Before you start grinding out a grant proposal, get the right resources at your disposal.
Feel ready to dive into grant writing? First, you need to make sure you’ve packed the necessary equipment, so you succeed─and don’t end up crashing and burning.
Here’s a look at some invaluable resources that can make you into a grant writing hero.
Webinars
GrantSpace, a service of the popular Foundation Center, offers free and reasonably rated self-paced e-learning classes to help you through the grant-writing process. The webinar courses cover such topics as introduction to proposal writing, creating a sound proposal budget, and storytelling for social media.
Grant Writing Checklist Concept Worksheet
After spending several hours looking at those webinars, you may be in the mood to start putting pen to paper. This grant-writing checklist concept worksheet from the University of Maine can help you organize some of the many thoughts running through your head right about now.
The worksheet is divided into sections:
- Introduction
- Background, appropriateness, and achievements
- Needs addressed
- Project objectives
- Project partners
- Program implementation
- Evaluation methodology
- Outreach activities
- Project sustainability
- Key personnel
Team Responsibilities Planning Worksheet
Nobody writes a grant proposal alone, so while you’re crafting ideas for your grant proposal, you need to figure out who will do what. For example, one person may be assigned to check your organization’s network to see whether you have a connection with the potential funder, while another team member dives in to gathering information about the funder’s organization.
To keep track of your grant-writing team and members’ responsibilities, consider using this valuable team responsibilities planning worksheet from the University of Maine.
Evernote
A favorite among writers, Evernote lets you keep online “notes” (documents or images) in “notebooks” that you create and organize yourself. You can create special notebooks to track your grant-writing process, such as:
- Potential funders
- Specific notebooks for each funder
- Outreach efforts for each funder
- Contact information for each funder
As inspiration hits, you can scrawl down a note superfast in Evernote, save it, and access it from your laptop, desktop computer, or smartphone with the Evernote app.
Dropbox
Similar to Evernote, Dropbox lets you save files in the cloud then access them from anywhere. Everything in Dropbox is synched automatically to all devices, so you’ll never be without a document when inspiration strikes.
Writers typically use Dropbox to save different drafts of documents, upload videos easily, and save images.
KanbanFlow
A must-have for any writer who wants to boost productivity, KanbanFlow is a lean project management tool. Its visual interface makes it easy for writers to keep track of what projects are hottest, what tasks need to be done, and where projects are in the process.
KanbanFlow also lets you use the Pomodoro technique, so you work 25 minutes without interruption and with maximum focus.
Google Drive
If you have different writers working on one proposal or just need everyone to access the same documents (without overwriting one another), Google Drive is vital.
It offers 15GB of free online storage for all types of images and documents. Plus, you can invite other users to view, download, and collaborate on the different files. Because the doc is in Google Drive, you don’t have to send endless emails back and forth with attachments.
Expert help at your fingertips
Busy saving the world or still find yourself overwhelmed? We live to craft well-written, thoroughly researched proposals, so you can focus on the other aspects of your organization. Put us to work for you today.
