How to Write Grants

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Laura from youngwritersworkshops.com and I'm going to talk about how to write grants. The key to success in grants is following the guidelines. Make sure that you fit, your project fits what the funder is hoping to fund because right off the top that can be a huge mistake if you write a grant and you are not exactly a fit or not a good fit for what they are hoping to fund. You really are wasting your time and it could actually be considered discourteous to write a grant when you are clearly not what they are looking for because they do have to review it and that is a waste of their time and it could end up making for a bad relationship with this funder in the future so keep that in mind, that is your very important first step is establishing whether you are a good fit for the funder. Gather information such as statistics and facts that support the need for your program. You might want to find newspaper quotes or just raw data numbers that support the need for your project. You also want to gather some partners. Often in a grant you will need letters of support for people in the community that you will be working with to achieve this mission because often a strong proposal is one in which several organizations pool their resources and work together so think about who you can gather as community partners who can write you a letter of support that will help strengthen your case for their grant. Also be sure that you have a really sound plan for how you will spend the money and write a really specific budget and if possible you may even want to work with an accountant or someone who can help you really write a well thought out budget. This is really a good way to convince the funder that you know what you are doing and you are professional so be sure to give some thought about how you will write a good budget. Review it and proofread it many times. Be sure to provide the number of copies they want to see. Be sure to include your 501C3 letter and any other supporting information they need such as previous year's budgets or a list of board members, whatever it is that they are asking for be sure that you don't leave any of it out. If there is something that you can't supply be sure to include an explanation for why it is not there. It is also very good follow up or make some contact with whoever the administrator is for the grant, the more they know you as a person as opposed to just an application on their stack the better so don't ever hesitate to call and answer a question because that will help them know a little bit more about who you are. So those are some ideas about how to write a grant."