HOW TO WRITE A WINNING GRANT PROPOSAL

In writing grant proposals, one has to think of the end result i.e. what you intend to gain from the endeavour, for you to take the decision to write a grant that means you have a valuable research or a great endeavour you are passionate towards achieving and are ready to go the whole way. It could be for a charitable work or a personal project etc. but you must have a clear picture of what you are seeking and the aim in achieving it.

In creating anything to garner your desired result there is definitely a required know how to doing it, its not so different in the area of looking for money for your enterprise. There are definitely difficulties in finding funding’s for your business especially with the rise of online scams and such, most private profit enterprise finds it difficult to get grants. but as stated earlier it is difficult but not impossible, lots of start-up firms have won big grants and gained great results from that, all these depend on the know how to getting the results your desire.

First,

WHAT IS A GRANT?

It is simply a request for an investment in a non profit or profit project/venture. Grants are generally given to non-profit organizations for programs and services that benefit the community (because really, who doesn’t like a good cause associated to their name?) or specific groups of the general public.

There are certain exceptions to getting grants for profit-oriented businesses as long the funds are geared towards again specific products that improves the quality of life.

The following are tips on how to write a winning grant proposal.

STEPS

COVER LETTER: Write a strong/ winning cover letter. Your cover letter is the perfect opportunity to capture your investors’ attention, there play a great role in getting the attention of the targeted investors for as we are forever aware first impressions play a vital role.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Start with a short executive summary. It is a proposal summary of the entirety of the proposal such as; introducing your business, market segment, proposal, project goals. This shouldn’t be too much be brief but explicit i.e. a desert before the main course meal.

INTRODUCTION: Introduce your organization. Share as much information as you can about your company’s history, goals, philosophy, expertise, client feedbacks, recommendations. You need to show that your company has the capacity and ability to deliver.

NEED/PROBLEM STATEMENT: This is where you explain why your community has a need and how you can provide a solution, how you will make a difference. You will need to do extensive research on the problem to best pass the message across. For this is the juiciest part of your grant proposal (pardon my analogy) you must convince the funder that what you propose to do is essential and your organization is the best at getting it done.

GOALS & OBJECTIVE: State your goals and objective. Write about your desired outcome, goals and objective should be separated for their serve different purposes. State what your organization plans to do about the problems, you must be specific.

METHODS, STRATEGIES: How you intend to implement your goals and strategies in place. Walk the funder through the process of exactly how you intend to achieve your goals and strategies, give them everything to the tiniest detail who will do what and how long it will take to accomplish what etc.

EVALUATION SECTION: Evaluating your work. How you intend to get feedback that your work is causing your stated changes, how is the money being spent and the changes it is already causing (tell me what you are doing with my money, definitely not frying beans). So, decide how you will evaluate your work progress and include details, keep records of even the money you used to buy Tom Tom and how it helped the work progress (hope you got my point).