Proposal Writing and Grantseeking

It’s an often-used metaphor: funders want to pay for the water to put out a fire, but not the hose it takes to deliver the spray. How to make a compelling case for general operating support?

Everybody from Voltaire to Bill Clinton is credited with the quip: “If I had more time I would have written a shorter letter.” The truth buried in the quip is one that contemporary proposal writers grapple with. Many foundation application forms now routinely ask for the whole story, complete with details, in a 100-or-500-word box. It’s so easy to rattle on and on about your program, so hard to say it succinctly.

They say be sure you’re asking the right questions before you start to spell out your answers. “They” must have been thinking about a persuasive proposal. It’s important to frame the problem, the challenge or the opportunity first, and then go about telling how you’ll address it.

One of the most important elements in a persuasive proposal is the “qualifications and credentials” of the organization and its people who will actually carry out the work. It’s also one of the easiest to get wrong, or just wrong enough to derail the application. These are some of the mistakes nonprofits have made and some ways to avoid them.

Writing proposals and winning grants are important elements in the ecosystem of philanthropy. It’s easy to see the world through that lens – find the money, ask for the money, get and spend the money, rinse and repeat – but it might be helpful to think about the process in a different, more holistic way.

Nonprofits are often urged to “use storytelling” to make the case for support. There’s nothing, they say, like a compelling story to drive home the nature of the problem or the opportunity for action. At the same time, foundations ask specific questions and make specific requests for data to make the case: how many, how fast, what metrics, how to monitor and measure and plot your impact.

There’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears involved in creating a compelling, persuasive and fundable proposal. No wonder nonprofits put a lot of eggs in that basket. At the risk of a ticket from the metaphor police, maybe we need to spend more time caring for the chickens and ensuring that those eggs are well-nourished. A lot of work needs to be done before, and in preparation for, a terrific proposal. These are some of the important elements of the iceberg which lie below the surface.

Seems simple: you prepare and submit a proposal asking for a grant to help support the afterschool program, you get an award letter and a check – then it turns out that you really need the funds to go toward a high school mentoring project that’s run out of money. Well, it’s education, right? Helping kids? Shouldn’t be a big deal?

When it’s time to develop and present a proposal to a potential funder, there are a lot of things a nonprofit might do to improve its chances of a grant. Whatever those positive steps for your organization, here are some negatives—things that are a must to avoid—that apply to most organizations seeking funding.

Good news: the foundation has given you a grant, you’ve spent the money and now it’s time to submit an application for another award. This is an opportunity to create a “new top” for your story—a new headline, a fresh look at the challenges, a record of what’s been done and how that sets you up for what comes next. It’s also a chance to avoid sounding like “here we are again.”