Grant Writing For Dummies. Beverly A. Browning

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and in-kind donations

      Did you know that many of the biggest businesses in the nation set 5 percent or more of their profits aside for grants? Why is that, you ask? The reason is corporate social responsibility and community engagement — which are the approaches that successful businesses take when they decide to make a financial commitment to the community where they are headquartered or where they have operating locations.

      Corporations that award grants usually have a website link labeled something like Community, Community Relations, Community Engagement, Social Responsibility, Local Initiatives, Grants, or Corporate Giving. Use Foundation Directory Online by Candid to view corporations with giving programs.

      

Corporate funding sources typically look to give funding to organizations operating in areas that they serve. Corporate funders frequently will let potential applicants know their geographic range, but you can also consider what corporations have headquarters or a major presence in your area as a source of insight.

Getting Acquainted with Grant Submission Requirements

      One of the biggest keys in grant writing is recognizing the different application formats that funders require you to submit. Some grantors require more information than others. Today, at least 90 percent of funders with websites require online e-grant applications. Others require traditional paper-written narratives, forms, budgets, and mandatory attachments. In Chapter 23, I cover online e-grant portals and submission processes.

      

Determine the writing format for each funding source you identify. Carefully view each private-sector funder’s website, and if you’re still not sure about what to write or how to write it, make a quick call or send an email to the listed contact person. Governmental agencies have their own application kits, and you can submit applications to these agencies only at certain times in the year when there is a specific funding deadline published.

      Looking at the components of a grant application

      A government grant or cooperative agreement application is a written funding request you use to ask for money from a government agency. Government grant applications are specific to each of the federal grantmaking agencies. Even state agency grant applications that are funded with federal pass-through dollars closely mirror federal grant application guidelines and grantee requirements.

      Each federal agency has dozens of agencies under its wing that release Notices of Funding Availability (NOFAs), Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs), Request for Applications (RFAs), Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs), or Request for Proposals (RFPs). Each NOFA, NOFO, RFA, FOA, and RFP has different funding priorities and guidelines for what you need to write in order to submit a responsive and reviewable grant application.

      Government and other types of grant applications generally require that you write narrative responses for the following sections (each of which I cover in more depth in Part 4):

       Executive summary or abstract

       Statement of need

       Program design or methodology

       Adequacy of resources or key personnel

       Evaluation plan

       Organization background/history or organization capability

       Sustainability statement

       Budget

      A foundation or corporate grant application typically takes the form of a proposal. A proposal is a structured document that must follow each grantmaker’s specific guidelines. Writing a proposal to a foundation or corporation requires the same adherence to the guidelines and incorporation of relevant information as completing government grant applications.

      Note: Some foundations and corporate grantmakers accept the Common Grant Application format; see the later section, “Getting your request in the door at foundations and corporations,” for more details on this format.

      Perusing government grant application guidelines

      Although government grant application formats vary from agency to agency and department to department, some common threads exist in the highly detailed, structured, military-like regimen that’s commonly referred to as an application package. These common threads include a standard cover form, certification and assurances forms, narrative sections, and the budget narratives and related forms. And of course, all government grant applications require mandatory attachments or appendixes, such as résumés of project staff and copies of your nonprofit status determination letter from the IRS. (Head to Chapter 5 for more about the application package.)

      

Always follow the pagination, order of information, and review or evaluation criteria guidelines. All government grants are awarded on the basis of your meeting point-weighted review criteria, which are written and published in each funding agency’s grant application guidelines. (Most grants use a 100-point system.) The review criteria tell you what the peer reviewers will base their ratings on in the application package. With the competition being so hot and heavy for all government grants, you want to carefully craft an award-winning narrative that scores at a minimum of 95 points. The grant applications recommended for funding typically score between 95 and 100 points.

      Several federal grantmaking agencies issue grant applications guidelines where their scoring rubrics often have up to 1,000 points. While this is rare, expect anything and everything when it comes to federal grantseeking and award processes.

      

As you read through the application guidelines, highlight all narrative writing requirements and look for sections that tell you how the grant reviewers rate or evaluate each section of the narrative. By formatting and writing your narrative sections to meet the review criteria, you can edge out the competition and increase your funding success rate. (I tell you how to prepare and write for the review criteria in Chapter 11.)

      Getting your request in the door at foundations and corporations

Before you even consider approaching a foundation or corporation with a grant request, you absolutely must research each and every potential foundation and corporate funding source. Don’t rely solely on online grant-research databases. Let your fingers do the typing to find each potential funder’s website. Read every link and become highly familiar with each source. Find out the organization’s funding priorities, the number of grants it awards annually, and the grant request range. Become very fluent in who they are, what they fund, when they fund, and their mission statement.

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