GRANT WRITING TIPS
It’s all in the story! If you are a reviewer or program officer and you have been reviewing proposals all day, what is going to grab your attention?
General Tips:
- Know Your Audience
- Focus Areas and Mission Alignment
- Organizational Interests
- Funding Capacity & Frequency (1 year vs. multiple years)
- Review Process
- Relevance
- Define how your project aligns with sponsor's goals
- Convey what sets your project apart – how is it different/innovative
- Relay how the grant will make a difference
- Follow the Guidelines!
- It is simple, yet 50-70% of proposals are rejected because the sponsor's guidelines were not followed
- Be sure to address all questions and respond exactly to what the sponsor is asking
- Don’t over promise
- Make sure you have, or are requesting, the funds and resources to fulfill all deliverables
Writing Tips:
- Use clear, concise language - eliminate technical jargon and industry terminology and/or buzz words. Keep it simple.
- Avoid metaphorical language – it is not music to the reviewer’s ears.
- Omit needless (meaningful elements of writing used to form sentences) words.
- Use the Active Voice. Instead of: The student was given more work, Consider: The Teacher gave the student more work.
- Don’t use exclamation points or unnecessary BOLDED text!!!
- Match the subject to the verb (single v. plural).
- Limit the use of adverbs that convey “very” little meaning.
