Organization’s mission
When funders ask for the grant applicant organization’s mission statement, they want to see the vision-driving string of words that communicates to the world your organization’s purpose. Be sure to limit your mission statement to a single sentence.
Purpose of the request
Compose a short, one-sentence statement about why you’re approaching this particular funding source. Does its mission align with your organization’s? Has it funded your organization previously? For example, “The purpose of this request is to seek your initial and ongoing funding to conduct research on emerging student evaluation indicators other than standardized testing and letter grades.”
Give dates for the project
Provide the proposed starting and ending dates of the project. You don’t have to figure exact days; just express the project dates according to month and year. Don’t forget to give the project a start date that’s at least six months into the future; funders need time to review and make decisions about who receives grant awards. Many funders specify when (month/year) they anticipate announcing awards. If a timeframe is specified in the application materials, target your start date to correspond with it.
Amount requested
Enter the amount you’re requesting from the funder (round off to the nearest dollar).
Total project cost
Include the total cost of the proposed project. Double- and triple-check to make sure the number you enter here matches the total cost of the project listed in the budget narrative and on the budget forms. (For more about budgets, check out Chapter 18.) For example, “The total project cost is $200,000.”
Geographic area served
Describe the location of your project in this order: city, county, state. You can even narrow your target-population area down to census tract numbers, specific names of neighborhoods, or congressional districts. (Some funding is designated for specific geographic regions within a state.) For example, “The geographic area is the District of Columbia. The 179 census tracts impacted are listed in Attachment 1.”
Signatures
Most federal government applications are submitted online through one of the feds’ e-grant portals, Grants.gov, so you type the requested contact information for the authorized contact person for your organization into a signature field box instead of submitting an original signature. Even foundations and corporations are using typed names for e-grant signature boxes.
Storytelling with facts
Over the years, the field of grant writing has shifted from technical “just the facts and nothing more” writing to a kinder, friendlier way of cozying up to the grantmaker’s decision-making staff. Now, if you want to secure a grant, you must put life, personality, and compassion into your request. This type of writing approach is referred to as storytelling.
Background/history of the grant applicant organization: Write with passion about your organization: its founding date, its purpose, its mission, and its location. Include quaint, not-so-common information about the founder and their reason for creating a nonprofit organization.If you’re writing about a unit of municipal government (city, town, township, village, hamlet, or county subdivision of government), include trivia on how the community was named, started, incorporated, and so forth. Also, include information on any major grant-topic-related accomplishments the grant applicant organization has achieved.
Current programs and activities: Write with excitement about the current initiatives the grant applicant organization is involved in. List in chronological order all the organization’s programs and activities.Include specific program names, dates started, and outcomes-to-date, such as the number of participants who have received services and the benefits they gained because of their involvement in the program.
Description/demographics of your constituency: Write with accuracy about the population the grant applicant organization provides services to. Include age range, gender, ethnicity, economic status, educational level, and other characteristic descriptors. The funder needs to know whom you serve and what’s special about your target population.Include a case scenario, a story about how a participant has encountered multiple life barriers and is now on a waiting list to be served by the grant applicant organization.
Description of community: Write with innate knowledge about your community’s makeup where the grant applicant organization is located or where its services will be provided. Describe the community by providing a combination of city and county information. This section is about the virtual picture of your community — facts and statistics — not trivia, which belongs in the background section.Use compelling words and colorful (but true!) descriptions; funders don’t want to read a book report about your town. Don’t just copy and paste census information from the Internet. Where you do use statistics, incorporate them into tables, graphics, and figures.Cite your sources, and don’t use statistics that are more than five years old. Copying and pasting information you find on the Internet is okay as long as you include a reference citation (footnote by copying the website address where you found the information). Just make sure your online sources are reliable. Never cite anything you find on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_a_reliable_source#:~:text=Wikipedia%20is%20not%20a%20reliable%20source%20for%20citations%20elsewhere%20on,progress%2C%20or%20just%20plain%20wrong.&text=Wikipedia%20generally%20uses%20reliable%20secondary,vet%20data%20from%20primary%20source).
Description of work with partnership agencies: Write about the grant applicant organization’s demonstrated partnership experiences with community, regional, state, and national partners. Create a table with header rows for partners and their roles with the grant applicant organization. You can even add a third column to the table for years of affiliation. You can’t copy and paste tables or other graphics into online e-grant