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When an organization wants to apply for grant money, it can be tempting to quickly hire a grant writer and get working right away on composing a grant narrative for any funder giving out money. However, a few items should be thought through and discussed before this process begins.  Both the organization wanting to apply for funding and the grant writer who will help them compose their grant application can benefit from discussing the following three items:

Brainstorming: While a grant writer can help flesh out the details of a project with an organization, the organization applying for funding should spend a good amount of time thinking through the project prior to hiring a grant writer. “Who will this project serve? What are our goals? How will it be managed?” These and other questions help ensure that the organization is not just asking for money for general operational costs, but rather for a specific project to meet a specific need. Once organizational leadership has done this step, the grant writer can put feet on the project, add ideas, and really help it develop into a full proposal.

Funding Source: It helps for an organization to have a funding source in mind before contacting a grant writer. It is one thing to have a great project in mind, but it is difficult to get it off the ground if no one is interested in funding that particular service. Identifying both a funding source and a grant will usually ensure that your organization has aligned the funding agency’s priorities with your own, and that you’ve begun to formulate your project’s key components with that funding agency in mind. The grant writer will be able to write the proposal knowing that your priorities align with the funding agency’s priorities. (I have written an article titled "Fast Ways To Find Funding Sources" to help on this topic. You can access it here.)

Payment: A quality grant writer is worth far more than the fee you will pay for their services; a good grant writer may get a client approximately $50,000 to $100,000 for every $1,000 paid to them in fees. A $5,000 grant writing fee can realistically result in $500,000 of funding. Quality grant writers have waiting lists of clients who have done their brainstorming and found a funding source, in addition to being willing to pay. The grant writer doesn’t necessarily need to be paid up front, but a contract for payment needs to be secured before he or she start writing. You could develop an ongoing relationship with a grant writer through a retainer. Or, the payment could be half up front, half after grant submissions—whatever works for the organization and the grant writer. However, the writer should never be paid out of the potential grant money to be received. (I have writtern about this topic as well; access "Should You Pay A Grant Writer Out Of The Grant?" here.)

On these three points, you can always find an exception. My own business, Educational Resource Consultants, is a full-service grant writing agency. We have often helped clients both in the past and present to develop projects and identify funding sources. It is, however, to the benefit of both the grant writer and the organization applying for money to have good ideas established as to what the organization truly needs before proceeding with grant composition.

Here is another question submitted through the This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (some previous questions answered on the blog can be found via the search box to your upper right).

Q: We applied for a grant last year and got it. This year’s RFP is totally different. Can I use the same proposal as last year and just update a few details?

No. To briefly show why this is discouraged, consider both the funding agency and the new RFP itself.

Most of the time, whoever in the funding agency updated the RFP saw the previous one. The funding agency makes changes to RFP’s for several reasons, but one reason that shouldn’t be discounted is to discourage people from just updating a few dates and numbers on an old proposal. In fact, the agency may have also made changes to catch those organizations too lazy to update their old proposal.

Know that something bigger than just a sentence here or there can drastically affect your proposal. Consider if the change is big, like the modification of an absolute priority, adding a new set of requirements, or a shifting in the purpose of the funding. This would change the angle of your submission entirely. Just doing a copy-and-paste version of last year’s submission would be a serious hindrance to your being taken seriously by the funder.

Here’s the fix: always make your proposal look like it was written fresh for a grant submission, even if you are using data or program descriptions from previous grant submissions. Make yourself go through the thought process and write to the new RFP. You can rely somewhat on the content of the old grant, but you must make sure all the information in your current submission is relevant to this RFP, not an old one.

The current economy has certainly threatened the budgets of many organizations. However, there is at least some good news for schools and non-profit organizations with philanthropic missions. There are now more federal grants available than in previous years. The combination of increasing community needs and increasing federal grant opportunities—both signs of a bad economy—makes it prime time for grant writing.

A good grant writer can help your organization in the current economic downturn. Grant writers can help eligible organizations receive the government funding they need to make a difference in their communities.

