Writing the Grant Proposal

You can find the full components of a grant proposal pretty much anywhere on the web. Trust me, a quick Google search will yield approximately 20 million web pages.

Most every web page suggests that you include the following:

• Cover letter: This letter should be similar to your LOI, but should be limited to a singles page, without exception. It should be on your school's letterhead and should be styled as a business letter. Include the overview of your organization (mission statement) and the purpose and reason for your request (program mission statement, how this program has been/would have been funded in the past - why you need their help!)
• Cover sheet or executive summary: This is going to give organization's a quick look at your program. It should look like the cover page to a report and should include the following information:
• School name
• Program name and purpose: Keep it in a titular format, but make it descriptive. "Grant Application for Literacy Intervention" isn't a real crowd pleaser. For example, "Read to Succeed" is going to garner much more support. "Read to Succeed - a home and school crossover literacy program" is even better.
• Need or problem: Can be included in the program name, or can be subtitle below the program name and purpose. Working with the previously mentioned example, it could be included as "Read to Succeed - a home and school crossover literacy program for at-risk elementary school students."
• Objectives: Our objective is included in the title - clearly, we're trying to improve the literacy rates of at-risk kids. If you positively can't fit it into your title, put it in smaller font beneath it and try to be succinct.
• Methods: Again, I fit the methods into the title - go me! If you can't fit the methods into the title, I suggest not including them in the cover page because it will clutter it and make it look less professional.
• Total cost.
• Amount requested: Hopefully the amount you're requesting isn't the total cost. Look into ways to show different kinds of involvement. You've probably already got the teacher's salary covered, right? Well, that's a part of the program cost. You've probably already got the facility covered. Again, part of the program cost.
• Contact information: Include it in block format at the bottom of the page. This should be the grant writer/manager contact information, not necessarily the school's.
• Central document: This is the real meat of your proposal. These elements should be worked into any grant proposal, regardless of whether or not you are required to write a full proposal or asked to submit your request in an online application with guiding questions. These elements provide the necessary reasons behind your request and show the funding organization how responsible your school is and that you are a trustworthy organization to fund.
• Needs Assessment: LAUSD schools luck out here - your school experience survey or the school report card can more often than not provide the reasoning behind implementing one program or another. You need data-based reasoning in your grant proposal for your program to exist. It should include the following information:
• Situation
• Problem or need
• Target population
• Reason for need
• Opportunity
• Support or Evidence
  
• Goals and Objectives: What are the goals of your programs and how do they address the needs of your school?
• Include (at least) one goal per problem or need
• Plan to implement
• Process of implementation
• Expected results
• Methodology: You'll want to include how your program will be implemented, logistically speaking. You are also defending why it's best that your program be handled by your school, rather than a nonprofit organization. What supports are already in place in the school setting?
• Who, what, when, where
• Sequence of events
• Timeline
• Evaluation: This is, by far, the biggest deciding factor in whether or not a grant gets funded, in my experience. You want to assure your funder that your school is going to be transparent about the results of the program and that there are already intervention supports in place to ensure that results are achieved. Unfortunately, LAUSD has a bad reputation in most parts nowadays, so you need to convince the funder that your school is going to evaluate and concretely measure the impact of the program.
• Plan for meeting performance
• How to determine its success: This can be done through surveys, examinations, and quantifiable numbers (such as tardies or dropouts).
• How to modify
• Possible follow-ups
• Budget:
• Total budget for the school: If your school is in debt, you need to explain why and give the funder your plan for making up your deficit. Assure them that their funds will not be used to do this (as most overhead costs are not funded).
• Total budget for the program
• Amount requested from funder
• What requested amount will cover
• Other funding sources
• Qualifications:
• Establish credibility
• Organization history or expertise
• Faculty members and support
• Accreditation
• National memberships
• Number of faculty/staff/teachers and the qualifications of such staff: If 90% of your teachers have a masters degree, this is something you'll definitely want to mention!
• Recommendations or endorsements of support
• Previous successes
• Conclusion:
• Restate problem
• Restate solution
• Restate use of funds
• Appendices: 
• IRS letter
• Annual report (if you have one)

In many cases, I find this format to be rather repetitive. Never copy and paste information from one part of the proposal to another. Re-state, but never assume that the person reading your proposal has read all the other portions of the proposal.

In my experience, including all the components of a grant proposal that the Internet suggests is not so important as writing to the specific grant you are applying for. If the grant you're applying for doesn't require an executive summary, don't include an executive summary! Pertinent information you might include in this portion can easily be sneaked into other areas of the proposal and you will still be following the proposal guidelines. What's even more important, though, is that you write to the funding organization's mission and goals.

It's perfectly acceptable to have a document full generic paragraphs describing your organization, your program, etc. that you can draw upon when writing a grant proposal: this will save you lots of time. However, writing a grant proposal is very much akin to writing a paper for class. Unlike high school or college papers, you might not get in trouble for plagiarizing yourself, but your request will be ignored if it doesn't fit with the funding organization's goals or preferences. Therefore, it's important to try to draw connections between your program and the funding organization's mission. Every element of the program should be connected to the funding organization in some way.

So whether you are following the template above or not, be sure to include the information is suggests - this information establishes your ethos as an organization and the reason they should fund you!