The day I stopped hating grant writing after a call with OTTAWA's NRC IRAP rep

I always dreaded the paperwork for government funding, thought it was a black hole of time. Then last Tuesday I spent 40 minutes on the phone with an IRAP advisor in Ottawa and she walked me through the exact wording they look for, which saved me maybe 15 hours of redoing forms. We got approved for $42k for our sensor prototype, which honestly changed my mind on the whole process. Has anyone else had a good experience with a specific program officer, or is it just luck of the draw?

2 comments

2 Comments

evanpalmer8d agoMost Upvoted

and it's funny because that whole experience mirrors something I noticed with my car mechanic last year. I spent months avoiding going in because I figured they'd just upsell me on everything, but then I found one guy who actually took ten minutes to explain what mattered and what didn't, and suddenly the whole thing felt way less scary. It's like the system isn't actually the problem, it's that nobody ever gives you the cheat codes until you stumble into the right person. You probably got lucky with that IRAP rep, but I also think these programs have good people working in them who get buried under the same boring process we do. Once you find that one human who speaks plain language, it changes the whole game and you stop treating the paperwork like it's some mysterious test.

spencerw728d ago

That "one human who speaks plain language" thing is spot on, same thing happened with my tax guy last year and it was like a weight lifted off my shoulders. Once somebody just tells you straight what matters and what to skip, the whole process turns from a nightmare into a Tuesday.