Building a Grants Program: Phase 3 Proposal Writing and Stewardship
Welcome to the last phase in our three-part series on building a grants program! Get started by reading more about the first two phases: Phase 1: Research and Ranking and Phase 2: Strategy Development and Cultivation, and join us as we discuss proposal writing and development from a project management perspective. We will also dive deeper into stewardship and cultivation strategies that strengthen relationships that you have already established. Let’s begin with phase 3!
Prepare to Write Winning Proposals
Proposals can vary in complexity and requirements. In order to get a head start on proposal-writing, start by building a content bank that contains boilerplate language about your organization that can be used in multiple grant applications and finessed to mirror the priorities of the funder and funding opportunity. Content banks take time to build, but adding content to it with every writing project will help you build a rich resource that enables you to produce many more grant proposals each year, and to do so much more efficiently.
Need help developing your content library? Download our content library development tool, here.
Next, thoroughly review the funding priorities laid out in the grant proposal and closely mirror language, making sure to align your work to the priorities of the funder. Use all of the information you gathered in the research phase, and the information you gathered from meetings with funders and program officers to inform the proposal draft. Finally, ensure that you are highlighting any qualitative and quantitative impact and sharing metrics wherever possible. Include infographics and other visual representations of your data where it makes sense.
Remember that the proposal will likely go through several rounds of edits, so allow time for feedback and subsequent revisions.
Build a Grant Writing Team
Before starting to write your proposal, determine who you will include in the process. We follow the Management Center’s MOCHA framework (Manager, Owner, Consulted, Helper, and Approver) to build grant writing teams. Managers oversee the project, in this case, the proposal research, writing, and reporting. They also hold owners accountable. Owners lead the project and are responsible for its success overall. Consultants may be staff, board members, parents, or others that make contributions or offer advice. Helpers assist as needed, and approvers review and make final decisions.
In addition to using the MOCHA framework to develop your proposal, it is essential for the development team to build relationships with the program, academic data, and finance teams. Encourage development team leads to attend program meetings and track progress, updates, and impact. When requesting information and data from other teams to include in proposals, build in time for them to compile and provide data and metrics. It is also important to build in time for the program team to review the grant application once it has been drafted and before it is finalized.
Build a Culture of Philanthropy
Share information about ongoing and planned grant applications, and awarded and declined grants widely with all staff. Also, ensure that requirements around project-specific grants are clearly communicated with program and management staff. In addition to this, share information about awarded grants and specifically allocated funding with staff. Finally, inform board members, parents, and partners about grant awards via emails or internal newsletters. This helps to build a culture of philanthropy both within the organization and beyond.
Also, when curating content for a proposal, plan to meet with program staff regularly to gather content, and the finance team to gain input on the organizational or project budget, and leverage all of the information you gather to add more clarity and focus to the ask.
Structure of an LOI
Letters of Inquiry or Interest (LOI) are usually the first step in the grant application process and funders use it to assess whether your work aligns with their funding priorities. The LOI plays a very important role as an initial introduction and in presenting your work and its impact to funders.
All LOIs should contain this information, although, it should be at a high level and brevity is important:
Program or school focus
The ask amount, and specifics if it’s a request for project or program funding
Budget (either organizational or project budget)
Goals and outcomes
Timeline to execute on the goals and objectives outlined
Impact and metrics
Tips for Preparing an LOI
LOIs and all external-facing documents should be placed on organizational letterheads and should include the application date, recipient’s name and address, salutation, closing, and list of attachments. Ideally, the letter should be signed by the Principal or Executive Director. However, if a board member has a personal connection with the funder, they may sign the letter as well. Carefully follow the requirements outlined by the funder including the number of words or pages, and attachments required for the LOI.
LOI Template
Introduction and Ask: introduce your school, include the full legal name of your organization, and provide a snapshot of the community you serve. In addition to this, it is vital to frame your work in a way that mirrors the language in the funding priorities. Lastly, make your ask, and include an ask amount.
Organization/Program Overview: briefly describe the program you are seeking funding for and the amount you are requesting. Explain why you are approaching a particular funding entity, using language that highlights your shared values and goals. Directly ask for their support and briefly describe how the funding will be spent to support your program.
Impact and Metrics: provide programmatic data that illustrates your impact and supplement this data with a story that will resonate with readers.
Conclusion and Reiterate Ask: this section should express your gratitude for being considered for the funding opportunity and should reiterate the ask, once again mirroring language from the funding request.
Finally, remember that once you complete drafting the LOI, you can add it to your content library to be used as a template in the future. Ensure that you always customize the language to reflect the funding priorities of each funder and update your data or anecdotal stories as needed.
Proposal Writing Best Practices
Grant proposals usually follow two approaches. The first is when the proposal entails answering specific questions that have been asked by funders. These are often focused on learning more information about the need for your work in the community or the population being served by the work. The other approach is when the requirements are not clearly defined.
While proposal guidelines that are not clearly defined enable you to highlight all of your mission-aligned work, it is important to compose a well-constructed proposal. Below are sample sections that you can use to draft a proposal:
Introduction: include the ask amount, the need, and mirror language from the funder when describing your work.
Mission and history: include your story and why it is so meaningful in your community.
Goals and objectives: include more information on the need for your programming, and clearly articulate the objectives of your work.
