I am a community relations manager for a major financial services corporation. We have a very busy and active community grants program. I have recieved three letters from three different companies requesting sums between $300,000 and $500,000.
These letters are:
a) poorly written and ungrammatical
b) poorly formatted and look like they were printed directly off a screen
c) clearly created from a database and template
d) are clearly ineligible for funding based on public disclosure
For example: the greeting in each of the letters was
Dear Manager Lastname:
The purpose of this letter is to announce this company's intention to seek grant funding from organizations that help busines with community, economic, and program development.
All the letters give the same information, personalized by individual census tract information. After speaking with the people who have requested funds, I have found that Company Funds, Inc. Has charged these desperate people ridiculous sums of money to send out these useless letters. My company does not give to for profit organizations or to individuals. We do not give in amounts greater than $100,000 except under some pretty extraordinary conditions. Finally, as an experienced grants officer (not just for this company) I can state with some certainty that such a poorly presented proposal would never make it to consideration.
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