Blog RSS Courses on proposal writing typically focus on the importance of writing clearly and avoiding jargon. While important, these tips alone will not lead to a winning proposal. Writing a high-quality proposal also involves remembering that proposals are scored, not read. If you write a well-written proposal but fail to consider how the reviewers will read and evaluate it, your proposal may not score well. ?For greater success in grant writing, remember that proposals are scored, not read.  Writing for the Target Audience Grant writing is challenging because of several factors. One ..read more

Finding grant opportunities to apply to is of central importance to most non-profit organizations. While a grant database is ideal for conducting prospect research, many non-profits lack access to a subscription database and instead rely on free sources such as Google and other search engines. A Google search on grant funding can generate an unwieldy number of results. While some of the results will be relevant, most will not be, and it can take a significant amount of time to separate the valid hits from the false leads. To help those of you relying on Google to find funding opportunities, we ..read more

Blog RSS August 1, 2023 When you come across a funding opportunity that looks like a good fit, it can be tempting to start work on it immediately, especially if the deadline is only a few weeks away. But jumping into the writing phase without first reading through the solicitation carefully is always risky. Among other things, it can lead you to miss an important deadline: the deadline for submitting questions to the funder about the solicitation. To ensure your proposal will be responsive and compliant with the funder’s guidelines, you should always seek clarification from the funder on anyth ..read more

Blog RSS June 1, 2023 If you work on certain kinds of grant proposals, particularly proposals for research grants, you must cite sources that support your proposed solution and provide evidence of related work and data. Proposals for community-based projects often require references as well, such as citations to government reports, public datasets, or news articles. Proposal teams often struggle to create systems for organizing background research and correctly citing sources in their proposals. The result is that the decision of how to manage references is often not made until after the propo ..read more

Blog RSS April 30, 2023 We’ve written several posts over the years about how to write grants. We’ve also written about the pros and cons of being a grant writer. But one thing we haven’t done is write about how to become a grant writer. We’re going to cover this topic now, sharing three different paths. THREE COMMON PATHS TO BECOMING A GRANT WRITER 1. Work on a Project for a Nonprofit or Academic Institution By far, the most common way that people learn how to write grant proposals is by working for a program at a nonprofit or academic institution that is wholly or partially dependent on grant ..read more

Blog RSS April 03, 2023 Grant proposals have at least two parts: the project narrative and the budget (aka cost proposal). If you work for a large nonprofit, different people may be assigned to work on the narrative and cost proposal, with the two groups meeting periodically throughout the proposal process to ensure the sections are in sync. At a small nonprofit, there may not be a division of responsibilities between the cost and narrative proposals, leaving the project lead (or the grant writer) to both write the proposal narrative and prepare the budget.  Assigning one person to be the ..read more

Blog RSS March 01, 2023 If you are wondering if it is a viable strategy to write one proposal and submit it as-is to multiple funders, the basic answer is no, it’s not advisable. There are some limited exceptions, which we get into later, but that’s the general rule. Writing a proposal and sharing it with multiple donors via email usually doesn’t lead to success for several reasons. First, most funders do not accept unsolicited proposals, which are proposals submitted to a funder essentially at random and not in response to a specific request for proposals (RFPs). If an organization email ..read more

Blog RSS February 01, 2023 It isn't easy to edit your own writing. Because you know what you meant to write, your eye will often gloss over misspellings, missing words, and incorrect word choices. Even when you are determined to slow down and read what you’ve written word-for-word, it’s almost impossible to resist skimming some sections. Sometimes you may find yourself skimming inadvertently, and other times it may be by choice when you think you’ve reviewed a passage enough. By choice or by accident, it’s hard to look at something you’ve written with the level of attention required to do a co ..read more

Blog RSS January 01, 2023 Like many of you, we’ve worked on grant proposals that have not come together easily, and the final product feels mediocre at best. Despite their weaknesses, sometimes the proposals still get funded, but that’s the exception, not the rule. Is there a way to avoid the risk of submitting a weak proposal that has little chance of getting funded? After seeing a few proposal turnarounds, where mediocre proposals have been transformed into much stronger ones, we’ve found three steps that can work wonders. These three steps, while distinct, are interconnected in that they al ..read more

Blog RSS December 03, 2022 If you are preparing a proposal for a U.S. government (USG) agency, center, or institute such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or the National Science Foundation (NSF), you probably already know that it can be a complex, confusing undertaking. And if you haven’t applied for USG funding yet but are considering doing so, one of the things that might be factoring into your decision-making is the difficulty of the application process. One of the reasons why USG funding opportunities are so daunting is that you usually need to consult multiple documents located ..read more