Conclusion: summarize the entire proposal and reiterate the ask as well as the mirrored language from the introduction.
Take a Project Management Approach to Grant Proposal Development
Grant proposal applications are most successful when treated like independent projects and managed with a project mindset and techniques. Begin by creating a grants calendar with application dates, cultivation activities, and milestones for completing the application. Dedicate resources to each stage of the process, beginning with research, cultivation of relationships, and ongoing outreach and communication. Plan team meetings to ensure that staff is aligned and working toward clearly articulated goals.
Once you are awarded your first grant, make sure you have the right administrative processes, fiscal policies, and reporting in place to deliver on all of the grant requirements. Add language to your proposal that discusses these processes and policies, and outlines timelines to achieve the goals outlined in the proposal. This is crucial to building trust and confidence in your ability to execute grant requirements.
If you are not awarded a grant, always ask for feedback to inform future proposals. It is not uncommon to apply 2-3 times before receiving funding. During feedback conversations, be honest and gracious, find out why the application was declined, what would have made your application more competitive, and if it is worth the time and resources to apply for funding in the future. Also, always as if you can reintroduce your work at a later date, or in response to another grant proposal.
Use this tool to help manage the grant writing, review, and submission process.
Preparing and Writing Reports
Lastly, plan for reporting requirements as separate, smaller projects. Reporting is a requisite part of the grant process that demonstrates success to funders. While highlighting successes, remember to also honestly and transparently share information about challenges, and if possible, include steps you have taken to mitigate them. Take note of deadlines and reporting requirements as you complete the grant application and decide who will be responsible and how you will manage reporting your results to the funder.
Reports are based on goals and outcomes laid out in the original grant proposal, should be meticulously managed throughout the year, and can often be repurposed as success stories for other funders and external outreach. This entails planning ahead of time, documenting processes, policies, and fiscal data, and ensuring that restricted grant funds are tracked appropriately against specific projects.
Ongoing Stewardship
Stewardship refers to the way in which organizations communicate, engage with, and build and maintain relationships with donors and prospects. Ongoing stewardship is an integral part of successful donor cultivation, conversion, and retention.
Stewardship Checklist
After the funder makes a decision, it is of the utmost importance to maintain relationships with funders, both those that awarded your organization grant funding and those that did not. Do this by maintaining a stewardship checklist and adding touchpoints and reminders to your cultivation calendar.
Send acknowledgment letters when grant awards are received, this should be done in addition to signing a receipt or contract. Organizations send acknowledgment letters to individual donors, but often forget to do so for foundation and corporate funders, especially when there is a contract in place.
Invite funders to events, even if there is no shared or direct interest.
Share articles, updates, and pictures. Images speak volumes and resonate on a human level.
Plan regular touchpoints (at least one per quarter).
Schedule one-on-ones and share relevant data, even if this is not a requirement of the grant contract.
All of these stewardship and outreach actions play a vital role when it comes time for renewals. Ongoing stewardship, project management, a culture of philanthropy and communication, and all of the other strategies outlined in the three phases, will help you to build and maintain a winning grants program. Happy fundraising!
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Reach out to our team (John@FundEDStrategies.com), if you have additional questions on improving your success rate with grant funding. Join us on LinkedIn for more tips, strategies, and resources, and stay tuned for our article on Phase 3: Proposal Writing and Stewardship, and a book on this subject ready later in 2021!
About John Campbell and FundEd Strategies
John Campbell is a Certified Fundraising Executive (CFRE) who brings passion, energy, and innovative thinking from over 10 years of development and organizational management experience in the social sector.
John founded FundEd Strategies, LLC in 2018 to support schools, education nonprofits, and small to midsize organizations to start, scale, and sustain their fundraising programs. Prior to forming FundEd Strategies, John served as Director of Advancement for Eagle Academy Public Charter School. At Eagle Academy, John was responsible for the cultivation of over $5 million in strategic resources and partnerships which were designed to improve student success as well as organizational strategy. While at Eagle, John was instrumental in the formation of the Cassandra S. Pinkney Foundation, a private foundation formed after the passing of Eagle Academy’s founder with the mission of making space for opportunity. John served as the Foundation’s first Executive Director.
Previously, John held roles that include development director and executive director, where he was responsible for producing and implementing multimillion-dollar development and cultivation strategies.
John graduated from Lebanon Valley College with a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration and Economics and earned his Master's in Business Administration from the Kogod School of Business at American University.
Connect with John on LinkedIn and Twitter!
About Peggy Downs and Granting Your Vision
Peggy Downs is on a mission. She wants to help 100 school leaders write successful grants in the next 5 years. In addition to writing grants for charter schools, she provides training and support for school leaders to learn how to write grants and develop grants programs.
Peggy Downs holds a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership and a Colorado Principal License. With 20 years of experience in charter schools, she has served as a founding parent, teacher, director, and board member. She has supported state and national charter school associations and has served on the Peer Review Team for Charter School Program (CSP) Grants. She has given presentations at state and national conferences and was rated a Top 20 Presenter at #NCSC19.
Peggy Downs writes a weekly blog for school leaders called Granting Your Vision, and is the author of the series, Grant Writing for School Leaders. She is currently working on an online training series for school leaders called Get Results with Grants.
Learn more at www.peggydowns.com, and connect with Peggy on LinkedIn and Twitter!