Tips for Successful Grant Writing

So you’ve subscribed to an expensive online database that promises to contain all you need to know about grant makers. You find several prospects whose interests match your project. Time to start writing the cover letter, right?

No! You’ve just taken the first step in researching these funders. Why?

1. Never depend on one source of information to tell you all you need to know about a funder. Online databases might be out of date or have errors. Confirm everything by visiting the funder’s own website. But don’t consider the funder’s site the final word either. Many are very of our date. Check out the funder’s 990PF form on Guidestar.org or a similar site to see what grants they have actually made.

2. You need to know everything about the funder, but you also need to know about the people associated with the funder. This is important to find possible connections with your nonprofit and also to help you personalize the cover letter. If the person you are addressing is a recognized authority on the subject of your project, you’ll write to them in more technical language than to someone who isn’t. And if you discover the addressee has kids in the same school system as the one for which you’re seeking support, you can refer to activities she might know about.

It’s not enough to describe your project — you need to make a convincing case for why the funder should support your project rather than one of the other hundreds (or thousands) of proposals it receives. “Making the case” should be the primary focus of your proposal, and everything you write should support your case.

So what’s your “case?” In fundraising, we use “case” to mean the reason or argument that states convincingly why someone should support your cause. If your charity is a food bank, your case would involve why your charity is uniquely equipped to distribute food to the needy. It’s not enough to state how many people you feed. You must go beyond that to explain how your food bank works efficiently or reaches hard-to-reach populations, for example.

Organizations offering arts education frequently reply on secondary effects of the arts to convince funders to make a grant. One of the most common arguments for providing arts education is that many studies have shown that studying the arts helps students perform better on standardized tests. Other studies have shown how the arts improve specific life-skills, like critical analysis and empathy with other people. It can be dangerous, however, to quote general studies that use programs that differ in the details from your own. Always assume the funder has read the entire study and don’t quote findings out of context. (Check out my reference links for making the case for the arts.)

Whatever your “case,” you need to state it succinctly and convincingly. It should not contain unsupported assertions or leave unanswered questions. When the funder reads it, you want him or her to think “yes.” That “yes” will hopefully lead to another “yes” at the end of your proposal and result in a grant for your charity.

In December I’ll be giving two grant writing seminars.

December 7, Arts Council of Rockland, Garnerville, NY. Grant Writing: Beyond the Basics, will explore specific ways to create strong proposals that are competitive in today’s economic climate.

December 14, New York Foundation for the Arts, Brooklyn, NY. Introduction to Grant Writing, includes all the aspects of the process of creating a grant proposal from initial research to follow up after submission.

Both seminars are open to individual artists and arts organizations. Contact the specific organizations about registration.

Reporting to a funder on a successful project is the first and most important step in receiving a second grant. When a foundation or other funder makes a grant, they want it to make a difference and for you (!) to make a difference. A job well done is a stronger endorsement of your nonprofit than any letter for reference or brilliantly constructed rationale for funding. So, what makes a good grant report?

Your grant report will have all the elements of good writing that you use in a proposal: clear, jargon-free language, positive language, and a well ordered narrative. Heading and sub-headings will make your report more readable. It may be helpful to the funder if the topics in your report follow those in your original proposal. So if you wrote about method first and then execution of the service you offer in the proposal, proceed in the report in the same format. And if you promised any specific measurements of success in your proposal, be sure you include them in the report.

Many funders require, and it’s always a good idea, to create a table showing your proposal budget and your actual income and expenses side by side. Any discrepancies of more than 10% should be explained in note to the budget. It’s inevitable that there will be differences, but there should be a concrete reason for them.

“What,” you might ask, “if the project did not turn out as planned? If the number of people served was greatly different than expected or the project wasn’t completed on time?”

Well – first of all, don’t let yourself get to the point of writing the report and to discover this. It is your job as a grant writer* to keep in touch with the people running programs so that you will know well before the grant period ends if it has progressed as planned.

If you find out that problems have arisen that will prevent the project from ending as expected and/or on time, you must first work out with the program people how you can make a success of this (for example, by working on the project longer) or how you can explain to the funders why the project ended differently and what you learned from that experience.

Secondly, you need to contact the funder to let them know what has happened. This is best done with a phone call rather than in writing. You want to be able to judge the funder’s reaction to the problem before going into unnecessary details.

Remember that funders want you to succeed, so if you need more time, ask for it, but do so before the end of the grant period. Also, when asking for an extension, ask for the maximum you think is needed. You don’t want to have to ask for a second extension, which may not be granted.

Sometime, projects just don’t work out. If you can explain clearly what went wrong (or just differently) and demonstrate that you learned lessons from that experience that will make your future programs stronger, you can still use the report to pave the way for another grant.

For more on grant reports, get my book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Grant Writing.

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*I refer here to grant writers who are employees of a nonprofit or work on an ongoing basis as a consultant. If your relationship ended with completing the proposal, you’re off the hook for the report.

No one will want to pay you (at least, not much) to write your first grant. So how do you get started earning money from grant writing? You will need samples of your grant writing to show potential clients and references from satisfied clients. Volunteering to help a small community group raise money with a couple of grants is a great way to get samples and references.

Then you have to determine how much to charge. Professional grant writers do not work on commission but for a fixed fee or for an hourly rate. A very simple grant prepared by a new grant writer might cost $250, but a complicated government application prepared by an experienced grant writer could earn several thousand dollars. There are a lot of factors that determine price. You can read more about pricing and building a resume and portfolio on my web site, grantadviser.com/freelance.html.

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.

Just think about what it must be like to be a program officer at a large foundation. Every day, the mail and email bring new proposals to be considered, most from very worthy and qualified nonprofits. Each must be read through and digested to decide if the foundation should consider them or not.

Now think what’s it’s like to open one of those proposals and encounter bad grammar, stilted use of language, jargon, and catch phrases. My guess is that that proposal moves to the bottom of the pile.

Now imagine opening a proposal written in a conversational tone. It feels like someone from the nonprofit is right there explaining to you what they do and why they deserve funding. The proposal doesn’t try to impress you with highbrow language, but rather with the quality of work done by the nonprofit. Top of the pile for this one!

On my web site, you can read more about writing well in "Writing a Proposal They Will Want to Read."

Fundraisers must, of necessity, remain optimistic even in the bleakest times. But is the language you’re using reflecting a positive approach? Read a new article on my web site on The Power of Positive Writing.