Anatomy of a Grant Proposal

October 2011

As nonprofits across the country seek funding for their increasingly important work, developing winning grant proposals is more important than ever. Your nonprofit colleagues have shared these free resources on IdeaEncore for both the beginner as well as the experienced grant writer.

Check out these tool kits, guides, and articles on grant writing basics:

• Basic Grant Writing from Merrimack Valley Food Bank, Inc. includes practical tips for researching grants and writing a proposal, including what actions to take when the grant has been received or denied.
• Grantwriting: Basics for Beginners, from grant writing expert Carol Geisbauer is invaluable for people who are new to grant writing.
• University of Kansas's Community Tool Box contains information on almost every aspect of nonprofits, including a guide for writing a grant that includes an outline of the important components of a grant proposal.

Check out these resources for more in-depth information and guidance on specific components of a grant proposal:

• The Center for Nonprofit Excellence, United Way of Central New Mexico, has shared how-to guides about the specific components that most grant proposals should include.

  • Grant Writing Toolkit—Needs Statement will help you draft a needs statement, one of the first and most important components of any proposal.
  • Grant Writing Toolkit—Program Plan will guide you through writing a program plan for your proposal.
• Grantwriting—Program Development, from Carol Geisbauer Grantwriting, addresses program development—an important first step that can, when done right, facilitate the process of grant writing.
• Samples of Grant Proposal Components contains a compilation of samples for each of the 11 components of a grant proposal. It was assembled with permission from successfully funded grant proposals shared on IdeaEncore for a series that appeared in GrantStation.
• If You Evaluate It, They Will Fund: Program Evaluation Essentials, a presentation from Cecilia Harris on Nonprofit Webinars, discusses the importance of program evaluation in attracting grants and foundation funding.

Flo Green, IdeaEncore Network
IdeaEncore Network
Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Florence (Flo) Green is co-founder and vice president of IdeaEncore Network (www.ideaencore.com) which envisions a future in which every nonprofit shares what they know. Nonprofits can use our online information resource exchange to save time/money by reusing shared knowledge; by uploading files/links for others to use (for free or to sell); by making their expertise visible by "liking," rating, and commenting; and by embedding their branded online libraries—that display IdeaEncore resources—within their Web sites.

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