What is the Secret to Successful Grant Writing?

How Does Your Mission Connect to the Funder’s Interest?

Know your prospective funder in depth! Know what they fund and what matters most to them — and know who you are as a nonprofit and what your funding priorities are.

Don’t mold your request to meet a funder’s interest. Align yourself with your organization’s highest intentions, and ensure your grant writer knows how to tell a compelling story that connects the dots between your needs and the funder’s interests.

— Terri Miller from NP2

Focus on the Substance of Your Pitch Over Perfectionism

In my early professional years, I spent so much time making sure there were no typos, that the formatting was perfect, etc.

While these aspects are important, I eventually realized it is so much more critical to focus on what you are trying to communicate and how you are communicating it, and contextualizing your pitch within the current narrative(s) of your community, society, and/or the world.

A missed comma will be forgiven, I promise! Unsupported or half-supported ideas and arguments, not so much.

— Alice Rossignol, Nonprofit Consultant

Avoid AI Shortcuts and Put Yourself in the Donor’s Shoes

Some suggest grant writing can be done by AI. A client tried that a few months ago, producing 26 pages of good-looking — but empty — words and research citations that sounded great, but didn’t exist.

Grant writing, like any fundraising, is about match-making a donor’s interest in impact with your organization’s mission and outcomes.

Being able to crisply and succinctly demonstrate the opportunity for greater impact of the donor’s capital and your mission is the ultimate job of grant writing. Most often, that means thinking outside your organization’s own box and putting yourself in the donor’s shoes.

— Betsy Liley from Grateful Change

Create a ‘Common Answer Library’ for Easier Applications

Far and away, the biggest upgrade we’ve made to our grant writing at my organization is investing time in building and updating a “common answer library” on our shared drive.

Essentially, this is a folder of Word documents each containing answers to common grant application questions, like organization mission and activities, the greatest challenges our nonprofit faces, how we measure and evaluate program impact, how we recognize funders, etc.

— Harriett Davis from the Chicago Public Library Foundation

Tell the Story of Your Mission — Not Just What Your Mission is

I have found that, as grant applications have gone online and gotten shorter, my strategy has become ever more important: Concise, clean, and emotive storytelling works better than stats and history.

If you think of your reader like a good friend and imagine you’ve run into them in a parking lot, maybe at the grocery store or mall, and they ask, “How’s the job going?” or “What’s it like working at your agency?” you would tell them a powerful story.

That’s what I do to increase our grant approval rate. Once you’ve determined that the grantor is interested in your cause, tell them a story of your mission — not just what your mission is. Tell them something that makes them feel how important it is and then tell them how they can help.

— Sheila Ryan from the New Hampshire SPCA

A Checklist of Tips for Your Grant Application Process

• Start early with your grant applications.
• Create a schedule with deadlines for each step of the application process.
• Spend time researching your options.
• Understand the requirements for each application and the unique aspects of each foundation and government funder.
• Collect and organize all necessary documents and have them ready, this will make the process smoother.
• Start working on your narrative early.
• Give yourself time to write, review, and revise multiple drafts to ensure they reflect your organization’s best work.
• Share your drafts to get constructive feedback. Others can provide valuable insights and help you refine your application.
• Keep track of deadlines and submission requirements for each application.
• Consider using a checklist or spreadsheet to stay on top of everything.

Finally, starting early and staying organized will help you manage the workload and reduce stress as deadlines approach. Good luck with your applications!

— Paul Marengo from Anacostia Playhouse

Four Essential Elements to Include

There are four key elements we always include in our grant applications:

• Address the need the funder wants to meet.
• Excite the funder.
• Show the impact you’ll be able to make with the funding.
• Clearly explain how you will measure success.

— David Patt from the National Assn. on Mental Illness

Whenever Possible, Consult with an Expert

After we won a surprising grant, and a large one for us, I looked again at our application.

For this, we had the writing and research of a Ph. D in sociology: He had added language and statistics that we wouldn’t have thought to use in the sections covering our need for the grant, what populations would be served, and how we planned to measure outcomes.

I know a lot of people don’t have this kind of person on their staff or board, but I recommend trying to seek someone out.

— Adrienne Lauby from Sonoma Applied Villages Services

Build and Maintain Relationships with Compatible Funders

A successful grant begins with thorough research to identify solid funding sources and work to establish a transparent relationship with the funder.

Spending time up front identifying highly compatible funding sources results in a higher success rate and reduces time spent writing proposals with little to no chance of being funded.

Once funded, keep the funder informed, not just with the mandatory reports, but also by emails or phone calls. This will help you continue to establish a long-term, more personal relationship with the funder, which may increase opportunities for future funding.

— Cathy Kerley from Serve Denton

Do Your Homework, and Focus on Quality Over Quantity

Writing more grants is not better! Write grants to foundations or agencies that you have thoroughly researched, understand what they are looking for in a grantee, and whose funding priorities align well with your organization’s work.

If you spend more time on those crucial steps to qualify grant opportunities (rather than writing a larger number of grants to less qualified funders), I guarantee that you will see your win rate go up!

— Jessica from Elevate

Clearly Define What the Grant Will Help Accomplish

Define your outcome. For example: “Because of your gift, more children will read at this grade level. We will conduct pre and post evaluations, we will send surveys to the teachers, we will survey the parents and share and use this data to make better improvements.”

Avoid non-specific generalized statements along the lines of “200 children will attend and get a free book with a piece of pizza.”

— Tracey Wilson from the Nonprofit Network