Hello everybody, Dennis Chamberlain here with the National Philanthropy Resource Center
and your nonprofit tip of the week.
This week I want to talk to you about some quick tips to jump start your grant writing program.
Creating a winning grant proposal not only makes sense for your organization,
but it also allows you to take advantage of those funding opportunities that pop up from time to time.
You can find a list of grant makers that will support your program by visiting
online resources like the Foundation Center, or you can walk directly into your local community
foundation and ask them for assistance in finding funding sources that will support programs like
yours. These community foundations will be happy to help you navigate the list of potential funding
sources that can help support your organization and it's free. So as you begin crafting your
grant proposal, most grant makers are going to want to see the following 11 elements in your
proposal. The first is a cover letter that's signed by senior management or your executive director.
The second is a one-page proposal summary. A lot of funding sources like to review your
summary first before they go into the full proposal. The next element that you'll want
to include into your grant proposal is a history of your organization. Then you'll want to provide
a very detailed description of the issue for which you're seeking funding. Then you'll want to
provide a description of the problem that you see that lies within this issue. Then you're going to
want to establish objectives for the program that you've created to address these issues or problems.
Next, you're going to want to describe the methods by which you're going to bring about change.
After that, you're going to want to explain and define how you describe success. So what is it that
needs to occur in order for your program to be successful in the eyes of the funding source?
What is the budget that you've allocated for this program? And then lastly, you're going to want to
include any appropriate and relevant attachments, either attachments that pertain to the materials
that you've discussed, or attachments that have been requested by the funding source. Examples of
that might be letters of your tax exempt status, members of your board of directors, resumes of
key personnel, table of organization, and other issues or in other documents. Now the various
attachments that you might be asked to include in your proposal will vary depending on the funding
source that you are submitting your proposal to. But some things to keep in mind will be that it
might oftentimes include a copy of your 990. And increasingly so, funding sources are requesting
copies of your audited financials. So if your financials aren't being audited, you might want
to consider beginning that process. So those are some key tips to jumpstarting your grant writing
program. For the National Philanthropy Resource Center, I'm Dennis Chamberlain, and that's your
tip of the week.
