A Process for Writing Grant Proposals
Designed specifically for Milan Puskar Health Right (Health Right)
Congratulations! You have chosen a rewarding endeavor to pursue. You may be in for a bit of a surprise if you have never written a grant proposal before. While writing is definitely involved, the majority of the work is research.
Know YOUR organization
The first thing you will always need to know is the detailed description of the organization for which you are seeking funds or services. This includes the purpose, history, functions, and needs of your organization.
One of the best places to start building this knowledge is by reading their pamphlets, brochures, newsletters, and websites. If you are visiting onsite, read the posters and announcements on the walls, familiarizing yourself with their policies, programs, and suggestions.
Specifically, for example, Health Right produces at least one newsletter a year. They create pamphlets and brochures for new programs, such as the Dental Program and Adopt-A-Smile. When funds or donated supplies are available, they print fliers for upcoming events. Posters offering preventative and restorative health and wellness suggestions line the walls of the facility. Charts with pay scales and appointment policies are posted near the pharmacy and receptionist windows. Specific members of staff maintain both a professional website and a Facebook page, and the current Volunteer Coordinator uses Twitter to keep volunteers and employees abreast of new and changed activities as well as the appearance of sudden and unexpected need for assistance. In other words, information upon which to build a base of knowledge is readily available.
Additional and more specific information about costs and material needs for services and programs are provided as the need arises. Programs may be postponed due to insufficient support. The search for grant makers may suddenly change direction based on a new government program or reduction of specific funds. A donation of supplies for a specific program can bring a formerly unfeasible program into the realm of possibility, opening the door for grant making needs in that direction. The important thing to understand is that the funds are typically strained and desperately needed at all times. It is simply the directional priority and urgency that changes.
Know the basics about TAX STATUS
The IRS website can be a bit overwhelming but is an important aspect of the nonprofit’s full picture. Nonprofit tax forms are the 990’s. This is also a number you will look for when you research the pdf tax forms of possible grant makers to see if they are or donate to nonprofit organizations.
The actual status number for a nonprofit is a 501c. There are several possible subcategories that follow in brackets: 501c (1), 501c(2), etc. The numbers in brackets denotes the specific organizational type of nonprofit information, such as religious, government, educational, etc. It is typically not necessary to know more than your organization’s status code. Health Right is a 501c (3).
Know how to find GRANT MAKERS
Make it a game.
Finding grant makers can be an enjoyable undertaking if you like puzzles and scavenger/treasure hunts. Creating lists of potential grant makers is the first game piece. An excellent place to look is online, although not necessarily staying to the sites on which the lists are found. Often, it seems that sites with extensive lists do not provide much information about the names on those lists. For a more productive search, input individual foundation names into a major search engine and see if they have an official site.
If a company is listed on a grant locating site and the company has an official site of their own, there is a good possibility that they will have a “Grant” tab or subsection on their homepage. If so, they should provide the requirements for grant seekers. These might include areas of research, service, or industry, such as medical, educational, biochemistry, farming; locale or government, such as a specific metro-area, state, or region; or demographic, such as one gender, particular ethnicity or religion, age group, etc.
It is important to look for restrictions that will prohibit your organization from being considered. The sooner any restrictions are discovered, the less time is wasted reading through the material and allowing unwarranted hope to rise. It is entirely all too common to spend anywhere from a few minutes to even a day or more researching and even applying for grants that seem a perfect fit, only to find the deadly caveat hidden at the bottom or, worse, on the phone at the end of the application. These surprise endings have transpired in the form of fine print stating recipients must be residents of a specific California county, or that there must be a representative for the grant maker’s company within the recipient’s state.
One of the most absurd dead ends spread across the bottom of a web page that contained all manner of wonderful information and promises of assistance. The programs used to update the page had obviously been made within the past five years. Centered across the bottom of the page was the announcement “This Foundation No Longer Makes Grants as of “ and gave a date more than a decade past. Given the hopeful tone of the page, it is likely that many people and organizations had wasted hours considering the information, making notes and even starting the proposal drafts.
While some sites seem to restrict their grants by wording – “does not make grants for the purpose of medicine” or “recipients must reside within the southern portion of the state – it does not necessarily mean they will not consider making a grant to your organization if there is any possible correlation. Of course, if the organization specifically limits their grants to animal rescue groups, the odds of a successful grant solicitation by Health Right are probably less than zero. However, if the organization’s restrictions include the requirement that education must be involved, it may be possible to receive a small grant for Health Right’s ongoing Health Education as well as the brochures and pamphlets that outline preventative, continual, and restorative dental care. If the requested amount of the grant proposal is modest, it is entirely possible that a well-worded petition might be considered an acceptable extenuated contender for assistance. It is important to remember that the grant programs have been set up by people and groups who desire to support the various efforts of others. The key is to find the most likely matches of desire to give with your organizations need to acquire and treat the discovery with attention and courtesy.
