Optimus Template

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!