What does it take to submit a grant proposal? A brief overview (check back in a few weeks for more in-depth coverage of these points) and YOUR grant submittal countdown!
7. Carefully Review ALL Grant Materials
Federal grants are notoriously more complex than Foundational and State grants (though State grants can get hairy sometimes too!) and require more consideration and preparation as your prepare your grant submittal. To ensure that you’re able to complete all required materials (in terms of timeframe and actually having access to what’s required), make sure that you understand what is being requested. This may seem easier said than done but in truth, all required documents are not always listed in one place in the application. Plus, proposal applications (often called Requests For Proposals or RFPs; or Funding Opportunity Announcements or FOAs) can be hundreds of pages long. Carefully review before you begin proposal development to avoid wasting time writing a proposal, only to find you are not able to provide everything that’s required.
6. Gather Your Organizational Materials
For most grant submittals, this will likely include a document certifying your business (Certificate of Good Standing, or similar) or non-profit organization (IRS 501(c) 3 Letter). It may also include financial documents, Articles of Incorporation, By-Laws, etc. Which brings us back to the first point: make sure you review what’s required to ensure that you’re able to provide it.
5. Prepare Proposal & Budget
Funders’ requirements for proposals vary widely. There is no such thing as a template proposal that is ready to submit (however, template proposals can be very useful in organizing your thoughts and getting the Project Scope down on paper). NUMBER ONE GRANT WRITING TIP: Make sure that you are carefully and concisely responding to the questions. In our review of many rejected proposals (those that were rejected before engagement with us), the number one issue is that the responses do not reflect the question.
Your budget must be reflective of your project costs. Yes, that sounds obvious in practice. However, and particularly pertinent in situations in which many individuals are working on a single proposal, errant budget items that are not part of the proposed project can find there way to your budget, leaving your reviewer confused and your grant submittal’s success in jeopardy.
4. Review your Proposal
Then review again…then again…and once more…and… Ok, you get the idea! If possible, have someone who is not connected to the project review the application instructions and
your responses to ensure they are appropriate and effectively convey your idea to someone who is otherwise in the dark. This is of particular importance for first-time or less experienced grant writers. Also read your proposal aloud. Sounds silly, but when you’ve reviewed the same sentences over and over, it’s easy to miss something. But what about autocorrect, you might say! Well, autocorrect doesn’t catch everything, especially where no misspelling exists. For example, you may mean, “responsibly” but have written “responsible”. Is this alone going to make or break your proposal? Probably not (unless this is a theme throughout), but it does communicate to the reviewer that you are not detail-oriented and prone to overlook things (think of how that might apply to managing a grant award, should your proposal be successful).
3. Submit per Application Instructions
What’s black and white and doesn’t exist? A late grant submittal! (Hahaha!)
No, but really, if your proposal is even one second late (in cases of electronic or in-person time stamping) it will not be accepted. Don’t let all your hard work go to waste! Submit early! One or two days early, at a minimum, is recommended to avoid last minute scrambles. Also, make sure that you’re submitting it in the prescribed format, whether that’s online (via web or via email), postal mail, in-person, etc. Your funder will indicate the acceptable means. If you do not follow their instructions, your proposal will not be accepted.
2. Follow Up
Most applications will indicate the schedule for award announcements. Otherwise, wait at least 4-8 weeks to send a brief and very respectful email, inquiring on the status of recent grant submittals. Be sure to specify information identifying the Funding Opportunity (sometimes there’s a number sequence or formal title of the specific grant you’re going after). It’s not as necessary to specify information identifying your proposal, as their response is unlikely to be specific to you. You’re most likely to get a response like, “Award
letters will be sent out the week of the 3rd,” rather than “Your proposal has been accepted/rejected”.
1. Or SKIP ALL OF THE ABOVE!
And contact the Grant Experts to aide in your proposal development journey! We’ve been doing this for five and half years, have raised tens of millions of dollars for organizations just like yours, and are well versed in industry quirks. After all, grant writing is as much of an art as it a science; trust the experts!
