Grant Professionals: International Style

Last week The Grant Professionals Association celebrated International Grant Professionals for the second time using social media.  Danny Blitch (@grantprodanny) of the Georgia chapter of the GPA  is the mastermind behind last week’s events.  Wednesday, March 16 was our special international event – an all day video chat using the Blab Beta platform  discussing grants and fundraising from an international perspective.  I (@grantsciencelab; @DeborahCook6) had the privilege of interviewing Ruth McLean Dawson (@meRuthAnne) about how to connect with the folks on the ground working in  international aid during the 12:00 to 1:00 EDT time slot.  Since we could not break it up into shorter segments here is the topic schedule for the day covering nearly 8 hours of video chat.

Except for a few remarks of mine on the international and collaborative nature of science, we didn’t discuss research grants.  It seems to me, and I’ve written about this before is that the academic grant writing and nonprofit grant writing occupy parallel universes.  Two universes that have more in common with each other than either thinks.  The video chat really demonstrates the scale of the nonprofit universe as it applies to international grants and fundraising.  It also is a good introduction to that universe for the research grant community.

Deb Cook PhD