Galdo’s Gift awarded Innovation Funding
As many of you already know, back in November we won an Innovate UK grant for innovation with our Galdo’s Gift: The Boovie® project. Which was fantastic news, of course!
We’ll update you on what we’ve been doing within this another time - but I want to talk to you now about the admin… I know; it’s the least sexiest part of it, and yet… almost the most important in terms of receiving the actual money. It’s crazy.
Learning Curves
These past few months have been a really steep learning curve for me. I have been in deep; deciphering the government forms and formats, timings and charts required. Not least, was understanding the array of acronyms used, to work what was being asked of me. Luckily as PM (project manager) I have been allocated a very helpful MO (monitoring officer) for my QRM (project quarterly meetings), and that’s just the start of it!
Having written the application forms over last summer (and yes I did make sure that I wrote 300 words for every category, well, 298 for most) the real difficulty then was, relaying all of the information requested, in the correct place, in a succinct manner. The difficulty now is trying to make sure I don’t labour over the costings and profiles, tables and registers to the detriment of the project itself. It’s a hard, but, valuable experience. By the end of the project I will have ‘Project Management’ under my belt for sure; in an intricate and precise government kind of a way, and that is actually a fantastic take-away, as well as the money, the opportunity and the kudos!
Writing A Future
Having been in the creative visual industry for my whole career, it is striking how hugely important writing skills are, in being able to persuade others to jump on board with a project or, to allocate money to develop it further.
Right now, we are half way through the Innovate UK grant period and I’m feeling pretty pleased (hopefully I won’t regret saying that!). I have completed a successful PCR (project change request), and the first QRM is done. Let’s see what happens over the next few months and we’re out the other side with our innovations ready to be shared…
The Next Step
Ultimately, we want to do our best work that inspires others to do theirs, and this grant is a great step towards doing that.
P.S. I also have my eye on another fund to apply for, which would be great for Galdo’s Gift and those who will benefit from that, and also hopefully not as arduous a journey for me. Fingers crossed.
You can keep up to date with our progress on Galdo’s Gift: The Boovie® by adding yourself to our mailing list.
And please do add comments below if you have any questions or experiences regarding funding and grants that you would like to share.
