Steps to Writing a Grant Proposal

Steps to Writing a Grant Proposal

HSM 270

September 18, 2011

Debra Smith

Steps to Writing a Grant Proposal

All human service organizations have the same issue; funding. Grants are usually are not given to for profit businesses, so they have to rely on revenue and loans to keep running. Non-profit organizations rely heavily on government grants and donations to continue working.

A grant proposal has precise information that must meet the guidelines of the funding agency. Most grant proposals involve; why the funds are needed, what the funds will be used for, and how the funds will be managed. (Newell, n.d.) There are many important steps that should be followed when writing a grant proposal. The first step is to locate the Request for Proposal. The RFP is your most important source of information. It outlines the information according to how the grantor plans to review it. When developing a proposal it is important to follow the RFP guidelines carefully because about half of all federal and foundation grant proposals are rejected due to the fact that they are unsatisfactorily organized or they do not accommodate to the Request for Proposal’s guidelines. We all understand that there are never enough funds to go around, but the difference between a winning and losing proposal can be as simple as being organized. Once the appropriate Request for Proposal has been located, the next step is to write an abstract of your proposal. An abstract is a summary of the proposal that typically includes the following information; name of agency, type of organization, purpose and objectives of the project, specific interventions for the project, target population, location and setting of project, and relevance of the proposed project to the funding intentions.

The next phase of the proposal submission is the table of contents. This page is basically the roadmap for readers to understand the arrangement of the applicant proposal and helps them to locate the information...