Perfecting Your Grant Application: Top Tips for Grant Seekers
As a grant seeker, securing grant funding can be a game-changer, providing the necessary resources to turn your innovative ideas into reality.
For every single call for proposal, ‘many are called, but few are chosen’.
Some grant proposals are so badly written, the reviewer spends less than 10 secs on them before discarding them forever. A few end up captivating and inspiring the reviewer.
We can't overstress the importance of reading (and re-reading) and understanding the criteria by which your application will be evaluated (call for proposal).
In this post, we dip our toes into the grant writing process itself and share 3 tips about crafting a winning grant proposal.
Tip #1 – Address the need that the funding opportunity is intended to fill – not your organization’s need for funding.
The news is constantly packed with growing statistics of the challenges we face as global citizens from poverty, to food insecurity, gender inequality, financial exclusion, unemployment, climate change... The list is endless, the UN has set a list of 17 most pressing goals to be achieved by 2030. Funders work within the scope of these issues to fund projects.
As an applicant, there is a need for you to confirm that your proposed project addresses a need that aligns with the opportunity announcement.
The WFP campaign is open to innovations to rethink the food systems. The funders seek disruptive innovations for fighting hunger; access to safe and nutritious food; and advancing equitable livelihoods for all. In other words, WFP will fund you for food-related innovations and not the need to pay your staff. Focus more on the impact of your project.
Tip #2 – Define the need from the perspective of the public interest.
Before you go neck-deep in grant writing, you need to ask yourself "How is this making the lives of others better"?. A grant application is not merited based on the proficiency of grammar but the impact on the vulnerable.
Which of these growing populations can your project target? Which issues are the most urgent? What are your proposed contributions?
Tip #3: Your innovation must be attention-grabbing
We cannot downplay the importance of storytelling in grant writing.
A compelling story grabs the attention of the evaluator to visualize the problem and to grasp the challenges facing a project’s potential beneficiaries. But more than heart-wrenching stories, is your innovation "fund-able"? Can your proposed innovation live rent-free in your evaluator's head? Can an evaluator be restless until your project is funded?
With these 3 in place, you are right on track to writing a winning proposal.
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