What's in a grant?

In chapter 6, there was a lot if information on grants and loans, which kind of goes along with my previous blog post on chapter 3.  Last week with Meg, we briefly discussed the pros and cons of using grant money or loans to finance your project. We talked about how, with grant money, you may never get the money or you may have to be subject to the whims of the person or group who gave you the grant.  This chapter reiterated what we talked about last week but went even further.  This book says that grants are good because it's free money, yay! Two of my favorite things: money and free stuff!!!  However, grants are very competitive and take a long time (months, or sometimes, years) to win.  Last week in class we also talked about loans.  In chapter 6, Briggs says that loans are primarily aimed at helping small businesses get started, however, loans come with interest and you have to make payments each month.  Although chapter 3 in this book talks about all the potential journalists have to make money, this chapter makes it seem a lot harder than you may think.  There just seem to be a lot of variables to consider besides how to spend the money you've earned.