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THE CASE OF VIVA LOST WAGES

Project:  School-site health prevention/intervention program involving Nurse Practitioners (Nps) and trained and supervised parents.

What Happened:  Simply, we stated what a part-time NP would make working in this program — let’s use the rate of $65 per hour.  That might be considered excessive until you consider:

• According to a survey of NPS in the area, it was about average for what part-time NPS made in this inner-city area.
• A good part-time NP is hard to find and, when found, can command as high a rate as the market demands at the time.
• This community put the inner in the term inner-city — violent, crime-infested, dangerous — and was not the first choice for where most NPs would want to work.
• We were looking for bilingual NPs who had experience with similar populations — harder to find and in even more of a demand.
• Because they are part-time they receive no benefits and have to pay for their own health and retirement and other fringe costs — requiring more of an hourly wage.
• We had little or no time for training, so these NPs had to have some experience under their belt.

MISTAKES
The reasons listed above all justify paying that much for a good Nurse Practicioner, right?  Yes they do.  So what was the mistake? We didn’t list any of the justifications — just the salary.

RESULTS
Readers for this grant were called in from all over the state.  Our reader happened to be from a small, much more rural town where they wouldn’t dream of paying a part-time NP that much.  Her conclusion:  we didn’t do our homework and the inflated, out-of-this-world, rates put our whole budget, and thus our entire project, out of whack. The grant was scored low and we did not win.

WHAT I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY
I should have justified our price by citing the professional survey and listing several reasons why the right NP could command such a price.  I should have mentioned it in the narrative and explained it in greater detail in the Budget Narrative.

More about this in my new book RIGHT BEFORE YOU WRITE: THE GROUNDBREAKING PROCESS USED TO WIN MORE THAN $385 MILLION IN COMPETITIVE GRANT AWARDS.  Available at www.SandyPointInk.com or Amazon.com.

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