A grant maker may list its former grant recipients without listing its requirements. In such cases, investigating these recipients can help identify similar causes and therefore possible sources. Again, the same considerations for the causes of other recipients should be reviewed in the same manner as the restrictions of those who identify their requirements: it is highly unlikely that pursuing a grant-maker whose history of grant making is filled with agricultural schools dedicated to farming coffee beans will result in funds for Health Right; but if the grant maker’s former benefactors included social organizations and food pantries, they may be interested in assisting Health Right support their Out Reach and Shower Programs.
Don’t be disheartened if there is no information on their website about grant making. If they are listed on a grant maker site, they have, at the very least, provided funding through grant making at some point in the past. The place to look may be their tax forms. The charitable contributions are listed toward the end of the form. The more contributions they have made, the greater the amount of information at the end of the form. These are the 990 forms and can often be discovered simply by typing the name of the grant maker and “990” in the search bar. Wikipedia is a surprising source of tell-tale information on companies and foundations that do not have readily discoverable sites or tax forms. By reading over the history of a person, family, group or company, you can discover passions and causes to which they donated. Often a reference to another company will provide a new clue and the search can head in that direction.
Again: it is important to look out for the restrictions. While you should not let them automatically stop you, it is important not to waste time researching companies that only fund desert pipeline development when looking for a foundation that may help defray the cost of fifty tooth extractions.
NOW You Can Write? NO
Back to Your Organization for Requirements
Once you have a possible grant maker, it’s time to…start writing? No. It’s time to research the grant proposal requirements in context of your organization and its needs. If it’s been a while since you reviewed the organization’s material (websites, pamphlets, newsletters, etc.), it is usually a good idea to refresh your memory.
Also, be sure to ask if there is any new information, whether it originates within the organization or affects it from an outside source. For instance, legislative maneuvers are a constant source of upheaval within nonprofit organizations. A sudden budget cut to one program can cause a ripple effect throughout the entire list of programs. They may also increase the number of applicants seeking similar assistance, making the appeal of your approach an even more pointed issue.
New programs that are just getting off the ground or others that are coming to an end may impact the way you approach a grant maker. For example, imagine there is a “floss and toothbrush monthly giveaway” program that has been very successful. Although it had topped the organization’s list of thriving achievements, the allotment from the business donating the floss and toothbrushes has recently been exhausted. It would be very important to be sure that any mention of the program be made in the past tense and in a tactful manner that will impress the possible grant maker with both the need for funds and the organization’s ability to use the funds well. To refer to a program as active when it has actually become defunct demonstrates a lack of attention to detail, an undesirable characteristic in almost any case, but certainly when involving money.
The more you know about the past, current and future programs and services provided by your organization, the more confident and solid your request to the grant maker will be.
A Specific Program
In general, grant-makers prefer to know exactly what program or service they are funding. Once you have located their requirements for applicants, or if you have ascertained that they apparently fund programs relevant to your organization, begin defining the attributes of the program for which your organization is hoping to receive funding and the difficulties it faces due to lack or potential lack of that funding. Some grant makers will ask for specific information, perhaps the portion of the population most affected by the program or that which would suffer most greatly without it (these are not always the same – as an example, mothers may benefit most from a program but their children would suffer the most without it).
One of the best methods for understanding the assets, needs, and challenges of any program is to meet with the staff responsible for it. If you need information about the dental programs, have a meeting with the dental hygienist in charge. They should be able to provide the clearest understanding of the program as well as be the most invested. This personal investment provides additional motivation that should ensure clear identification of goals.
When collecting this type of verbal data, it is a good practice to have some questions ready, whether they are directly from the grant maker or you composed them from observations you have made on your own. Record the information the program specialists offer and the answers they give. To be sure you understand the situation correctly, interpret in your own words whatever they have told you. If you do not understand completely, they should clarify and explain the situation again, perhaps differently. Exchange these definitions back and forth until they do not need to correct your interpretation any longer.
In some cases, you may find that you need additional information to either substantiate your claims or to elicit more reaction from the reader. In cases where your organization is perhaps in an ambiguous position for receiving funding – say located in the northern part of the state and the grant maker specifies that they only make grants to the lower part of the state – you may wish to look for statewide statistics that show the greatness of the need and partner them with facts indicating your organization’s unique or uncommon ability to meet that need. This is the tactic used in an appeal for funding for the Dental Program. The grant maker specified their desire to fund only programs and institutions in the southern and central portions of the state. Coupling the official statistics that reveal the statewide need for better adult dental care with the rare position Health Right occupies as a provider of dental referrals and basic but free dental care moves the attention away from the location restriction and onto the horrible problem shared by the whole state. Without the official statistics, the request for funding could be seen as willfully obtuse and inappropriate – as though Health Right is trying to take something away from other West Virginians.
NOTE: If you include outside source material, be sure to cite it clearly. Health Right does not currently have a stated citation style preference, so unless you are instructed to do otherwise, use the proper style you know most thoroughly so that you do not risk plagiarism.
