Proposal Writing

Proposal Writing

Eleanor McGee and Meg Riley’s workshop on proposal writing offered some great advice for preparing corporate and foundation grants and government contracts.

When preparing a funding proposal for a foundation or corporation, study the funder so you know who your audience is. Funders are pro-active: they have goals that they want to accomplish and they have their own agenda. They are not just waiting for you to come in with a fabulous idea so they can write a check. There is a great deal of good information on a funders’ priorities found in resources (mentioned on the following page) such as the directories published by the Foundation Center, the websites of foundations, and their annual reports.

Government Funding
New York City, the State, and the U.S. government do not award grants, they, in effect, contract with agencies, creating agreements to accomplish very specific outcomes. These contracts can be overwhelming for an organization because of the administration and reporting required. A small or new agency may not be able to compete with larger established agencies—especially if the larger agency has a track record of successfully providing services.

Do not be intimidated by RFPs (request for proposal); they look scarier than they are, but do read the proposal materials very carefully. Omitting even an insignificant piece of paper can result in rejection.

A good practice is to attend the bidders’ conference (also known as the pre-conference or the technical assistance conference.) Question sessions often provide many insights into the granting agency’s real agenda and offer awareness into the issues and politics surrounding the RFP. One question session at a recent immigration services bidders’ conference gave listeners a good background on policy change and new emphases in the contracting government agency—and the controversies that erupted as a result. Also, you will see and hear from the competition—other agencies planning on submitting a proposal.

Some Observations
A proposal should never be created in isolation. Before beginning the proposal writing process, meet with all your staff that will be involved in the program service delivery. Those who are involved in the program should help complete the application: Have them write a portion of the proposal with which they are most directly involved. The final document may require a lot of re-writing and editing, but your colleagues will have had input and a chance to “buy into” the new program.

Be aware that no government contract will provide all the costs involved to run a program. An organization has to be prepared to cover some of the costs (administration, fundraising, overhead, etc.) another way. Think about ways to develop a funding stream that is your own, for example, through private funding sources or fee-for-services.

Be aware that many government contracts reimburse agencies for costs, which can create serious cash-flow problems for small agencies.

If the words, “collaboration, partnership, or alliance,” appear more than twice in the RFP, get a partner. Collaborations are not easy, but in these days of shrinking government money they are called for. A contract should be created that carefully spells out what each organization is responsible for, deadlines, etc. Also, it’s generally best to be the lead organization in collaboration—you have essential control over performance and quality.

Link your program to broader societal issues and problems. An early child care program may serve a specific purpose but the program also affects the ability of parents to work, for example, and may play an important role in helping families to access other needed services.

Stress the sustainable long-range benefits of your programs. For example, a jobs program should lead to career ladders, not minimum-wage jobs. An AIDS prevention program should lead to long-term changes in behavior and lifestyle.

Develop programs that focus on the root causes of social problems. Offer a continuum of services, with logical links from one to another.

Make sure that the people you serve participate in program planning, either as board members or as part of an advisory group.

Demonstrate your street credibility by offering evidence that you’ve tested your program with the community. Show that you are aware of other similar programs, if they exist, and that no other agency in your vicinity is doing precisely what you propose to do.

“Storefront” your services by offering your programs where people live and work, thereby reducing institutional boundaries and demonstrating that you are reaching out to those in need.

Create replicable models that other organizations can utilize. It can only help your proposal to say to a potential funder that you want to develop a model for others to follow, and may help if the funder’s name stays attached as it is offered.

Proposal Styles
Try to use very specific statistics to demonstrate your need. Show that your needs assessments are based on strong evidence.

Describe your program from the client’s point of view. Readers will be able to better envision how it operates through this kind of presentation. In addition it has a subtle psychological effect—engaging the reader in tracing how a program can make a change in a typical client’s life.

Make it readable. While government proposals sometimes demand repetition (because individual sections may be read by different readers), private grants can benefit greatly from the use of examples and anecdotes.

Clearly convey the link between your program and its mission at the beginning of the proposal.

Contacting the funder: yes or no? Personal contacts are very effective, but should be substantive and meaningful. Funders are busy; if you have a real question, ask it. A reasonable approach may be to ask which of two different proposal ideas you are weighing may be of most interest to the funder.

Eleanor McGee and Meg Riley are principles of McGee-Riley Associates, Grant-Writing Services. They may be reached at 914.986.6321 or at 212.567.1277.

Proposal Writing Resources
The Foundation Center offers fee-based subscriptions to various databases, free and low-cost classes as well as free tools such as a weekly e-newsletter, Philanthropy News Digest. Go to www.fdncenter.org.

The Grantsmanship Center Magazine is a free quarterly newsletter. The Fall 2004 issue offered several articles for government grantseekers, including Financial Reporting Obligations of Federal Grant Recipients, A Guide to Allowable Costs, and How to Make Cash Flow Projections. To read articles online or to subscribe go to www.tgci.com.

Big Online America offers fee-for-subscription-based online databases, sample guidelines and other resources. Go to www.bigdatabase.com. It also has a list of internet resources at www.bigdatabase.com/big-html/resources/links.html.

GuideStar.org offers free access (with registration) to funders Form 990PF, the IRS’s required filing for most private foundations which include a listing of grants made during the year.

Sample proposals are available from Non-Profit Guides at www.npguides.org for nonprofits and from SchoolGrants at www.schoolgrants.org for schools.

AmericanFactfinder offers population, housing, economic, and geographic data at www.factfinder.census.gov.

The New York Public Library provides full text, on-line access to many scholarly publications for free at www.nypl.org.

InfoShare offers population statistics, immigration trends, socio-economic indicators, birth and death data, hospitalizations, local trade data, and much more on New York City at www.infoshare.org.

Other statistical sites include www.kidscount.org, the National Center for Health Statistics at www.cdc.gov/nchs, and www.fedstats.gov that offers links to all federal data.

Program evaluation sites include Innovation Network at www.innonet.org; the W. K. Kellogg Foundation/Logic Model Development Guide is at www.wkkf.org/pub/tools/evaluation; and Seedco and United Way offer a tool called Performance, Measurement and Management at www.seedco.org/pmm.

NPCC’s Government Grants Information Service offers members a way to sign up for email notification when government contracts are made public. Go to www.npccny.org/grants.htm.