Grants are a great way of raising dollars, but they take a lot of time. Writing those proposals is so time consuming, which can be frustrating when so much is uncertain. Will this get approved? Will it not? So, full disclosure, I have some strong beliefs about grant writing and I actually prefer to outsource it.
But, lets talk about how to write grants when you do need to write one in house. A lot of the things that go into grants are repeated time after time, and sadly, lots of shops just keep recreating those specific items for every proposal. The key here is to not reinvent the wheel. Because a lot of grants ask for the same general information – your mission, your current programs, your strategic initiatives – you should develop a boilerplate proposal. Then you have something that you can just plug and play.
I have what I like to call my ‘fundraising go bag.’ It’s a list of all the documents that are routinely used for grants. I have print outs of them and I also have a digital file folder of them. Every time I go to write a grant or need that information, it’s all in one place, ready to go. It saves me a lot of time.
Check out our free resource — the Fundraising Go Bag Checklist. It lists everything that you need to assemble in advance to make the grant writing and preparation process so much easier. Do it once … don’t reinvent the wheel.