- Never write a
proposal if you have not first fully developed the project.
Otherwise, you have nothing to write about.
- There is no
such thing as a fill-in-the-blank proposal that can be just mailed
to a list of potential funders. Don't write one proposal and
then mail it out to a bunch of potential funders.
- Have multiple,
fully-developed projects on the shelf, ready for proposal writing
and you will always be able to meet proposal deadlines.
- Each grant
maker should receive a different, highly personalized proposal,
fitting "to the letter" whatever guidelines s/he requires.
- Write
persuasively - you're selling a concept. You're not writing a term
paper.
- Remember the
reader. Write so the reader, any reader from any profession, can
read your proposal.
- No jargon.
Simple, clear, concise sentences.
- Never, ever
cheat on margins, pages, words - on anything. After all, if you will
cheat on the proposal then what in the world will you do with the
money!
- When
developing a budget, think project budget first.
List every penny it will take to run the entire project.
Don't forget support staff, copying charges, postage,
memberships, telephone charges, meeting costs, and all the
"hidden" expenses. Then
think, what part of this budget is appropriate to request from the
funder. No grant maker will fund every cent of a project.
They want to see your investment.
Then put together an itemized list for the part of the
overall budget you're requesting from the funder - the request
budget. Use this
request budget to fill out the grant maker's summary forms.
Remember the forms you see are just summaries of line items,
not the budget itself - the budget itself are those line items you
used to complete the summary.
- Grant makers
want good proposals. They
will help you. Call
them and ask questions - but be sure you've done your homework first
and that you're not asking a question already answered in their
literature.
- There's no
trick to grant seeking. It's
not a game. It requires
good planning and hard work. Planning
the project out thoroughly is the single best thing you can do to
insure a good proposal.
- Be careful not
to write sentences that sound pretty but don't say anything.
"We will put the project to the test by studying factors
that have some opportunity of enhancement of its various facets to
lead to successful working partnership."
Huh? There are some nice words in there - they flow off the
tongue trippingly, but do they say anything?
No. How about
this? "Project
evaluation will include a pre- and post-questionnaire of
participants with questions specifically designed to measure their
perceptions of the effectiveness of the community partnership"
.
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