Tips for Successful Grant Writing

For many people, there is nothing more frightening than staring down a blank page. Yet this is often the best place to start. Time and again, I have seen grant writers held back in their creativity because they take as their starting point the last proposal written for a project. Doing that perpetuates mediocrity and never results in a fresh, inspiring proposal.

Each proposal you write should address not only the organization but the specific person who will read your proposal, which is why you need a fresh start. If the person who will read your proposal is familiar with your program, don’t start out with a detailed description of how the program works — they already know that. Tell them first about all of the good that has been done as a result of their grant. If recognition is important to the organization, be sure to stress that near the beginning of the proposal.

If the sight of a blank page is holding you back, the The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Grant Writing, 2nd Edition CD included with my book provides a Narrative Builder tool. It asks you to answer a series of questions. The Narrative Builder saves your answers and, when you have completed them, assembles them into a logical sequence, which serves as the first draft of your proposal. It’s a quick way to take a fresh look at how you describe your program and break away from deadly boilerplate text.