There’s a perception that low-income advocacy and environmentalism are incompatible. Yet, I’m a life member of the Sierra Club as well as a Certified Community Action Professional (a designation conferred by today’s version of the War on Poverty organizations).

And that’s why I love this project. It allowed me to marry these two long-time interests. There must be a romantic project title in there somewhere, something to do with tilting at windmills with windmills, but I settled on a plain brown wrapper of a title.

Sample Grant Proposal Summary

The proposal describes an innovative source of energy assistance for low-income families. Nonprofits develop wind energy (turbines sited on property they own or control) and trade the power generated to local utilities for energy assistance credits. The credits are then transferred to LIHEAP eligible families as needed, often during the winter to offset high heating bills.

The grant proposal was funded for three years for a total of $1 million. The funding agency was the Office of Community Services (DHHS).

See the FULL GRANT PROPOSAL HERE (PDF).
or HERE (HTML).

The project had to strike a delicate balance. We needed to document both:

1. my client’s street credibility (since we proposed outreach to sex workers and injecting drug users, groups that are extremely skittish about police and other officials), and
2. my client’s medical chops (since the project included blood draws and STD HIV testing)

My client’s staff included former sex workers and injecting drug users, who were already doing AIDS HIV awareness outreach in the target neighborhood. They brought back first hand reports from the field, which I sprinkled throughout the proposal. That took care of issue 1.

To tackle issue 2, I made sure the budget included ample time and detailed job description for a phlebotomist. And we partnered with a local hospital with a lot of experience in AIDS HIV prevention and treatment. The hospital provided a letter that documented cash and in-kind support. I put that in bold to stress that, in general, support letters are a dime a dozen. But one that pledges material support…that’s gold. And grant proposal reviewers sit up and take notice.

This federal proposal was awarded $150,000 for each of three years for a total of $450,000. The granting agency was the Office of Minority Health. So, to win the grant, it was essential to document the number of minorities not only in the target population but also on the client’s board of directors and staff.

One last lesson from today’s sample proposal: Initially, we weren’t funded. We did get a glowing letter praising the project, with an apology to say they’d run out of funds. But we kept in contact with the funder. When they got an additional appropriation a few months later, we were at the head of the line.

Moral: Don’t give up, especially if you’ve gotten some positive feedback. A relationship with a funder is like any relationship. It’s based on keeping in touch. So don’t be shy about picking up the phone and calling a program officer!

Summary of the grant proposal: The 3-year project uses street level outreach to bring information about HIV and STD risk reduction to minority (emphasizing African-American) sex workers and injecting drug users (IDUs). The project also provides access to treatment at local medical/recovery facilities. Names of individuals and grantees have been altered to protect privacy. The narrative section of the proposal is attached. (Assurances, certifications, budgetary pages, and appendices have been omitted. For this reason, the attached materials are paginated from 19 to 51.)

If you have any questions about the proposal, just post a comment below. (No need to subscribe to the blog.)

See the FULL SAMPLE GRANT PROPOSAL HERE.

I prepared the proposal working closely with staff of the grantee. A slightly modified version was funded by Marin Community Foundation for $25,000. Names of persons and organizations have been altered to protect privacy. The proposal was strong because the organization was strong: The founders and activists were women living with breast cancer (or who had survived breast cancer), and their personal, informed commitment made for a compelling story.

It’s always a pleasure working with such an organization. As a grant writer you can learn so much. I knew very little about breast cancer when I began working on the proposal. That’s often the case, even for very experienced grant writers. Your expertise is not knowledge of the subject matter. That’s your client’s expertise. Your expertise is knowledge of your client (Which staff member or volunteer can point you to the information needed for the proposal?) and how to tell their story in a compelling way.

Many good grant writers have a perfectionist streak. That can work to your advantage, but only if you’re willing to admit that you don’t know it all! Use the strengths of your client and partners.

Full sample grant proposal here.

In these pages I’ll refer to a grant writer’s client, since I’m typically in a contractual relationship. Even if you work as an employee, it’s still useful to think of other parts of the organization (the board of directors, your direct supervisor, or even yourself wearing a different hat) as your clients. Why do I think this is helpful? I want repeat customers; therefore, I want happy customers. I want to build long-term relationships. Over the years, I’ve learned to resist the impulse to include elements in a proposal that I know will score points with reviewers, but will be impossible for my client to implement. Creating fantasy proposals may get money in the short run, but will corrode your relationships in the long run.

An admission: I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I know, I know. The books on interviewing technique tell you to mention this as a shortcoming when you’re asked to list your strengths and weaknesses. A bit precious. And some bosses and clients may actually believe obsessive perfectionism to be a good thing. My experience: It undermines effectiveness. Profoundly. With Voltaire, I’ve come to believe The perfect is the enemy of the good. There’s more on this topic in my preface to the Breast Cancer Awareness sample grant proposal.

The flip side of perfectionism is procrastination. Those of you who suffer the malady will likely understand that comment. Still, I will ponder the underlying psychology more in a future post. An anti-procrastination tool-kit is essential for the effective grant writer.

Welcome to the world of grant writing. It can be overwhelming at first, trying to sort through the vegetable soup. (What’s the difference between an RFP and an RFQ?) As the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy so helpfully advises:

DON’T PANIC!

Consider me a friendly advisor.

First let me introduce myself…