We have seen many, many, many teasers and full proposals. We want to share the most common pitfalls with you and we hope this helps to avoid them.
1. No focus on water
Sometimes we receive teasers for projects that don't focus on water or cities. As VIA Water we cannot support these projects. Ensure to check our requirements and pressing water needs before you apply for our support. If your project does not fit the VIA Water requirements, no problem but then it's best to find another funder or source of funding. When you have doubts if for example your project area is urban-oriented enough, you can always check with us. We don’t give a strict definition of what is an urban area, it depends on the problems you encounter and want to solve.
2. No innovation
Sometimes we receive proposals that want to implement or only want a business investment, instead of asking support for testing and implementing an innovation. Our VIA Water innovation checklist is:
- Is it a new technique?
- Is it a new approach?
- Are you going to pilot something that is new for your country?
If you can answer one or more of these three questions with a yes, you can continue submitting your teaser for VIA Water.
3. Misjudging the time needed for the VIA Water process
Going from teaser to full proposal to accepted project can go very fast, but usually takes between 7 to 12 months (average 8 months). We support you in strengthening your idea and we provide feedback and it happens that we ask you several times to look at your project proposal again.
4. No application format
An idea can be born in different ways and so the way of writing this down can differ. We don’t want to put your creativity into a tight corset. That is why we will not make a format how to apply. We have put questions in our Roadmap categorized and we provide tools on this page to give you enough information to put your own application together. If you have submitted your idea to a different donor before, you can use that format. You only have to adapt the application with adding the necessary information to meet the VIA Water criteria.
5. Pleasing the donor
Our advice and recommendations might be from a misunderstanding of context and plans. If you think that they cannot or need not to be followed, than it is better to provide the arguments for that instead of pleasing the donor.
6. No budget breakdown
Many projects request for a lumpsum in their teaser. For us, it is difficult to assess an idea when we can't see where you generally want to spend the money on. It does not need to be perfect or in small detail, but a budget where you generally show where you want to spend the money on is needed.
7. No overview of partners/members
Who is going to help you implement the project? Ensure you list the organisations you are working with, and indicate who is responsible for what during the project.
8. No learning elaborated
Do you have all knowledge needed to implement your project? We believe it is absolutely no problem if you don't know exactly what the future will hold. You are not a clairvoyant. However, we truly believe that there is a lot to learn and a lot to find out. Think about what additional knowledge and information you need to gain during the project in order to be successful. And do not forget to share this knowledge with others via our community!
9. Open planning <> critical path
Be flexible in your implementation. Know what you want to achieve (set up a result chain), and plan regular moments to assess if you are still reaching your goals. Do you need to change your approach to reach your goals, and why?