January 01, 2017
Last updated March 2023
If you've never written a proposal before — and even if you have — it can be valuable to review sample proposals, particularly funded proposals.
Unfortunately, examples of successfully funded proposals are not easy to find. Proposals submitted to private foundations are more difficult to access than those submitted to government agencies, but even within government agencies, the number of released proposals varies widely. Two agencies that have consistently released proposals over the years include the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Education.
If you are interested in viewing a grant application that has been funded by a U.S. government agency but has not been publicly released, you can submit a request to receive a copy under the Freedom of Information Act (http://www.foia.gov). There are no special forms to complete under the FOIA. To start the process, contact the FOIA office of the agency that awarded the grant. You can use the agency directory on the FOIA website to look for the relevant contact information. If you are unable to find the agency's contact information, you may contact the program officer for the awarded grant for guidance on submitting the request. Note that not all requests will be approved, and you will not be granted access to confidential or proprietary information, such as budgets.
The resource list below consists of links to proposals primarily funded by U.S. government agencies. There are a few sources for proposals for foundations, including a book from the Foundation Center that has more than 30 sample proposals. Listed below, you'll also find links to proposal outlines and grant writing guidance.
Resources for Sample Proposals
CIVICUS World Alliance for Civic Participation: CIVICUS provides guidance on proposal writing plus a sample proposal requesting support for an AIDS orphan project beginning on p. 28 of the linked document.
Community Tool Box: The website has posted two sample proposals for community-level projects.
Foundation Center's Guide to Winning Proposals: Released in 2008, this book includes 38 sample proposals, all of which were successfully funded.
Grant Gopher: Grant Gopher is an online database of grant opportunities. If you register for an account with Grant Gopher (a free account or paid annual subscription), you can download up to five sample proposals in each category.
GrantSpace: On GrantSpace, you'll find sample cover letters, letters of inquiry, budgets, and proposals.
Jabberwocky Ecology: Jabberwocky Ecology has posted links to proposals in the biological sciences, most of which were submitted to government agencies.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: NIAID has posted more than 25 sample applications on its site.
Nonprofit Guides: Nonprofit Guides has posted sample proposals for community projects (one to a foundation, the others to government agencies).
Scholastic.com: Scholastic.com has provided a sample proposal to the State of California for an ESL program.
U.C. Berkeley, Institute of International Studies: U.C. Berkeley has provided two sample proposals. One proposal is to the National Science Foundation and the second is an example of a Fulbright application.
U.S. Department of Education: The U.S. Department of Education has provided links to more than 20 successful proposals.
Wiley: Jossey-Bass: A supplement to Thomas Blackburn's book Getting Science Grants: Effective Strategies for Funding Success (Jossey-Bass, 2003), the website includes links to funded proposals to federal and private agencies.
Additional Resources
Adventures of Cyberbee: The site provides a sample outline and a suggested approach for education-related proposals.
CIVICUS World Alliance for Civic Participation: CIVICUS provides a proposal toolkit that offers guidance on planning and writing proposals and includes a sample proposal.
Community Tool Box: The Community Tool Box provides a comprehensive proposal outline that includes guidance, links to proposal-development tools, and two sample proposals.
Udemy course Federal Grant Writing 101 with Dr. Beverly Browning: Dr. Browning's course includes excerpts from two of her funded proposals (one to a foundation, one to a U.S. government agency). The course has a list price of $49.
National Marine Fishery Service: The National Marine Fishery Service has provided an annotated proposal outline that covers the proposal development and writing phases.
World Bank Blog: On the World Bank blog, a reviewer of World Bank proposals for impact evaluation work provides tips for stronger proposals.
Several examples of successful NSF proposals are available on the Teach the Earth website.
Subscribers to the GrantStation database can access more than 50 successful proposals at https://grantstation.com/writing-proposals/samples-of-award-winning-grant-proposals. If you are not a member of GrantStation, you can become one at https://grantstation.com/product/grantstation-membership.
**Note: We update this list as we learn about new resources. When this post was originally published in 2015, the proposal resource list included 14 items. We've since added a few more resources to both the sample proposal list and the "additional resources" section as well as deleted links to material that has since been removed. If you know of other sources for funded proposals, please let us know!