For many of us the fine details of what we do every day are so automatic that we don’t even notice them; whether it’s the drive to work, the phone numbers we dial, or the forms we routinely fill out and file. It’s easy to forget that people in our own town may not know anything about your organization and its programs, let alone a potential funder located in another state. This became crystal clear to me when I was asked by a federal grant reviewer, “Where is Missouri?”
When writing grants your goal is to educate the reader about your organization. Assume that they know nothing about you so that the fine details, the important facts they need to know but don’t already, don’t get left out of the proposal.
It is your job to draw a picture of your organization, your community, and your programs; helping the evaluator understand and relate to you.
Be concise but do not oversimplify.
Try having someone outside of your organization, who does not know your programs well, read your grant proposal and give you feedback about whether or not the proposal makes sense and reads well.
You may want to keep these things in mind if you are working with an outside grant writer. No one knows your organization better than you. Treat your grant writer like someone who is new to the organization and take the time to talk to them about your program, your organization, and your vision so that the passion of your words will shine through in the proposal.
Grant writers are skilled at the proposal process, at writing, at winning funders over not experts in the service that you deliver. Forgetting this will set you, and the grant writer, up for failure.
