, design, and citation accuracy. 

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The problem: You and your team are struggling to get what’s in your heads onto the page.

The solution: It’s time to put everyone in a room, remove the distractions, and start writing. The team first develops a publication plan, complete with priorities, responsibilities, and timelines. Next, everyone practices overcoming white-page paralysis and employing style and concision. Structure, prompts, focus, and advanced writing guidance will get the words flowing and up-level your team’s writing expertise at the same time. Finally, the team revisits to publication plan with renewed confidence in their writing abilities and excitement for what is to come. 

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The problem: Your message is important, and you need an engaging, compelling argument -- in another language. 

The solution: We've all seen rapid-turnaround translation work. Automatic translators are handy, but word-for-word conversion followed by a quick read-through for errors isn't going to generate the masterpiece you have in mind. In fact, logical discourse likely happens totally differently in your target language. For example, French arguments build in the opposite order as English arguments, with the topic sentence at the end of the paragraph. To create your masterpiece, you need a fully bilingual, bicultural professional who is eloquent and informed. They'll read each line of your original work to fully understand your message, meticulously convey the meaning you truly intend to your international audience, and manually rewrite every word in a new language. That's thoughtful translation.

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The problem: You need to publicly assert a thesis or take a position on an issue to establish your organizational authority, gain traction, and win support.

The solution: It's time to build a white paper! Identify the core message and target audience for the paper. Build an outline and revise it based on team and stakeholder feedback. Meet with small groups of team members and stakeholders to elicit honest perspectives and input to inform the paper. Synthesize and represent these diverse perspectives with a unified voice and position in the draft. Conduct a validation workshop to ensure alignment across all contributors. Finally, recruit a pair of entirely fresh eyes to complete an in-depth copyedit of the file, including formatting, design, and citation accuracy. 

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The problem: Your initiative has generated novel results that the scientific community should know.

The solution: Identify a target journal whose scope and mission strongly correlate with your findings. Determine if they accept submissions and in what form. Develop an argument for your work based on recent peer-reviewed work in the field. Present and justify your methodology, describe your results, and discuss the implications and importance of the results, as well as their limitations. Clarify what next steps in scientific study would be warranted. Ensure language convention, word limits, citation style, reference list, sectioning, and numbers comply with journal requirements. Revise the file based on feedback from the journal editor in advance of publication.

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The problem: Your work is generating a lot of data. Now you need to figure out what the numbers say. 

The solution: Create and implement a strategy for cleaning and organizing your data. Determine which data to include in your analyses and identify the best key covariates to ensure robust results. Conduct statistical analyses to identify significant trends and relationships. Determine which of these have the most compelling implications for your audience, and design an intuitive, engaging visualization to share those results. Review and refine the data you present to ensure it effectively conveys your message.

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The problem: Your initiative needs to align with key players in the field.

The solution: It’s time to identify and engage key informants in either a group or individual setting to verify your findings, gather the information that will up-level your work, develop consensus among powerful stakeholders, and broker agreement to pave the way forward. Workshops and interviews are often employed as part of developing high-impact strategy, grant writing, and expository writing.

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The problem: You team knows where they want to go, and they are struggling to stay organized, accountable, and in contact to meet milestones.

The solution: A project manager dives into the details without taking their eyes of the big-picture goals. They define quantifiable standards for all major aspects of a project, including scope, deliverables, schedule, budget, communications, stakeholders,  resources, quality, and risk and track myriad progress metrics to uphold adherence to those standards for the duration of the project. They are also a crucial human component to a project, often liaising across teams, representing the project, and brokering problem-solving and compromise. They are the primary source of information on project progress for all stakeholders and leadership.

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The problem: You have a draft on paper and it needs to be cleaned and polished before publication.

The solution: That file needs an comprehensive copyedit, including proofreading, copyediting, and line editing. After being carefully combed out by a fresh set of eyes, your text will be tight, easy to read, grammatically impeccable, properly formatted, and tailored to the vocabulary and attention style of your target audience. Dynamic citation software is key to ensuring both precision and flexibility in formatting. Comprehensive copyediting is an integral part of putting almost any words on paper, including high-impact strategy documents and workshop presentation slides. 

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