March 20, 2003 | Read Time: 1 minute
How to Write a Grant Proposal
by Cheryl Carter New and James Aaron Quick
When seeking grants, nonprofit organizations must tailor their proposals to match the desires of the foundation or government agency that they are soliciting, write Cheryl Carter New and James Aaron Quick, president and chief executive officer, respectively, of Polaris, an organization in Inman, S.C., that offers publications and training workshops on grantsmanship. They say that writing just one proposal and sending it to multiple grant makers rarely works.
Ms. New and Mr. Quick suggest that charities take plenty of time to develop their projects and learn about the priorities of the grant maker before beginning to write a proposal. This guide breaks a proposal down into distinct sections, including the executive summary, project description, budget summary, and plans for a project’s management, timeline, documentation, and evaluation. For each element of a proposal, the authors offer advice on key concepts as well as proper formatting. Each chapter also has a checklist with the pieces of information that need to be included in a particular section of a proposal, as well as tips on language and style. The authors remind fund raisers to avoid jargon and to carefully follow all instructions provided by the foundation or grant-making agency.
Sample proposals by four organizations show the important facets of each section of a proposal. The book is accompanied by a CD-ROM containing the files for these samples, which can be used as templates for designing a new proposal.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 1 Wiley Drive, Somerset, N.J. 08875; (800) 225-5945; fax (800) 597-3299; http://www.wiley.com; 338 pages; $39; I.S.B.N. 0-471-21220-2.
