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.

Courses on proposal writing typically focus on the importance of writing clearly and avoiding jargon. While important, these tips alone will not lead to a winning proposal. Writing a high-quality proposal also involves remembering that proposals are scored, not read. If you write a well-written proposal but fail to consider how the reviewers will read and evaluate it, your proposal may not score well.

Writing a proposal and sharing it with multiple donors via email usually doesn’t lead to success for several reasons.

After seeing a few proposal turnarounds, where mediocre proposals have been transformed into much stronger ones, we’ve discovered that taking three steps can work wonders.

To help you decide whether hiring a freelance proposal writer makes sense for your organization, we're going to look at three scenarios when hiring a grant writer makes sense. We'll also discuss the different types of proposal writers and tips for collaborating with a proposal writer to help the process go more smoothly.

To prepare a competitive proposal, you need to look at your proposal from the perspective of the reviewers and the evaluation criteria they will be applying. What can you do to make it easier for the reviewers to give your proposal a high score? Applying the rules of good writing (writing clearly and concisely, no jargon) combined with complying with the proposal guidelines will help. Other things you can do include being realistic about what you can accomplish and giving reviewers enough detail so they can understand your proposal, regardless of their area or level of expertise.

Just as you “dress for success” when you go for a job interview, your grant proposal should look pulled together and professional by the time you submit it. In this post, we review six formatting tips you can apply to make your next proposal look polished.

The executive summary is a concise overview of the proposal that should touch on all of the key themes of greatest interest to the funder.  In some cases, the executive summary may be the only section of the proposal some evaluators will read. Some of the choices you'll need to consider around the crafting of an executive summary include when to write it, what content to include, and how to work within page limits for maximum impact. 

If you are wondering what you can do to turn things around and start winning more grants, it may be helpful to look at common reasons why applications fail to be funded. In this post, we cover five reasons why many grant applications miss the mark.

An organizational chart can show two things. First, it can be an easy, visual way of showing reporting lines, or who is reporting to whom. Second, organizational charts can show communication lines, or who is communicating with whom, including who will be communicating to the donor. Although frequently included as part of a proposal's annex, organizational charts can also be included in the body of the grant proposal as part of the management section. Organizational charts can range from basic to elaborate depending on the needs of the proposal and the limits on your budget. Below are a three options for creating organizational charts.

Cost share requires the applicant to contribute a certain dollar amount (or dollar equivalent) to support the budget and thus "share" the costs of the proposed project.  This post is going to cover some of the basics around cost share including why it is required, why it matters when evaluating opportunities, and how you can come up with cost share.

What happens when you want to pursue grant funding but you don't have the time or the skills to write grants? For many nonprofits and projects, the answer is to outsource the work to a grant writer.If you are a nonprofit or project administrator and are considering hiring a grant writer, there are three common assumptions about grant writers you'll want to avoid when reviewing candidates.