Writing and Managing Grant Proposals Using Evernote
April 17, 2018
Last updated: January 12, 2021
If you’ve worked on a grant proposal, you know there are a lot of moving parts. You need to collect information on your organization’s current and past projects, its financial history, and staff expertise. All this information, as well as background research on the funder, needs to be stored in a place that is easy to access and facilitates collaboration with others.
For larger organizations, Microsoft’s SharePoint is often the resource of choice for background research and as a collaborative workspace. SharePoint offers several features that make it ideal for working on grant proposals. Using SharePoint, you can store content in a variety of formats, such as Word documents and PDFs; share calendars, task lists, and project timelines with colleagues; and allow multiple users to work on a document simultaneously.
The disadvantages of using SharePoint are that it is not intuitive to use and that managing advanced features requires the help of a trained SharePoint administrator. SharePoint is also not free. For small organizations or those just starting out, SharePoint is probably not an option (and even if it is, it may not be the best choice).
An option for information management for smaller organizations is Evernote. In this post, we introduce Evernote, go over some of its key features and advantages, and present some ideas of how you might use Evernote for grant writing and proposal management. At the end of the post, you’ll find resources for learning more about Evernote's features.
WHAT IS EVERNOTE?
Evernote is a Cloud-based service that provides a space for individuals and organizations to store and share information. Unlike other popular Cloud storage services, such as Dropbox or Microsoft OneDrive, which store information in folders, Evernote uses a notebook-based approach. Information (e.g., a document, picture, receipt, or business card) is stored in Evernote as a note. Related notes can be filed as part of a notebook, and related notebooks can be collected into notebook stacks. With its note—>notebook—>notebook stack structure, Evernote will feel familiar to most users because it mirrors how people tend to organize their paper files.
Although the note/notebook structure is a central feature of Evernote, Evernote is much more than a digital notebook. By enabling collaboration through shared notes and notebooks, Evernote can be your go-to tool for working on projects and managing group task lists.
SETTING UP AN EVERNOTE ACCOUNT
Setting up an Evernote account is easy and takes less than a minute. You can create an account using your email address or your Google account. After you establish your account, you can stay with the free basic account or opt for one of the paid subscriptions.
If you’re not sure how much you'll use Evernote, it makes sense to begin with a free account. The one drawback of a free account is that you won’t have access to the features that make Evernote such a great tool, such as the ability to work offline or search for text in PDFs and Office documents. However, a free account is a good way to become familiar with the note/notebook structure, Evernote's layout, its search capabilities, and note formatting options.
If you are interested in more guidance regarding which Evernote subscription level is right for you, see “Which Evernote product is right for me?” is a good resource.
GETTING STARTED WITH EVERNOTE
The key to getting started with Evernote and understanding how it works is to add content to your Evernote account. Until you add content, from creating notes and checklists to uploading documents and images, the value of Evernote will not be evident, and you’ll find yourself thinking, “I don’t get it!”
One easy way to start adding content to your Evernote account is to upload materials you’ve stored on your computer for future reference, such as eBooks, web pages, recipes, etc. If you create an Evernote account and decide to wait to upload content, you may never use it. Instead, start moving content into Evernote as soon as you open your account. By moving content into Evernote immediately, not only will you have a compelling reason to keep visiting your account, but you’ll also learn Evernote’s features as you search for and interact with your stored content.
Another advantage of transferring content you've already filed on your computer is that it will be easier to visualize how to save the information to Evernote. The trick is to keep similar naming conventions as you move the content from one filing system to the next.
For example, if you have a folder on your desktop labeled “April Receipts" that contains multiple receipts saved as Word documents, you could create a note in Evernote titled “April Receipts" and attach the receipts to the note. In this example, the folder name is carried over to the note name, and the individual receipts are stored as note attachments. If you wanted to create more layers to your filing system, you could create a notebook titled “Receipts” and store the April receipts note within this notebook. Another option would be to save each receipt as a separate note rather than attaching all receipts to a single note.
There’s no “right” way to file things on Evernote.
Regardless of how you do it, you’ll be able to find what you are looking for using Evernote’s powerful search feature. One caution regarding the attaching-many-things-to-a-single-note approach is that if you are using the basic (free) version of Evernote, you’ll need to monitor the size limits for individual notes. Under the basic plan, individual notes are limited to 25 MB.
EVERNOTE’S ADVANTAGES
There are numerous options for storing data in the Cloud and collaborating on projects, many of which could be used effectively for proposal development.
A tool we’ve discussed in the past that can do similar things to Evernote is Trello (see the post "How to Use Trello for Grant Research and Writing"). Trello is a great choice for managing projects, sharing tasks with colleagues, and is particularly well-suited for projects with discrete steps. Trello’s virtual bulletin board design is also a good choice for people who like visual prompts of project stages.
Evernote is more content- and search-driven than Trello. Although its note/notebook structure creates the idea of a “virtual” notebook, it’s not essential to use notebooks in Evernote. What makes Evernote Evernote is its search capabilities.
Other reasons why Evernote stands out include:
Free Basic Account: If you use Evernote regularly, you’ll want a paid subscription that offers more features and increased storage limits. In the meantime, Evernote’s free basic account is a great way to become familiar with Evernote’s interface and standard features.
Offline Access: With the paid versions of Evernote, you can access your content offline. Having offline access is very useful if you live in areas with inconsistent internet.
Search Capability: Evernote's search function removes the fear of losing something because you can’t remember how you filed it. With Evernote’s ability to search for words within PDFs and Office documents (a feature of the paid version), you’ll be able to find what you need simply by entering a word that appears anywhere in the note.
