The Grant Writing Process - The Proposal Process

Step 1: Once you have found a grant that you would like to apply for, you need to do some in-depth research on the funding organization.

• What type of grant is it? Knowing what kind of funding organization you are appealing to will help you to determine the appropriate timeline you will need to follow and whether or not you have enough time to get together the appropriate information.
• What information is the grant requiring? Knowing what elements will need to go into the proposal before you begin writing will ensure that you have all the necessary staff, teachers, and community leaders on your "team" that will be essential to applying for the grant and implementing the program.
• Get approval for applying for the grant from your principal, your district, and anyone else who will need to sign off on the project.
• Call the program officer who is overseeing the grant application process and discuss the program you are planning to implement. Ensure that your program is eligible for funding.

Step 2: Submit a Letter of Intent/Inquiry/Interest (LOI). This step is not always required, but can help you determine whether or not there is a grant available to apply for if your research online has been unyielding. For some grant makers, this is a requisite step in receiving their Request for Proposals. This step helps to weed out those organizations that may not be as serious about receiving the grant or whose programs may not fulfill the mission of the funding organization. Participating in the LOI process will save you time in that you don't need to write a full grant proposal to be rejected, so your LOI should be taken as seriously as a full grant proposal.

Step 3: Once you have received approval from the funding organization, it is time to begin writing your proposal. I highly suggest that you do not turn in any full proposals without receiving approval from the funding organization, or at the very least, speaking with someone from the funding organization about the project you have in mind. Most grant proposals are around 15 pages long and represent a lot of work on behalf of the grant writer, so eliminating every non-applicable grant application is necessary to save yourself a lot of time and energy.

I also suggest having someone, or better yet, several someones, edit your proposal before you submit it.

Step 4: Submit your proposal and cross your fingers. Try not to call the funding organization every day for an update of your application's status. Once you hear back from the funding organization about the status of your grant, use it as a learning experience, no matter what the outcome. You are allowed to ask why your grant wasn't funded, but the response may just be that there were many applicants.

Lather, rinse, repeat.