Build the Plane and Then Fly It

By Jim Jenereaux, Grant Professional at Granted

If you’ve spent even a couple of months working in corporate America, chances are you’ve heard the phrase “build the plane while flying it.” Because I was raised on Looney Tunes, part of me is amused by this phrase that evokes whimsical mental images of a sassy, physics-defying cottontail rabbit building an airplane in midair. However, as a grant writer with approximately one million deadlines per month (and one who is not exactly a fan of corporate work culture), I mostly hate this phrase. 

Instead, I suggest we all embrace the idea of building the plane, then flying it. That way we won’t crash and burn.

My work year begins in October. At this point, most of my applications for the current calendar year have been submitted, and while there are certainly still some end-of-year deadlines to handle, the workload is far lighter than the rest of the year, and it is time to focus on next year. I use this time to build templates and schedules so that when January comes around again, we can hit the ground running. 

A grant template is a lifesaver in fundraising because once the deadlines start coming, they don’t slow down until the holidays. With the majority of grant applications asking similar questions, having readily available responses to standard questions that can be modified to fit character counts or foundation guidelines can make a world of difference—especially when we’re putting together those seven grants all due on March 30th. What’s more, it’s a lot easier to write our end-of-grant reports (or their templates) when we have uniform goals and messaging across our applications.

With something so fundamental for sending out strong, cohesive applications, I cannot emphasize enough just how important it is to have these written and solidified before applications go out. Then, keep them that way unless a major change comes our way. 

Let’s return to the plane, shall we? If you and I were told to take an unassembled plane and fly it from Houston to Salt Lake City, our first step—without a doubt—would be to build the plane. All the way. With two wings, an appropriate number of engines, tight screws, and everything else a plane needs to fly. It’s also in our best interest to check the weather for storms, high winds, or other phenomena we’ll need to account for in our flight path. Once all of that is done, we can safely fly our plane! And then we can fly it again, and again, and again, making tiny adjustments and maintenance checks before each flight, until it’s time for major maintenance at the end of the year. 

What we don’t want to do is fly our plane before it’s built, change anything about the plane while it’s still in the air, or risk keeping it grounded for too long by making significant changes during flying season. Though it might be tempting to modify our plane midflight to make it a little faster, a little flashier, or hold more passengers, we also run the risk of slowing down too much, losing our identity as a plane… okay, I think the plane metaphor has run its course.

What I mean to say is that grant templates are a wonderful way to make the grant application process more efficient, easier to track, and more bearable for our writers, but that all falls to the wayside if we’re constantly making changes to them. Every new edition of the template means more time spent drafting, writing, editing, and finalizing when we could be using that time to get further ahead of schedule or search for new opportunities. 

At Granted, we’re always emphasizing the importance of diversifying our funding sources, and that message is more relevant now than ever, given the uncertainty surrounding federal funding. While it’s okay to adjust our templates to emphasize the importance of private funders in the current landscape or justify a larger request this year, we shouldn’t treat our grants like they have the power to save our nonprofit. Meaning we shouldn’t dedicate our resources to the constant pursuit of the Holy Grail of grant applications that will be approved by all who read it, because it doesn’t exist. Instead, let’s just focus on keeping our plane on a steady course and making plenty of quality flights.