Writing Grant Proposal

Ofelia teaches third grade in an inner-city school with a large immigrant population. She asks each child to read aloud to their families every night for 20 minutes. Recently three parents have shyly thanked her and admitted they don’t read English as well as their children. They read too well to enroll in the literacy program at the library but not well enough to help their children when they stumble with a word. One mother said she was afraid she didn’t always understand the information that came with medicines for her child’s asthma and asked Ofelia to read it for her. Another mother asked if she would consider teaching parents how to help their children with homework. Ofelia would love to do this, but she’ll need teaching materials, training for herself, and money for child care if this is going to be an ongoing project. Her classroom budget has no money for programs like this, and she doesn’t want to charge the parents. Maybe she can get a grant to at least try out the idea.

Michelle is a pre-med student interested in finding ways to help her grandmother who is having increasing difficulty moving around because of her arthritis. Michelle is not sure if she wants to go into research or clinical work, but she’s being encouraged by a favorite faculty member to write a grant proposal and explore some options.


Boyd is a junior faculty member at a land grant college; he wants to establish a small but significant place for himself. He concentrated on corn breeding in graduate school, but an infestation of corn borers played havoc with some of his experiments. Now he’s wondering if he should shift his focus a bit and concentrate on controlling or at least managing his enemy. To do that, he’ll need to find money outside the department’s current budget.

You and thousands of other people like Ofelia, Michelle, and Boyd have both personal and professional reasons for considering writing an application for a grant. You may have some reservations about your chances of getting money this way, but a persistent project that needs funding keeps swimming just outside your consciousness. You’ve seen the ads that promise easy money, and you’re more than skeptical about their promises. You may have heard that grant writing is difficult, and you wonder if you have the skills that are needed. In spite of these hesitations, however, you’ve decided it’s time to at least explore the idea of finding a grant to underwrite a project that is important to you.
Congratulations! You’ve taken two important steps toward writing a successful grant proposal.

1. You have a passion for solving a problem, helping someone else, or filling a gap in either services or knowledge that won’t go away.
2. You are looking for a guide because you know this is new territory that shifts quickly, and you want to follow basic steps without any false promises.

As you browse, and later read this book and complete the suggested activities, your passion will be needed to complete the myriad small, but time-consuming tasks that are part of the proposal-writing process. Your idea will become the kernel of a research or social service project that forms the core element in seeking and receiving a grant award.

Anyone Can Write a Grant Proposal
This is true. If you are comfortable with a computer, can organize your thoughts in writing, know how to follow directions, and are patient, you have the basic skills needed for completing a funding request. It helps if you’re curious, able to work under tight deadlines, and have access to a copy of Adobe Acrobat Suite (the expensive version), which is helpful in filling out the increasing numbers of online submissions.

Grant Writing Is Simply Filling in a Form
This is F-A-L-S-E in capital letters. Although that is sometimes the last step in applying for funds, writing is the smallest part of preparing a grant proposal. My first Head Start proposal took more than 200 hours to prepare. Now I estimate a proposal for a new client or a government grant will still take between 75 and
80 hours. That’s because there’s a lot more to asking for a grant than the writing.

Even the one-page ads that promise an easy path to fast cash list several steps in the process. As the chapters in this book demonstrate, the basic parts of “writing a grant” include:
• Defining a fundable project
• Demonstrating a need for the project and justifying its expense
• Showing that you or your group is the appropriate agent to implement the research or program
• Refining the proposal with details of objectives, activities, staffing, partners, and evaluation
• Researching and prioritizing funding sources
• Creating a realistic budget that supports the goals of the project
• Writing the narrative
• Preparing a presentation that meets the funder’s requirements

It’s wise to estimate your first submission for a major grant will take a minimum of three months and may require even more time if critical elements are not in place. For example, if you have a clear picture of projects you want to fund, have a reputable connection with potential collaborators, and have identified a handful of funding sources, two months may be enough to prepare a letter of intent or a simple proposal. If, however, you’ve operated solo up until now, have no idea of how many teens will show up for a drumming workshop,
or haven’t done a literature search to see how many other people are working in nanotech drug delivery, you’ll want considerably more time to collect the information and connections you need.
Read More : Writing Grant Proposal

Tips Writing Great Grant Proposal

Grant Writers Speak Their Own Language
Again, this is a true and false statement. Every field has its own language that quickly becomes jargon. Grant writing is no exception. If you are a purist, you don’t write grants. You write proposals for grants. A grant is money given for a specific purpose that doesn’t need to be repaid. Those of us who “write grants” don’t print the checks or even sign them. We define a project, collect appropriate materials to justify the need, and write an application requesting the awarding of that money. We “propose” opportunities for a foundation, corporation, or government agency to give away its funds.


