To Write Successful Proposals,
Think Like a Funder 

by Sharon Gherman, FEI President/CEO

I became a much more effective writer after serving as a grant program officer, because it helped me think like a funder. For the next two months, I’d like to share some of what I learned from that experience, as it may help you increase your percentage of funded proposals. 

Define Success 

How would you define “successful grantwriter”? Over time, I’ve come to define success as a writer whose proposals are funded by the grantmaker 50% or more of the time over a period of years.

These days at AFE, I guide the work and serve more as an overall mentor and editor for our grantwriters, but when I was actively writing there were stretches of months that I won virtually every proposal I submitted on behalf of a client. What a heady feeling! Naturally, those successful periods always preceded a return to more normal averages where I won some and I lost some. And even great writers have occasional runs of unsuccessful proposals that make us wonder if we’ve completely lost our touch! The proof is in the average rate of success.

At AFE, we’ve consistently maintained a 75% success rate for a number of years. We accomplish this high rate several ways. First, we hire excellent grantwriters with expertise in various fields and we match the grantwriter to the proposal by experience and expertise in that topic.

The second way we increase our potential for success is the most important: We advise clients against applying for any grant for which we do not believe they can be highly competitive. This is a critical step! It’s not easy to turn down work when you’re a small business and keeping good people employed. It’s not easy, either, for a nonprofit that desperately needs an inflow of cash to keep their doors open. But it’s important to let your head -- not your heart -- rule the decision of whether or not to apply for any given grant.

(To be honest, we have written proposals despite our recommendation against applying when a client has decided to take a risk and apply anyway. Disclosure: We don’t count those proposals toward our success rate, whether they’re successful or not.)

From the Applicant’s Perspective 

When seeking funds to expand or continue your programs, it’s not unusual to experience a bit of anxiety. You’ve heard that funders are cutting back because of the slow economy. Your organization’s fixed costs continue to go up steadily and you wonder, “Will anybody out there want to fund what we’re doing?”

Yes. Someone does want to fund what you do – after all these years of funding research and grantwriting, I’m convinced of it. And it’s very important to control this anxiety and not let it impede your funding research, because a sense of desperation may encourage you to apply to funders you should never consider.

Careful, steely-eyed funding research is the most important tool you can use to increase your rate of successful proposals. When you apply to a funder who is a perfect match to your organization and your project, it’s easy to convince them to invest in your project. When you apply to a funder who isn’t a perfect match, it’s much harder to convince them of the value of your project. Like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, you may be able to force it, but it doesn’t make for a good fit (and probably won’t be funded).  

From the Funder’s Perspective 

When I was a foundation program officer, I reported to the Executive Director of our foundation and to our Board of Directors. Collectively, we were charged with accomplishing our mission within our budget, and we were required to report to the state legislature annually regarding our success in that regard.

My priorities as a program officer were quite different than my priorities had been as a grantwriter. As a program officer, I was concerned about writing clear instructions for applicants to follow and getting the word out about the availability of our grants. Once the application deadline passed, I enlisted knowledgeable reviewers and considered their feedback about each proposal. After the scored proposals were listed by final score, I decided the point on the list that project quality really dropped off. The quality proposals were approved by the board and became next year’s grantee cohort.

After planning and overseeing a conference for the new grantees, the pace in my office slowed down a bit as the grantees launched their projects. My focus then turned to updating and creating evaluation tools, analyzing the resulting data about our grantees and their projects, and preparing for the next round of grant projects.

As a program officer, I was focused on coaxing out the best in my grantees and their projects, and documenting their successes (and failures) in order to glean important information to pass on to the next cohort and my board. I was continually focused on the next step, planning future initiatives to bring us yet closer to fulfilling our mission and meeting our goals.

What Funders Want 

Next month, we’ll hear feedback directly from some current program officers (both private and government funders) about what they want to receive from applicants, and a bit about their ‘pet peeves’ with proposals and phone inquiries. We’ll also consider how to create ‘win-win’ grant programs, and I’ll give you a short checklist to help you review your own proposal before hitting the ‘Send’ button!

Meanwhile, join us for a webinar or face-to-face workshop, or call us now to schedule a workshop for your 2011 spring or summer conference. Enjoy those fall leaves!

Sharon Gherman's Bio

Sharon Gherman is President/CEO of The Funding Exchange. She has more than 30 years of professional experience, with strengths in community and rural development, program development, project evaluation, and individual and organizational capacity building.  She has been nationally recognized for her innovations in program development and implementation.
                       
Sharon is experienced on both sides of the grant world as a successful development professional & as a grant program officer. She developed funding plans & wrote proposals that established distance education programs in Alaska, & her successful telecommunications grants helped tie rural Alaska together in the 1990’s. She has taught grantwriting & professional education workshops for over twenty years.

Sharon holds a BA in Rural Development from the University of Alaska. She is a Commissioner on the AK Commission on Postsecondary Ed & a fellow of WestEd’s National Academy of Science & Mathematics Education Leadership.

You’ll find Sharon in the garden in her free time – she loves the smell of dirt & anything green. She also loves to read & spoil the kids & grandkids she shares with her husband Ron.