The most exciting part of the course I am launching next
week isn’t even the course — it’s the weekly live group calls that each course
registrant will have access to for a full year. In designing the course, I felt
that just having the recorded content in the modules didn’t go far enough. I
felt that if the recorded modules were the only way I would get the information
across, the learners’ potential for burnout, fatigue, or monotony would
overshadow their ability and willingness to learn.
People learn in different ways, and adult learners need a
way to transfer what they learn “in the classroom” to real-life situations back
at the office. The addition of the weekly group call feature to my course
allows each student to “pin-ball” back and forth through the course, to real
life, to the group call, back to the course, and back to real life.
And when planning this course, I just knew that a month or
so of group calls wasn’t going to cut it. No way was that enough to really help
turn a beginner-level grant professional into an intermediate-level
professional. I didn’t want to leave the learners high and dry with no support
after such a short time. I wanted to give them as much chance as possible to
absorb and really understand the course material — and even reach beyond it.
That’s why I afford them the luxury of a full year of access to these calls.
Putting into practice what they learn through the course will naturally bring
up more questions, so the group calls are their opportunity to have some
targeted assistance where and when they need it, without the pressure of the
feature “timing out.”
Each week I will pick apart the course content, and do a
deeper dive into the intricacies of the basic points I cover in its eight
modules. As learners have comments, questions, or issues they would like to
have addressed as they go through the course content, they can submit them to
me and I will focus on those topics in depth. In time, this will be especially
helpful as learners complete the course and then put what they’ve learned into
practice. As they reach hurdles they need a hand with, for a full year the
group calls is where I can speak to them.
The other nice thing about the group calls is they will be
recorded, and a Topic Library will be developed to organize the subjects I will
be addressing. In this way, learners will have a knowledge bank of questions or
issues raised and how I approached them. They may be able to use the Topic
Library to answer any problem they encounter before even needing to wait for
the weekly call.
Even though I will be “live,” the advantage of having the
calls recorded is that the learners can tune in any time during their year with
me. I plan to hold the calls on Wednesday evenings, but if that doesn’t work
out for some people, or they have a schedule conflict, no worries! The group
call can always be accessed — during their daily commute, while they eat their
lunch, or while they fold the laundry!
Access is the name of the game when it comes to the course
content and the calls. As the learners round out the course material (available
to them in audio, video, and written formats) and the regular skills
assessments with the calls, they increase their vocabulary and understanding of
how grants can and should function in their nonprofits, pick up best practices,
and learn the ethical considerations in working with grants. Their leadership abilities
will grow, and their win rate will as well!
My goal with Unlock-Grants is to better the grants industry
by strengthening the knowledge of those entering it. I hope you, or someone you
know, will learn how to raise the level of nonprofit grantsmanship by taking
advantage of the Unlock-Grants course and its many features, including the
weekly live group calls.
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