There is an extensive glossary at the back of the book, and lists abbreviations for government divisions that make grants. Since I don’t use abbreviations when I write a proposal, I try not to use them in the book. A few acronyms and some unfamiliar words are sure to creep in, however. To aid your reading, here is some of the most frequently used jargon I share with other grant seekers, philanthropists, and the government, listed in the approximate order of frequency with which you’ll hear and eventually use them
yourself.

• RFP—Request for Proposal. This is the formal, printed announcement in the Federal Register that describes federal government funds that are open for applications. Over the years, it has become synonymous with any notice of available funds from all levels of the government and public and private foundations. Since all the rules and regulations for a particular grant are contained in this single document, the RFP will be your indispensible guide to applying for each grant. Also, because people can’t leave a good thing alone, a host of variations have appeared. RFA (Request for Funding Assistance), NOFA (Notice of Funding Availability), SGA (Solicitation for Grant Applications), FFO (Federal Funding Opportunity), and FOA (Funding Opportunity Announcement) are a few current ones.
• NPO—Nonprofit Organization. Databases of funding sources and brief announcements of RFPs often abbreviate the types of organizations that can apply for funds.

• AVO—All Volunteer Organization

• CBO—Community-Based Organization. Sometimes the same as an

• NPO; sometimes AVOs, FBOs, and NPOs grouped together

• FBO—Faith-Based Organization

• LEA—Local Education Agency. Usually a school district or county office of education

• • IHE—Institution of Higher Education. Colleges, universities, trade schools

• 501(c)(3)—Section of the IRS code that designates an organization as charitable and tax exempt. The vast majority of foundations require grant recipients to be 501(c)(3) organizations.
• LOI—Letter of Intent. A brief, often one-page, letter summarizing your grant request that is increasingly requested as a preliminary screening step by foundations. Since it’s often difficult to write a summary before you have written the entire proposal, an LOI requires all the planning and decisions regarding a project are in place before you send it.
• Program Office. A staff member of a government agency, foundation, or corporate-giving program who administers the application process. This is usually the person who has practical answers to questions about a funding opportunity you are researching.
• Collaborators. Partners who have come together from different organizations or disciplines to work on a mutually beneficial project or program. The vast majority of government grants require some form of collaboration, and once again, foundations are following the trend. Members can include public and private organizations, government agencies, and individuals.
• Sustainability. The expectation that ongoing funds to continue the research or project will be raised from other sources when the grant expires. Both government and foundation applications often ask for a sustainability plan.
• Logic Model. A process that visually depicts assumptions and elements of a specific program. It can be as simple as describing the situation, inputs, outputs, and outcomes in chart form, or as elaborate as a circular flowchart with goals, resources, activities, outputs, and outcomes.
• MOU—Memorandum of Understanding. Legal document spelling out what the lead agency/principal investigator and each collaborating group or individual will and will not do to implement the proposal

You Can’t Apply for a Grant Alone

There are two ideas contained in this heading, and both are true. First, preparing a grant proposal is a team effort. It’s important that one person do the actual writing for continuity and completeness, but you’ll need support from other staff collecting the needed information, and developing a realistic budget, and you’ll need buy-in and approval from your governing board. If a school district, college, university, hospital, or research lab will be the official body receiving the grant, there will be a designated chain of command to create, review, and give approval to the final proposal. Establishing and cultivating relationships throughout your organization are important from the very beginning.

