Grant Writing For Dummies, 5th Edition

Chapter 3

Arming Yourself with the Knowledge of What Funders Want

In This Chapter

Communicating with funders effectively by telling your story

Including the right supporting documents

Most private and public sector funding sources all have funding-request guidelines for your perusal on the Internet. I urge you to use these guidelines — they’re the golden key to opening doors for funding consideration. In this chapter, I help you understand grant-related terms and guide you through how to tell and sell your story to potential funders. (Think of this chapter as a warm-up to the heavy lifting you do when you write your proposal. More about that in Part IV.)

Giving Funders the Critical Details They Expect

Potential funding sources for your well-deserved grant award have been trying hard to help grant seekers, including you, understand what they want to read in an award-winning grant proposal. Although the funders’ guidelines may vary in how they order the requested information or word the headings/subheadings, in the end they all want to see commonly organized, written presentations of information.

Shift your focus from the excitement of finding grant-funding opportunities for your organization to gearing up to write the following blocks of information:

• Factual information about ...