How to Write a Grant Quickly

There is free money out there. Here is how to write a grant to get your piece of the action when you have little time for grant writing.

Instructions

1. Start with the grantor's guidelines. Take a highlighter and highlight the key points (deadline), number of copies, mailing address, page limitation, and scoring criteria.

2. Call the grant officer if there is anything in the grant request for proposal that is unclear. Since you have minimal time, you do not have time to waste trying to figure out vague directions.

3. Break the proposal into subsections. Type each subsection out in outline form adding in headings and subheadings. This will help you organize your material, guide the grant reviewer through your proposal, and make it easy to do last minute changes.

4. Set a schedule for completing each subsection. Make sure to give yourself time between typing each section (at least 20 minutes) to prevent you from loosing concentration and making typos. This is very critical because often you will not have time to go back and proofread carefully so you need to do it right the first time.

5. Write your budget and compare it to the text you have already written for the budget subsection to make sure they match. You want to make sure there are no discrepancies that may make people question your project management skills or realize that you wrote this proposal quickly.

6. Last use Microsoft Word's summary feature (File, Tools, Autosummarize) to create your first draft of the abstract. After you have completed this you can work to update it, but at least you will have a starting point.

Tips & Warnings

• Give yourself as much time as feasible. If you have any spare time at the end focus on proofreading and spell checking.