The second meaning of the heading refers to the evidence of partnerships with other researchers or agencies that an increasing number of funding sources require. In this book, I’m working on the premise that all grant requests will be collaborative in nature. If you want funds to add nutritional education to an existing food pantry, you need to know staff at the local WIC (a federally funded food supplement and support program for Women, Infants, and Children), have at least a nodding acquaintance with school, hospital, and senior
food service personal, and be familiar with the churches, temples, and other groups that also distribute food and clothing. If you’re seeking research funds, partners can be in other institutions or in other departments.

Boyd, the corn breeder mentioned at the start of the chapter, will probably want to consult with an entomologist to learn more about his corn borers, a toxicologist to develop an effective kill agent, an engineer to produce an effective delivery system for the insecticide, and local authorities for permission to spray or otherwise kill the nasty bugs. It’s a huge plus for your grant application if you can work together on the proposed new project. Yes, this adds time and complexity to your project, but it also adds depth, avoids duplication, and hopefully is more effective in meeting your long-term goals—and it increases your chances
for receiving grants.
Read More : Tips Writing Great Grant Proposal

Idea To Writing Grant Proposal - Gathering Basic Agency Individual Information

Now that we have some of the legal paperwork started, let’s look at the information you need to gather about your agency or, if you’re applying as an individual, about yourself. First, collect what you already use to describe yourself and your work—agency brochures, résumés, mission statements, previous grants, press releases, elevator speeches you use to introduce yourself in 10 seconds anything and everything you have that says, “This is who we are and what we do.” These are good places to begin because we will adapt them for each proposal.

Now look at each piece from the perspective of your proposed project.

• Mission Statement: Summarize the mission of the agency or your individual career goals in two or three sentences. Reduce that to one sentence or one phrase. Keep all of your notes because eventually you will mix and match words to fit your mission to the mission of the funding agency.

For example, a music academy’s mission statement in its entirety could be:
• To enrich the lives of individuals and the community through music
• To provide outstanding instruction for amateur and aspiring professional musicians of all ages
• To reach out to the community through diverse programs and public performances
• To promote and nurture a lifelong passion for music
• Most importantly, to make music education available to all . . . one note at a time

Each of these phrases might be used alone for a different funding source. The first phrase could accompany a request for a series of community concerts. The second would fit either training for instructors or scholarship funds. I might combine elements of the first and third phrases into something like “to enrich the lives of individuals and the community through diverse musical programs and public performances” in proposals for a jazz summer camp, concerts at elementary schools, student recitals at retirement communities, or the creation of a mariachi band or African drumming group. The final phrase might even find its way into an appeal for a customized software and data entry staff person to computerize student, alumni, and donor records.

• History: Condense 50 years or expand 3 years into a single paragraph that explains how you started and how far you’ve come. Our music academy could write: Four music teachers responded to budget cuts in public school music education by creating a community school of music in a church basement in 1970. During the first year, they struggled to keep music alive for 43 young people from 31 families with volunteers providing individual and group lessons with a poorly tuned piano. Today, approximately 600 students between the ages of 6 months and 83 years choose from a wide variety of instruction and performance opportunities facilitated by a staff of 30 professional voice, percussion, woodwind, and brass musicians operating from two classrooms, 18 teaching studios, a keyboard lab, and an 80-seat recital hall.
• Specific Research or Program Activities in the Past Five Years: What concrete success stories can you tell? Collect both quantitative and qualitative examples that show your work is important and makes an impact. Gather information that demonstrates the ripple effect of your work. To continue with our example, the music academy could outline the introduction and growth of two or three major activities and list the accomplishments of several alumni.
• Current Research or Program Activities: This variation of the previous section allows you to provide more details about one program, describe the progress of a “typical” student, and show how the proposed project will strengthen your current work. Use concrete specific examples to show how what you are doing now relates to both the past and the new direction you want to take. Will the grant help you extend current work to a new population? Add new elements? Explore a new direction?
• Major Sources of Funds: Know where you get your money now. Find a copy of this year’s total agency operating budget. In addition, create a list of all grants and large donations from the past five years. Finally, you will need copies of the latest audited financial report for the agency to enclose as an attachment. If you don’t have an audited report, you can ask if a review by an outside source will suffice. Often, if the grant request is small and the agency is new, reviews will be accepted.
• Professional and Community Organizations and Awards: List them all in one place so you have everything spelled correctly and don’t forget any. You can choose which to use for which proposal just like you do with listing community organizations on your personal résumé. The music academy will want to mention membership in the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts and the National Federation of Music Clubs in all of its applications. If the funder places a high value on local community involvement, they might want to add their participation in three Chambers of Commerce and the award they received from a mayor for contributions to city life.

