How to Determine the Required Elements for a Contract Bid
When you respond to an RFP (Request For Proposal), you position your organization to win a contract bid. Pursuing contracted services on a regular basis can strengthen and grow your business. In the first [more…]
How to Construct Your Grant Application's Problem Statement
Sometimes the hardest part about writing the problem statement for your grant application is knowing when you’re done. You know you’ve written a convincing and compelling problem statement when you get [more…]
How to Prepare a Grant Funding Timeline
A timeline in your grant application tells the grant reader when activities (also called process objectives) will begin and end during the grant’s funding period. When you develop a project timeline, keep [more…]
How to Create a Program Blueprint for a Grant Application
When you apply for a grant, use a Logic Model (a graphic blueprint of the key elements of your proposed program) to sway the reader. This blueprint, or Logic Model, looks at inputs, activities, outputs [more…]
How to Prevent Mistakes on a Grant Application
After putting so much time and energy into your grant application or bid proposal, you may miss fatal writing or formatting errors. Unfortunately, when program officers and peer reviewers reading your [more…]
How to Follow Up on Government Grant Requests
As soon as you send your grant application off to a state or federal funding agency, start the tracking process so that you can do any necessary follow-up on the application. You have specific rules to [more…]
How to Follow Up on Foundation and Corporate Grant Requests
When you submit a grant application to a foundation or corporate funder, you may find information on procedures for grant proposal awards and declines on the funder's Web site. If you can’t locate the [more…]
How to Uncover Hard-to-Find Statistics for Your Grant Application
Knowing how to find current and relevant demographics (also known as statistics) is crucial to writing an effective grant application. Unfortunately, these statistics aren’t always easy to find when you [more…]
How to Prioritize Your Potential Private Funders and Grant Applications
After you identify the potential private funders that are the best fit for your program, you need to determine which funders get your attention first. Prioritize the funders to whom you want to submit [more…]
How to Fill In Federal Grant Application Forms
Each federal agency has its own grant application forms and its own guidelines for filling out the forms. All the federal agencies have standard cover forms, budget forms, and assurances, certifications [more…]
How to Find Grant Funding for Your Organization
The best way to sustain a high funding success rate is to identify multiple funding sources for each project initiative. Then submit your grant proposals to all of them. Sending out multiple proposals [more…]
How to Write a Grant Application Cover Letter
Your cover letter should be brief, it should get to the point, and it shouldn’t regurgitate the information that’s in the grant application or proposal. The grant app cover letter should provide the first [more…]
How to Create Your Grant Application's Abstract or Executive Summary
The abstract or executive summary of your grant application is a brief, one-page overview of what the grant reviewer will find in the full grant application. Keep your abstract short [more…]
How to Compose Your Grant Application's Management Plan
The management plan of your grant application tells the grant reviewer who’s accountable to whom. It clearly shows where the buck stops when questions arise from the funder. In your management plan, the [more…]
How to Organize Your Grant Application's Attachments
The attachments to your grant application go in a specific order. For most government grant applications, the attachments are compiled in the order that you refer to them in the narrative you construct [more…]
How to Submit Your Grant Application Electronically on Grants.gov
E-grants are the only way to submit your funding request to many corporations and foundations, as well as to most government agencies, especially the federal government. [more…]
Knowing Where to Look for Grant Funding
Before you can write a grant proposal, you need to know who’s interested in funding projects similar to the one you’re proposing for funding. Do your homework to locate as many potential grant-funding [more…]
Writing Effective Grant Proposals
To make your grant writing stand out from other proposals, you have to know how to write grants effectively. Do some research for your specific grant proposal and incorporate the following guidelines to [more…]
Grant Writing and Funding Websites
Grant websites have largely replaced weekly trips to the library as the best way of finding grant-funding opportunities. You can also submit the grant applications you write to the funder online. The following [more…]
Maximizing Your Chances at Winning a Grant
A good grant writer spends hours researching and drafting a winning grant application. You don’t want to give a funder the chance to reject your funding request. To increase your chances at winning the [more…]
Grant Writing For Dummies Cheat Sheet
Building your grant writing skills is the best way to secure funding for your organization. The keys to finding grant-funding opportunities and writing award-winning grant proposals are knowing where to [more…]
Improving Cause Marketing Results: Incentivizing
A lot of businesses reward their employees for performance, so don’t be surprised if you are asked, “Should we offer employees incentives for hitting specific fundraising goals?” Surely employees will [more…]
Cause Marketing Success Factors: Famous Last Words
Every successful cause marketing program has Famous Last Words (FLW). Famous Last Words is the phrase you want the consumer to remember above all else. Despite what comes before or after it, these are [more…]
Cause Marketing Success Factors: Messaging
A successful cause marketing message doesn’t always have to reflect the full mission of your organization. For example, a hospital that serves a diverse population of lower-income residents in the Boston [more…]
Branding is Key to Successful Cause Marketing
Powerful cause marketing brands are like magnets. They do good things, and good things are in turn attracted to them. Take national causes like Feeding America, Product [more…]
