Grant Writing Guide Paper Example

Introduction

Forecasting or rather planning is an essential part of a successful application for funding. If a project is not well thought of, there are chances that one is not ready to write a funding application (Street, 2015). To develop a good plan, one must do some contextual check. For example, identification of the need or problem, identify the solution and answer the who, what where, when and how as further discussed by Street. When all this is done, it is easy to produce a grant guide. Therefore, in this paper, the main aim is to show the steps required in writing a grants guide.

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Characteristics of a Quality Grant Guide

According to Street (2015), a quality proposal should be logically written, organized and should follow the principles of valuable information design. It should have the following characteristics; wording should be in the active voice, short sentences and paragraphs, margin of the document should be one inch, where necessary use point form, the page numbers are essential as well as the header and footer, it should have titles, subtitles and subject sentences should be clearly defined and precise, use of charts, tables, graphs to exhibit information.

Basic Components of a Grant Guide

A successful grant must have a good flow of information and activities from defining the problem to the budget of the project and future funding. It involves planning, look for relevant information, writing and compile a proposal, defer the proposal to the funder, and follow-up. Here are some steps that will help as discussed (Gerli, 2009).

The Executive Summary

This section briefly summarizes the entire proposal. It is the most crucial part since it is the first part an investor reads. Therefore, the content should be well organized, brief and self-sufficient to ensure it catches the interest of an investor. It should briefly highlight the strategy for executing the project, hunger for the project and competences of accomplishments. This section should be the last part to be written after the whole proposal is complete.

Statement of Need

In this section, the main area of discussion is the reason why the project is needed. It should be discussed in detail, the elements that will experience the impact of the project and the information that supports the program. While discussing the statement various questions should be kept in mind. For example, what will stand out in the project? What impacts does the project make to the public, county or institutions? Does it go against the community goals? What organizations support the project? Such questions enable the intellect to view broadly about the program and how it can help the environment.

Project Description

This section should be detailed in explaining what the project is about and the effects it will bring forth. What the project will accomplish should be discussed and how it will be executed should also be discussed clearly. A period that the program will take and the staff number and turn-over should be clearly indicated. To ensure proper illustrations of the idea in a concise and fetching way. The following components are very crucial and should be indicated in this section. That is:

• Goals - A goal explains what the project wants to achieve
• Aims - They should be brief, assessable and for a given period of time.
• Milestone - these are the interim activities that keep the project on the right path
• Management - defines the people involved in the project, be it the experts in certain areas, the employees, and the non-staff members. It is important to designate who will be working part-time or full-time and what expertise will be used.
• Business Partners - Indicate information about the partners and their roles in achieving the objectives.

Assessment

Evaluation is important since it enables one to measure the level of efficiency of the achieved objectives. An evaluation should include, a progressive evaluation and a consequential evaluation. They both accomplish the same task but in diverse ways. A progressive evaluation explains the achievement of the executed program's objectives whether they were achieved or not in interims. While a consequential evaluation clarifies whether the objectives were attained and what impact it makes to the environment. In addition, it is advisable for an organization to team up with other institutions for evaluation duties which includes a cost in the proposal.

Future Funding

This section explains what happens after the lapse period of a project. It needs further financial support, so who will fund it, it can be the external partners or matching funds. Therefore, it is important to indicate the fund-raising efforts. Application of another grant should be indicated. The method to be used in maintenance and operations of equipment should be clearly explained. It is important to discuss future funding of the project and the assets used and other expenditures that may be incurred while purchasing the assets.

Budget

The budget format should flow accordingly. It should have a budget summary that is scribbled down after the whole budget is completed. This is as crucial as the executive summary since it is what every investor goes through before analyzing the budget. Every section should be detailed as possible and should use titles and subtitles as well as subtotals and grand totals. Mostly, budgets are alienated into two groups, staff's costs, and non-staff costs. First, the applicant should go through the whole project and list down all the requirements needed. Then the list can be grouped into employee and non-employee costs. Examples of employee costs are; a fringe benefit, salaries, retirement plan, consultant services and health insurance. While examples of non-employee costs are; rent, photocopy, office supplies, training to use new equipment and utilities.

A good budget should explain all the expenses included, and it relies on the proposal description. There are certain areas that link up to other factors and if not well assessed, they can lead to poor budgeting. Such factors are as follows; salaries on the budget should be like those of the employees in the organization. When new staff is hired, new equipment and space should be considered. The equipment to be purchased should be similar to what was approved by the grantor agency. When space is increased, insurance should be considered. If an indirect cost applies to the budget, it should be causally linked to the description in the proposal. If matching funds are required, the contributions to the matching funds should be taken out of the budget unless otherwise specified in the application instructions.

References

Gerli, M. F. (2009). How to Develop and Write a Grant Proposal.

Street, H. (2015). Guide to Successful Grant Writing (Third). Central West: Regional Development Australia.