May 14, 2017
If you work for a nonprofit organization and your work depends on grant funds, you may have decided that the best strategy to get more funding is to apply to every funding opportunity you find. After employing this strategy, you may look back at the end of the year only to discover that very few (and possibly none) of your applications were successful. After working diligently and preparing many applications, it’s difficult to receive such discouraging results.
If you are wondering what you can do to turn things around, it may be helpful to look at common reasons applications fail to receive funding.
Five Reasons Why Grant Applications Fail
1. Your Organization Doesn't Meet the Eligibility Requirements
When prospecting for new funding sources, the focus in screening potential funders is often on what a funder funds, with less attention to eligibility requirements, such as geographic limitations. If you focus only on what a funder funds (affordable housing, environmental protection, etc.), you risk overlooking the basic question of whether you are even eligible to receive funding. If you apply for a grant with strict eligibility requirements and your organization doesn't meet them, your application will not be funded.
Sometimes it's tempting to think that the funder might bend their eligibility requirements after they read about the great work of your organization. Most funders receive so many grant applications that they actively look for reasons to eliminate applications from consideration. If your application does not meet the basic eligibility requirements, it won't be read.
2. Your Organization Lacks Core Competencies
When funding is tight, there’s a natural inclination to apply for any and all opportunities, regardless of whether there’s a good match between the level of experience (type or depth) sought by the funder and what your organization can offer.
If the funder wants to fund work in a certain community/state/country, or for a specific beneficiary group, or in a particular technical area — and your organization has never worked in the target geographic area, lacks experience working with the beneficiary group of interest, and doesn’t have staff with expertise in the technical area — these are all signs that you should not apply.
Is there a chance the funder will consider it persuasive if you have experience working in a similar context with a related beneficiary population? Yes, there is a chance. However, whether a funder will be flexible depends in part on the quality of the competition. If you know that other organizations with impeccable qualifications in each of the key areas will also pursue the opportunity, you need to take a step back and consider as objectively as possible whether your organization will be competitive. Sometimes, you may decide it’s worth applying even if the odds of winning are low. And that’s okay, as long as you go into the grant proposal process knowing there’s a high risk of not getting a return on your investment.
3. You Submit a Non-Compliant Proposal
Finally! A funding opportunity comes along that's a perfect match. The funder funds the type of work you are proposing to do, your organization works in a region that's a geographic priority for the funder, you have staff qualified to manage the project, and the funder awards grants in the amount that you are seeking. Unfortunately, again, your grant proposal is still not funded. Under these circumstances, your application may not have been successful because you failed to submit a compliant proposal. A grant application has two parts: the substantive content and the application packaging (including formatting). Both parts must adhere to the funder's guidelines to be compliant.
Required Sections & Content
A funder's application guidelines will usually tell you how to structure the proposal. This includes major headings as well as components to be covered, such as how you'll identify your beneficiary population, what your strategy will be, and why you think your project approach will work and lead to the desired outcomes.
The funder may request standard headings (Executive Summary, Programmatic Approach, Monitoring and Evaluation, Sustainability Plan, and Management and Staffing) or provide a more customized outline. Whatever headings the funder specifies, those are the ones you should use. If the funder asks for an Executive Summary and an Introduction, you'll want to have both headings in your proposal, regardless of whether you think it's necessary. Regarding more substantive content, you'll want to read the funding opportunity announcement carefully to identify what the funder explicitly asks to be covered in the application so you can be responsive.
Required Formatting and Submission Guidelines
On the packaging side, did the funder request you submit a 15-page proposal in 12-point Times New Roman, single-spaced, with 1-inch margins, on U.S. letter-size (8 1/2 x 11-inch) paper? Did you submit a proposal that met these requirements? Did the funding opportunity announcement say to include six items on the proposal cover page (e.g., project name, organization name, names of any partners on the proposed project, organization contact name, contact number, and funding opportunity number)....and did you do that?
It may seem like the formatting details are minor things you can leave undone until the end of the proposal process, but waiting until the last minute to format your proposal can be risky. First, because formatting problems can take a long time to resolve. Second, if you ignore the formatting requirements, you risk exceeding the required page limits when you go back to adjust the margins and font size. If you haven't formatted your proposal correctly — maybe you've used 11 pt instead of 12 pt font — it will be obvious to the funder that you haven't followed the submission guidelines. If you haven't followed the directions, you should assume the funder will not read your proposal.
