Grant proposals are increasingly accepted through online forms, but we don’t think paper proposals are going away any time soon. A significant percentage of foundations still request paper applications. But,  many of them don’t give many guidelines for putting one together. So that means you’re all on your own, staring at a blank Word document. What’s a grant writer to do?

Without guidelines, you should break your proposal down into sections, including:

Overview

Summarizing all parts of your proposal in one or two short paragraphs

Organization introduction

Who are you, and why are you the right organization for the job? What are your past accomplishments?

Need statement

Demonstrate a strong need within your community for you organization’s assistance.

Goals and objectives

Outlining what your program will achieve (it should fill the holes presented in the need statement)

Program activities

What exactly your organization will do to achieve these goals. Be as specific as possible.

Evaluation

Prove that you can measure whether you’ve made progress towards your objectives or fallen short.

Personnel

Who will be doing the work at hand and what are their qualifications?

Budget

What will it cost to run the program you’re proposing, and where will this foundation’s money go?

Learn more about our grant writing services here.