Some organizations may not think they have the funds to pay for grant writing services. However, consider this: while a quality grant writer may cost at least $5,000 for a one-time writing fee, if this writer helps you attain a $500,000 grant, your investment was worthwhile.

In this way, grant writing can be the answer to some of the budget problems organizations are facing in today’s economy.

10. What is the format for presenting your budget?

Look for any forms or instructions for presenting your budget. The “Budget” section of the RFP will let you know how detailed your budget itemization/description must be. It will also tell you if you need to itemize matching funds (use of your own resources for the project in addition to grant funds).

11. What supporting documentation is needed?

Many grants require forms, signature pages, assurances, resumes, MOUS, letters of commitment, or other appendices in addition to the main narrative. These items, along with instructions for completing them, will be included somewhere in the RFP.

In some cases, completing the supporting documentation takes as much or more effort than writing the grant narrative. You don’t want to write a prize-winning grant and find yourself trying frantically to collect letters and signatures at the last minute—so it’s best to be aware of these requirements ahead of time.

12. How and to whom should the grant application be submitted?

A section in the RFP usually called “Application Submission,” “Submission Procedure,” or “Delivery of Application” will tell you how and to whom your grant proposal should be submitted. It will tell you if your grant proposal should be mailed, submitted electronically, or both. It will also tell you how many copies to submit.

In the case of electronic submission, you need to know if the proposal will be emailed or uploaded to a website. This is information is important, because you don’t want to upload your proposal on the last day of a national grant competition, while people from the fifty states are trying to do the same thing – overloading the funding agency’s server.

These 12 questions should give you the information you need to begin writing your grant narrative. A few other tips that are helpful when reading through an RFP are:

-For federal grants, you will want to look for “Absolute Priorities.” These are mandatory, and your grant application will have no chance if you don’t address them. In your narrative, it should be identified early and often how your project meets these priorities. You can usually find these near the “Purpose of the Funding” section of the RFP.

-Also for federal grants, look for “Competitive Preference Priorities.” These are often things like partnering with a certain agency or serving a certain demographic while developing your project. A funding agency will often award extra points to projects that will meet these priorities. Since you want every point you can get, don’t miss out on this “extra credit” opportunity.

-Federal and state grants will often require that your project meet Government and Performance and Results Act (GPRA) measures. These measures usually appear toward the beginning of an RFP, somewhere near the absolute priority and competitive preference priorities. They are not always mentioned in the instructions for what to put in the narrative under “Goals and Objectives” or “Evaluation,” but you will want to make sure to write to these measures in both of these sections of your narrative.

-Lastly, I advise reading for the information I’ve discussed this week first, but to read over the rest of the RFP over the time span of a couple weeks. The RFP will have supplemental information that can be very helpful when composing your narrative.

Remember, make sure to submit your grant writing questions to me through This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , the way for you to ask the questions you were always afraid to ask about grant writing!

Missed the first six of the 12 things to look for? See them here. We continue with #7-9 below:

7. What questions must be answered in the narrative?

When most people refer to “writing a grant,” they are actually referring to writing a “grant narrative,” which is the main body of your proposal. Somewhere in the RFP, a list of questions to answer in your narrative (organized by section) will appear. This part of the RFP is usually titled “Selection Criteria,” “Scoring Criteria,” “Application Composition,” or simply “Proposal Narrative.”

8. How will the grant be scored?

Ultimately, grant proposals are scored using a point system. Simply put, grant proposals that score the most points win. Knowing how many points are awarded for each section (group of questions) in your narrative helps you gauge a section’s importance.

Scoring information usually appears along with the list of questions you must answer in your narrative. Sometimes it appears somewhere else in the RFP as a separate rubric. This additional section on scoring might be called “Scoring Rubric” or “Application Review Process.”

9. What are the formatting requirements?

Most RFPs have a section devoted on “format” that spells out the requirements for font; font size; line spacing, margin size; headers and footers; inclusion of a cover page; table of contents, abstract or executive summary; forms and supporting documents; and most importantly, the PAGE LIMIT.

The last of the 12 things to look for in a grant application will appear tomorrow, along with a few extra tips!