How Much Money Should I Ask For?

Most grant applications are very specific about how to calculate costs.  Don’t ask for a potential sponsor for $20,000 when their history suggests that they seldom give more than $5,000 per grant.

First Impressions, Do Your Best Writing Last

The first part of the proposal is most likely to be a summary or an abstract and limited to as little as 250 words to 500 words.  Complete the application first, by that time you ought to be focused and ready to have a few points.  Remember, this might be the only section a reviewer will read.

Be Very Specific About How The Project Will Be Successful

You may want to draw up a timetable to ensure that you tell what happens in what sequence.  You can make it easy for the evaluator to visualize the process. 

Explain What Will Happen After The Project

Evaluators will want to know if you planned ahead after your project is successfully completed.  What sort of follow-up will take place?  Will you need to seek more grant money or will you be able to carry on independently?

Hard Facts

Be sure to use statistics to describe your community, your population/clientele, and the problem you plan to address. 

Manners

If you receive a grant, be sure to send a thank you note.  If you don’t receive a grant, call them and politely ask why.  You may want to obtain answers that will provide you with the keys to writing a successful proposal the next go around.

Information You Should Provide In Your Proposal

The executive summary or abstract-In one page or less, this section should sum up everything.  It should be clear and compelling that the evaluator will want to know more.  If it unclear, the evaluator may well weed out you proposal without ever reading the rest of the application.

Statement of Need or Problem-This section tells why your project should be undertaken.  It should lead directly to project description in the next section, which will describe how you want to address the need.   Use accurate statistics and support your description of the problem.  Demonstrate that your organization as a thorough understanding of the specific issue and social issues that may be contributing factors.  Demonstrate that need or problem as you have described can be  partially solved.

Program Description

This section will explain what the grant will be used for .  The section should be broken down to subsections:  objectives, methods, staffing, and how you will evaluate whether you are meeting your objectives.

Budget

This section conveys the information that demonstrates your organizations ability to carry out the project successfully.  You will need to tell, when your organization was founded, its mission statement, the services your organization provides and the audience it serves, as well as, expertise of key staff members.

Conclusion

Summing up, you want to briefly reiterate your key points.  This is the section where you can become emotional and even share a quote from a client whose life has been changed for the better.