You’re at the end of the grant writing process. You’re about to hit that submit button, but in the back of your mind, you wonder — is this proposal really as good as it could be? In these moments, it helps to have processes in place that you can rely on to ease your mind. To that end, here are three things you can do right now to instantly improve your next grant proposal.
Get some fresh eyes
My first tip for instantly improving your grant proposal is to get somebody outside of the organization to read over your proposal. This helps with catching stray spelling and grammar errors, but more important, it ensures your proposal is clear to someone not familiar with your work. After all, the people reviewing your proposal don’t know who you are or why your work is important. You need to say it in your grant narrative.
Ask your reader to highlight any sections they find confusing and to write down any questions that come up. After reading your proposal, this outside reader should be able to explain your project or program back to you — at least on a surface level. If they can’t, your proposal doesn’t explain your work in enough detail. Time to go back, fill in the gaps and make things more specific where possible.
Check your budget against your narrative
My next tip is to double-check your budget against your narrative and work plan. An effective grant proposal tells a clear and consistent story with budget and narrative tightly woven together.
Cross checking your budget against your narrative guards against errors and omissions. If you say you want to plant 17 native-species trees in your grant narrative, but those trees are absent from your budget, that’s going to raise questions. Remember, your budget has to include everything in your narrative and your narrative has to give an explanation for everything in your budget.
Compare your responses to the rubric
Another way to instantly improve your grant proposal is to align your narrative responses with the grant scoring rubric. The rubric is basically a cheat sheet explaining how to best answer each question. A rubric will also tell you how each each is weighted, so you can decide where best to invest your time.
If you’re really smart, you’ll be looking at the rubric the entire time your writing, but it’s never a bad idea to run through the rubric one more time before hitting submit. In this final review, look for any place you can tighten up your proposal with specifics tied directly to the scoring rubric.
Bonus: If no rubric is available, create your own
When a scoring rubric is available from the funder, definitely use that. Often though, a rubric isn’t available. In that case, you can try your hand at making your own.
To do this, carefully pull apart each question or requirement. What is each question asking? What are the sub-questions embedded in each prompt? Have you answered them? Dissecting each question in this way will help you create a checklist, ensuring you don’t leave out key information.
Final thoughts
There’s a lot more that goes into writing a winning grant proposal than the tips mentioned here. However, getting an outside reader, checking your budget against your narrative and comparing your responses to the questions being asked are all quick and easy ways to improve your next grant proposal. That little boost might be all you need to secure that funding.
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