NO ONE in Particular
On occasion, a possibility for a grant maker appears that is worth contacting but not investing a lot of time and/or energy in creating an in-depth proposal. It may be a remote possibility that has a very low rate of expected success. It may be for a source that is very unclear about their requirements, or that offers very small grants. It may be a rare general operating expenses grant opportunity.
Creating a concise general operating expenses grant proposal addresses any potential need without wasting valuable and perhaps scant resources on each situation as it arises. By including a clear, telling list of services and programs in the proposal, two possible issues have been addressed. For the immediate purpose, the broad spectrum of well-rounded programs has been outlined so that the thoroughness and level of involvement of the organization within the community is clear. In the event that the possible grant maker must or prefers to make grants only to specific programs or projects, a quick look at the list can identify areas in which they may become involved with your organization. By outlining the programs using bulleted lists, you can add an element of depth and design to the letter as well as make it easy to see the separate aspects of the organization’s structure, the components that make it valuable to the community.
Keeping this basic proposal concise also demonstrates an appreciation and respect for the grant maker and their time. With the common perception of grant proposals running several pages, a well-written page conveying enough information to illicit funds is amazingly efficient.
INCORPORATING
The section on brief, general operating grants is placed amidst the specific grant proposal section for the express purpose of showing its abbreviated form and how that form may be used to in the creation of the longer, more specific grant proposals. Unless there are some very strict rules regarding content, any grant for any reason will probably be enhanced by the inclusion of all the programs in delineated format. It helps clarify that the organization is a multifaceted organization, which lends an impression of stability while also taking the “you are our sole support” pressure off of the possible grant maker. It promotes an idea of joining rather than taking on burden. It may also bring awareness about additional programs to which they would wish to lend support.
SUPPORT
All requests for support should be presented with substantiating data. The need for funding must be explained in terms of number of state residences requiring help as provided by the services of the agency requesting help. To simply insist that the need is real will not suffice; rather, the need is real based on its occurrence within this portion of the population, which means that it is of significant necessity.
Use real numbers, quotable statistics as much as possible. To give a solid number is to give a definable reason for their provision of a funding in however that solid number is applicable to the topic. Recognizing that some of the numbers are more feasible than others, and then that the relevance is also a variable means that finding solid information is not as simple as finding any statistics that fit the topic. It is necessary that they are specifically, identifiably related and presented in such a way that it is impossible to claim they are filler or a distraction.
Substantiating numbers are significant for many reasons. They are the item that will move your proposal from the abstract into the specific. They are a quantitative component, measurable both in terms of input and success as well as a comparable effort to solution ratio. These numbers can be used to confirm that your organization is exactly who they say they are or that you do not know what the effect of your organization is and on whom. Make certain your numbers are correct.
ACTUAL Specifics
There are two proposal components over which you will have little and no control, no matter the circumstance. They are the history and the mission statement of the organization. While you may be able to trim down the history of the organization in order to fit it into a specific proposal, the mission statement is set and must be presented as it is in every document. The two items are usually included at the very beginning of every proposal. Trimming the history down to a single short paragraph was somewhat more difficult than one might imagine. However, it is important to include these two items in every proposal so that there answer to the questions “who are you?” and “what do you do?” are answered before approaching the “how much do you want from us to do what?”
Having answered these questions at the beginning of any document, you are free to demonstrate the need for the funding for the organization as demonstrated by your chosen data and numerical support, as discussed above.
While it is important to provide substantial information, it is also important to make certain it is relevant before including it. The possible grant makers are not interested in reading and considering any number of random pieces of information if it is unrelated or indefinably connected. The purpose for any information’s inclusion should be made clear if it is not automatically. For instance, when requesting funds for the Dental Program, it would not be necessary to explain that statistics regarding the number of fillings done in one county in a year are related to oral health. It would, however, be necessary to explain how instances of uncontrolled diabetes are related to oral health. The connection between the fillings and oral health is relatively obvious while the connection between uncontrolled diabetes and oral health is not, and a statistic about the number of auto accidents caused by drunk driving would have no place in the proposal.
So the structure of the grant proposal is the history mission statement of your organization; a description of the programs and services provided by your organization; a description of the specific need, service or program for which you are requesting financial support; any substantiating, relevant statistical data to clarify and highlight the need of the service or program; and the request for the grant.
The final section in which the specific amount is named is often going to be completed or significantly determined by another person. You may find that you are, in fact, creating and then leaving the majority of the proposal and will have to wait and see who finishes and signs it. Be sure to state all of the information they present to the possible grant maker in as clear and appreciative a manner as possible.
Be happy that you have contributed to the process of securing funds to continue in the good work your organization does. Health Right provides medical services for thousands upon thousands of community members every year. Contributing to Health Rights contribution to the community is a worthy endeavor. To do so with ongoing success is an invaluable source of hope and warmth.
Good luck and thank you!
stephanie barbian 