At this point collect everything. Make notes. Play with the words. Add things as you think of them. You will be condensing this material to one or two paragraphs in the proposal, but you want to be sure you remember the important details.
Read More : Idea To Writing Grant Proposal - Gathering Basic Agency Individual Information

Idea To Writing Grant Proposal - Brainstorming with People Who Know

You may think you know what research should be done or how a human service project should be structured, but the real people who know are those who will reap the benefits of your proposal and those who have conducted similar projects. Your next task will be to gather a sizeable group of those people and hold a brainstorming session to generate and record even more ideas about your preliminary project idea. Because the rules are simple and familiar and the process is fun, brainstorming can be used effectively in a large, disparate group of people who may not know each other. It’s messy sometimes, but again, the information you gather will be invaluable for a winning proposal and an effective project.

Choose people you identified as program staff, current clients, “alumni,” potential program participants, colleagues in related or complementary fields of work, support staff, vendors, and community members who have an interest in your field. You’ll want at least 12 to15 people, so invite 30–40. Include people who surfaced in the questorming because this time you will be looking for:
• Potential partners
• Elements to add or subtract from your initial project design
• Barriers and gaps that need attention
• Community resources to augment your project
• History of what does and doesn’t work locally and in other communities
• Perceived benefits of your proposed effort
• Community supporters
• Prospective funding streams

By now you know the steps of holding a productive meeting, but let me add a few additional suggestions because this will be a larger group and you‘ll need to be a bit more organized.

• Phone, email, or otherwise personally invite each person. Follow up a verbal invitation with a written notice that includes the estimated time (90 minutes for this group) and purpose of the meeting.
• Reserve a room and arrange for a recorder. If you have invited 40 people, set up the room for 30 and have spare chairs handy. It’s better to have every chair filled than to have large empty rows or a single person at a table with eight chairs. You also want everyone to participate easily so if you expect more than a dozen, arrange for two recorders and/or someone to tape the session.
• Plan to have some kind of refreshments. You are building relationships, as well as gathering information, so prepare as if you are inviting people to your home. If you serve coffee, make arrangements for tea, add bottled water to a selection of soft drinks, and show that you are attentive to individual differences by your choice of food.
• People may not know each other (so nametags will probably be appropriate) and they will undoubtedly arrive at different times so I suggest you begin with the kind of flexible, interactive activities that Eva Schindler-Rainman called “raggedy beginnings.” Start a graffiti wall and invite people to respond to posted words and phrases or build a group mind map surrounding your proposed project. Pass out forms for people to interview someone to introduce later. Even do a silly party ice breaker that can be easily stopped when most of the group has arrived.
• Thank everyone for coming. Remind them of the purpose of the meeting (to help the agency collect ideas and resources about XYZ). If the raggedy beginning didn’t involve interviewing someone else, ask everyone to introduce themselves and answer one specific question related to the topic of the day. (Give your name, agency or job title, and one service that would make life better for homeless/elderly/young people in our community. Or, tell us how you would benefit if we expanded the music academy.)
• Restate the purpose and expectations of the meeting • once again and review or teach the four basic guidelines for brainstorming:

• Criticism is ruled out.

• Freewheeling ideas are welcome.

• Quantity is wanted.

• Combination and improvement are sought.

