The grant system is an intrinsic part of the nonprofit industry. Corporations, governments, and other institutions often make capital and other grant resources available to support particular causes and issues. Nonprofit grant proposals are a means for NPOs to gain access to and make an argument for these funds. With this money, they can expand their impact and programming and better achieve their aims.
But, preparing a nonprofit grant proposal can be a heavy undertaking, especially for organizations with small teams and limited resources. It can also be quite confusing if you have no previous grant application experience. There are a lot of moving pieces to prepare and consider, including budgets, outlining your vision, project outlines, and more.
However, there are simple steps you can take to make the process seem less daunting. We’ll share them below.
Use these tips to write an effective nonprofit grant proposal.
Before beginning the proposal writing process, you need to analyze whether you have the capacity to complete the application. Do you meet the grant requirements? Can you provide all the necessary documentation and information? Ensure that you can finish it from the get-go before wasting time and realizing halfway.
You also have to consider if applying for the grant will work in your favor or not. Although it seems like a great way to get funds for your organization, a grant can come with complications. For example, the funding institution may have conditions and requests from your NPO as prerequisites for funding.
Evaluate whether you have the resources and capacity to meet these before applying. If you feel you do, make this a primary focus in your application. Show them how you can meet their conditions.
Cover letters introduce your organization to the funder and come right at the beginning of your proposal. This letter is an opportunity to tell the reader who you are and briefly spotlight your cause and work. A great cover letter will also outline what you’re asking for from the funder and why you’ve chosen to apply.
Use your cover letter to highlight your mission statement and the motivation behind your cause. Keep it (and other elements of your proposal) concise and to the point. You don’t want to confuse the recipient or overwhelm them with irrelevant information. Also, avoid repetition and redundancy.
Beyond simply telling the funder who you are, you need to provide evidence of your work, history, and capacity.
Introduce key members of your team and their roles and qualifications. Outline major points in your organization’s history, including previous funding and data showing your track record and capacity.
Essentially, you want to prove to them that you can manage funds competently by showing them that you have in the past.
Throughout your application, you need to link what you have to say to the grant and the foundation providing it. Don’t use the same proposal for every application you submit. You have to tailor it to the specific grant call.
Your Statement of Need is the perfect place to make this connection explicit. In this statement, you must show why you’re applying and why you need the support. Again, use data and facts to back your request and illustrate how their support will make a difference.
Your Statement of Need is a summary of your intentions with the funds and shows why you need the money. With your desired outcomes and project plan, you can provide a more in-depth look into where you intend on spending the money.
Desired outcomes are the goals of your project. What do you hope to achieve? Include the goals and corresponding programs that the grant will help fulfill. Stipulate desired outcomes over six months, a year, and three to five years. Going from the short- to long-term helps you illustrate how the grant will make a sustainable impact on your community and cause.
Your project plan must, then, clarify the practical steps you will take in achieving your outcomes. Explain how you will use the funds to meet each desired outcome.
The more detailed the plan, the better! So, you will want to allocate roles to staff members, propose timelines and milestones, break down outcomes into tasks and activities, etc.
Using your project plan, you can now design a budget. Calculate how much achieving each outcome will cost. In your calculations, consider operational costs like materials and stationery, equipment, permanent staff and volunteers, daily cash flow, and more.
Remember that your potential funders may not be in the nonprofit space. They may not understand some of the jargon and ways of engaging that are specific to your industry. Keep this in mind in compiling your proposal. It needs to make sense to someone with no prior insight into your organization or cause.
To check this, get an outside eye to read your proposal for you, someone with less involvement in the work you do. Use their feedback to further simplify your work if needed.
The last step in your grant proposal process is to go over it. Double-check:
Once you’ve completed your review, you can create an executive summary. This will come after your cover letter, summarizing the major points of your proposal and giving a table of contents.
A grant proposal is a written pitch for your organization to seek funds and support from institutions. As with any other pitch, it aims to sell your brand, vision, and project. For successful results, you must use data, clear articulation, and facts to persuade funders and make an argument for why they should fund you.
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