Ability to Share: You can easily share notes and notebooks with others and allow them to view and/or edit the shared notes and notebooks.
Save Everything: Evernote makes it easy to save everything, from web pages (see Evernote’s Web Clipper) to scanned documents, to notes created from your desktop or mobile phone. Many digital note-taking options allow you to generate bulleted lists. Where Evernote stands out is its ability to save and easily search attachments, documents, Excel files, and more. More than a digital note keeper, Evernote can serve as your digital file cabinet.
USING EVERNOTE FOR GRANT WRITING AND PROPOSAL MANAGEMENT
Now that we’ve reviewed some of Evernote’s features and shown what it can do and how it does it, let’s talk about how to use Evernote for grant writing and proposal management. What follows is a high-level review to give you a sense of how Evernote could be used to facilitate the proposal process.
Before you can write a grant proposal, you need to do research. At the very beginning of the process—unless you already have a funder and specific call for proposals in mind—you’ll need to research different funding options. So you don’t forget what you’ve learned while researching funders, you'll want a system for saving what you discover. Your system could be as simple as using a Word document, or you may want to create an Excel-based table to track your research.
After you identify the opportunity you are going to apply to, your research will continue as you gather information in preparation for writing various sections of the grant application.
All of these pieces—research on donors, draft text, organizational history, etc.—can be saved to Evernote as separate notes or notes within a notebook.
As you prepare to respond to a proposal opportunity, your note/notebook structure in Evernote could look like this:
Notebook title: “Foundation XYZ_2018”
Individual Notes:
Application Guidelines (attach screenshots or a PDF of the foundation’s guidance)
Foundation Priorities (attach annual reports, web pages describing programs, etc.)
Current grantees (attach a spreadsheet or type a bulleted list of current grant recipients)
Organizational capability info (attach documents describing your organization’s relevant expertise)
Staff Bios (attach, or type into the note, short bios of your organization’s key staff)
Budget Info (attach documents required to support the budget application, such as your 501(c)(3) letter if your organization is based in the US)
Proposal Calendar (you can create a proposal calendar in a note, allowing you to track key deadlines by week)
Meeting Notes (you can create a standard agenda in a note, copying it each time you have a meeting)
Templates (attach any templates you’ve created, such as CV templates)
Because Evernote is search-driven, you don’t need to think too hard or long about what to attach to a note versus what to create as a separate note. You also don’t have to create a dedicated proposal notebook at all, although creating a notebook will make it easier to collaborate with others in your organization. You can easily share entire notebooks or single notes with colleagues (internal or external to your organization), giving them permission to view and edit the contents.
To streamline your processes, you might want to create templates to organize some of the information listed above. Templates in Evernote are a topic in and of themselves, but briefly, to create a template, all you need to do is create a note with the desired content (for example, a standard meeting agenda). To use the template, you simply copy the note and start entering the content. To see examples of templates or to import free templates into your Evernote account, check out the template information on Evernote’s blog.
Evernote’s customizability is one of its greatest strengths. You can change note and notebook titles, you can reconfigure notes and notebook content, and you can create lots of notebooks and notes or consolidate information into just a few notes and notebooks. It’s up to you.
For grant writing and proposal management, the advantage of Evernote is that it gives you the flexibility to adapt your filing structure easily and quickly, and as many times as you want. This level of flexibility is advantageous when you receive feedback that a note/notebook title is not intuitive and should be changed, or that a template needs tweaking. In other systems, such as SharePoint, changing file names can be a multi-step process. It can be even more cumbersome to change a file, which might require downloading the document, making the edits, and uploading it again (hoping, all the while, that everyone will know to retrieve the latest version). With Evernote, most of the changes can be done within the note itself, no downloading required, and anyone who has access to the note/notebook will have access to the updated versions.
Example of an opportunity summary template created in Evernote
IS EVERNOTE FOR YOU?
If you currently do not use a Cloud-based system to store proposal information, Evernote is worth a try. Regardless of the size of your organization — and even if you are a solo operation — you will benefit from being able to save information in the Cloud. Cloud-based storage lets you access your information from any device (computer, tablet, phone) and wherever you are. If you've ever lost a document because your computer has crashed, you know firsthand the benefits of having content stored in the Cloud!
Does Evernote do everything? No, it is not a word processing tool. You can take notes, but you cannot create a Word document equivalent in Evernote. However, in the context of managing information as you build your proposal and manage task lists, Evernote fits the bill. In terms of affordability, Evernote is hard to beat with its high-quality free option. If you try the free version of Evernote and don't like it, you can always move on to another system. However, if you do like Evernote, you can either continue with the free version or upgrade to the premium plan for an affordable, flexible system that should meet your needs for years to come.
RESOURCES
If you want to learn more about Evernote, a good place to start is Evernote's website. The website has useful articles and tutorials, including several interesting case studies of Evernote in action. You can also find video tutorials on Evernote’s YouTube channel.
Another resource is the Skillshare course “The Complete Evernote Mastery Course - Become More Productive and Maximize Productivity,” taught by Matt Carano. To access this course, you must have a Skillshare membership. If you are not already a Skillshare member, you can sign up for a free trial period.
Most grant writers have been asked at some point to “massage” unfavorable facts into preferred ones, or have seen their fact-based prose reworked by others into something that has the essence of truth but is not strictly true, or is at least less transparent. To some, this may sound like business as usual and what you need to do to win a grant. However, these little acts of truth-stretching, which can take the form of exaggerations, omissions, and misrepresentations, can exact a cost.