Some formatting requirements, such as using the right-sized font to label diagrams and tables, may sneak past you unless you, or someone else on the proposal team, performs a close read and compares the grant application guidelines with your proposal prior to its submission. Formatting checklists comes in handy for this kind of cross-check.
Another area where applications can fail is with the submission guidelines. If the proposal guidelines say to email the proposal or to send a copy via email and in hard copy, you need to do exactly what is asked, or risk having your proposal thrown out for noncompliance.
4. You Submit a Poorly Written Proposal
Even if you have met all the application guidelines and prepared a compliant proposal, your application has one more hurdle to overcome. This is readability.
If your application includes all the required pieces, your organization meets the eligibility requirements, and you've followed all the directions to the letter, it will only get you into the pool for consideration. When the funder reviews eligible applications, they evaluate proposals based on several factors, including technical merit and the reasonableness of the budget. However, if on initial review the reviewers cannot follow your proposal because it is poorly written or its persistent grammatical errors are distracting, they’ll be unlikely to shortlist it for further review.
A poorly written proposal is probably the hardest problem to remedy, because you cannot fix it with a checklist. A checklist can help you keep track of key points to cover and formatting guidelines. But it is one thing to submit a complete, compliant proposal and another to submit a compelling, clear one. If you do not have strong writing skills, or if you need to prepare a proposal in English and it is not your native language, it is essential to find an editor who can work with you to polish the text.
If you submit a poorly written proposal, your application is unlikely to be funded for two reasons. First, the funder may be unable to figure out what you are proposing to do or how you intend to do it; and second, a poorly written proposal can signal that the thinking behind the proposal has been inadequate, which may lead the funder to question whether your proposal is a good investment.
5. You Submit a Generic Proposal
A poorly written proposal, or one made up of text copied and pasted from other proposals, is unlikely to be successful.
While some text can be reused from one proposal to the next, proposals have different requirements, and funders have different interests. If you do not tailor each proposal, your proposals can sound generic and flat. Different foundations that fund the same general area, such as early childhood education, may prioritize different factors in evaluating potential grantees. While it's fine to start drafting your proposal by plugging in text from previous proposals, it is imperative to review the text line by line to ensure it is appropriate for the current proposal.
How to Improve Your Odds of Winning a Grant
There are several things you can do to improve the odds of winning a grant:
Evaluate Funding Opportunities Carefully: If your organization is small (budget under $1 million), new (in existence for less than five years), or has never received a grant larger than $45,000, funders that will be the best fit for you are going to be small family foundations. If you think the only grant opportunities worth pursuing are ones with award amounts of $100,000 or more, and the only funders worth applying to are the big 10, including the Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, etc., you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Most U.S. nonprofits receive funding from community foundations instead of large private foundations.
Know Your Organization's Strengths: If your organization has a narrow mission, works with a specific beneficiary group in a limited geographic location, and your staff has expertise in a focused technical area, these are all strengths that can help you attract funding. The downside of having a focused mission is that you'll need to work harder to find funders whose interests line up with yours. However, once you receive funding, those funders stand a good chance of becoming long-term supporters if you do good work. Articulating your organization's core competencies and strengths is essential for attracting funding. It takes discipline, but it pays off to be selective with your funder list. It is better to submit applications to 20 funders that are a great fit with your mission than to submit applications to 50 funders whose funding is only marginally related to what you do.
Dedicate Adequate Resources: A grant proposal is not something one person can or should prepare on her own. To submit a high-quality proposal, you need people who can describe the project’s structure and goals, prepare the budget, review and edit the proposal, and so on. As a rule of thumb, budget about 10% of the potential award amount for proposal preparation. If you are writing a grant proposal hoping to receive a grant of $100,000, plan on spending at least $10,000 on the proposal preparation process. This amount covers staff time for research, writing, review, and preparation of the proposal for submission. Proposal preparation costs are paid out of unrestricted (or “core”) funds; they cannot be charged to project budgets. If you involve project staff in your proposal process, you need to be sure you can cover their time. Money is a required resource. Time is another. Preparing a high-quality proposal requires significant effort from several people. Before deciding to pursue an opportunity, you’ll want to confirm that everyone who needs to be involved is able and willing to participate.