• Decide which of the eight possible outcomes (potential partners; additions or subtractions from your project design; barriers and gaps; community resources; history of what does and doesn’t work; desired benefits; community supporters; and prospective funding streams) you want to elicit through group process and which you want to collect through personal observation.
• You may want to brainstorm more than one question, but limit the number to three. If you used the graffiti wall as a raggedy beginning, start with one of those topics and add suggestions. Look at the questions from the questorming session to see which ones might be applicable.
• Expect a pause after a rush of ideas. Be patient and give people permission to dig deeper for comments they think are silly or impractical. You’ll find someone brave enough to make a suggestion—and then the ball will get rolling again.
• If there is time and you want help in setting priorities, ask people to rank the suggestions that have been made. An easy way to do this if ideas are posted on newsprint around the room is to give each person three colored stickers to affix to the three suggestions they think have the most merit, should be implemented first, or another ranking criteria you select. If ideas were taped or are not easily accessible, distribute half sheets of brightly colored paper and ask people to list three answers to the ranking question you raise. (Brightly colored paper is as an important ingredient as the choice of refreshments, since it’s another detail that says you put time and energy into planning this day and you will find and appreciate the feedback they provide.)
• Ten minutes before you said the meeting would end, ask if there are any final comments, summarize the main contributions, and thank everyone for coming. Stand by the door to say thank-you and good-bye to everyone as they leave.
• Clean up and transcribe the notes. Condense them to one page and send them with a thank-you note to everyone who attended. Also send them with a note to the people who didn’t attend saying you missed them and wonder if they have anything to add to the group’s feedback.

Read More : Idea To Writing Grant Proposal - Brainstorming with People Who Know

Idea To Writing Grant Proposal - Questorming with Key People

Let’s go back a step and examine the basic questions and problems your project is addressing by asking questions like those raised earlier when you were refining a purpose statement. Questorming is a variation of brainstorming developed at MIT in the 1950s that focuses on asking questions rather than seeking solutions. If your proposed project is broad and somewhat fuzzy (and it should be at this point), questions like those below will help you develop a more concise, focused problem formulation.
What are the best questions we should be asking in order to do this project?

• What should we ask to determine whether or not this project should beundertaken?
• What do we need to ask to evaluate the impact of this project?
• What are likely to be the consequences of implementing this project?
• Are we lacking critical information before proceeding further? If so, how can we get it?
• What cross-disciplinary skills and information would be useful in conducting this research?
• Who are the stakeholders? How do we include them in meaningful ways?
• Have we covered all the major possibilities? Are we overlooking anything?

Gather two or three people who are key to the success of your project. If you are the executive director of a community agency, you might invite the board president and/or appropriate committee chair, the advisory committee chair, and the program director or a key staff member already working in this field. If you are considering a research project, choose people in your own and related departments who have the experience and skills you will need. If this is a thesis project, ask your committee. Send an invitation memo that invites them to a 30- to 40-minute session to consider the questions you need to ask about the proposal focus from your mind map. If your office is too small to meet comfortably, reserve a conference room. Ask a friend or clerical support person to be your recorder and you’re all set. You can either ask the questions yourself to guide the discussion or enlist the help of your advisor or a facilitator but your main role is to listen.

Remember this is questorming, so focus on eliciting questions rather than answers. The results of the meeting should be another list of questions. Here are some that came from asking the question: “What are the best questions we need to ask to provide support services for unemployed residents in our community?”
What services are currently provided by the state, • county, community colleges, and other agencies?

• What kinds of jobs are available? For unskilled workers? For high school graduates? For seniors? For people with an arrest record?
• What are the characteristics of people who are unemployed? Of discouraged workers?
• What job search skills are most effective?
• Who is providing job training?
• What skills do previously employed workers have? Those who have never been employed? What new skills do they need?
• What barriers exist for job seekers? Transportation? Relevant skills? Uniforms or professional clothing? Child care? Other?

If the questions expand your list of things to do, that’s okay. The process will help refine and make the finished program design sharper and more realistic. For a sense of closure, however, you might finish with questions like:

• Is the research question I’m asking answerable?
• Have the questions underlying the proposed project been addressed?
• Are we asking the best questions for this stage of the proposal process?
• What kind of resources do we have within this group? Time? Space?  Information? Skills? Materials? What do we need?

Finish the session with a brief recap of the main questions that have emerged, thank the participants for their time and assistance, and promise to keep them in the loop as you move forward. Within the next couple of days, transcribe and condense the questions that were generated into a one-page document. Send this sheet to each person at the meeting with another note of thanks. File the back-up material because you will want to use some of the details in your proposal. Keep the summary handy, however, to serve as a road map for the work you will be doing in the next few weeks.

Read More : Idea To Writing Grant Proposal - Questorming with Key People