Preparing successful grant proposals to receive funding from corporations or foundations requires careful research, meticulous preparation, and graceful writing. Grant administrators will often say that many grant requesters have a limited understanding of the proposal writing process, and as a result their worthy causes lose out.
If you learn how to avoid the errors that lead to the rejection of your proposal, you will be better prepared to help the causes you most admire. This course will walk you through all of the essential steps, including an important discussion of what you must do when the grant arrives.
In this course, you will learn how to become fully familiar with the institution or project for which you are requesting support. You will get valuable guidance in preparing a background statement and a brief financial statement to support your request. You will also research some charitable foundation and corporate giving sources.
Then, you will learn how to put everything together, so you can assemble, write, and submit complete grant proposals to foundations, corporations, and wealthy individuals for any number of your pet projects.
Nancy Robinette has more than twenty years' experience researching and writing successful grant proposals and raising funds in corporate development, arts, and education for the John F. Kennedy Center, Chincoteague Island Arts Organization, and the Black Heritage Museum among others. She is also a respected instructor at George Mason University and a recipient of the Fox Fellowship research grant.
The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.
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Lesson 1
There?s nothing magical about preparing a grant request, but in this lesson, you?ll learn some easy and fun tricks of trade that will help you with all sorts of writing projects, even those beyond grant proposals. And you?ll learn special ways to practice these tricks!
Lesson 2
Those of us who work for causes we think are important care about them in a very special way, usually a rather subjective one. But grantors who deal with literally thousands of institutions and causes have a rather different way of thinking about them. In this lesson, you?ll put yourself in their shoes. And in the process, you?ll learn a great way to describe your own cause to anyone.
Lesson 3
Now that you?ve tried on your grantor?s shoes, let's talk about why those grantors look for certain kinds of information and documents. You?ll learn what these documents are so you can dig them out and be ready to supply them when you prepare a grant request.
Lesson 4
There are lots of interesting things to know about each individual nonprofit organization, but all nonprofits share one thing: They're not in it to for the money! We all know that you can measure a good business by its bottom line?whether it makes money or not. But how do you measure the effectiveness of a nonprofit that needs money? In this lesson, we?ll start to look into it.
Lesson 5
The hunt for funding sources is the eternal game of hide and seek that we all play in this business. How do you find sources that might be appropriate for you? It?s a game that we can play in a library or on the Web, but the Web makes it easiest! This lesson will point you toward the most effective research tools available.
Lesson 6
Once you find some foundations that you think might be a good fit for your cause, how do you choose among a field that might include hundreds? In this lesson, we?ll discuss ways to sift through these foundations, and in the course of this process, we may unearth sources you haven?t even considered!
Lesson 7
You've looked at all the possible charitable foundations that fit your cause, but don't stop there. What about the corporate world? Corporations have foundations, but they also have other ways of giving. We?ll talk about packaging your projects for corporations, then we?ll decide when to ask the corporate foundation and when to approach them in another way.
Lesson 8
For those of you who are word people, you?ll learn another way to tell your story?let the numbers do the talking! People reviewing your proposals will attach great importance to numbers, so you can?t get away with simply describing a project with words. In this lesson, we?ll discuss ways of preparing numbers effectively. It?s not hard to do, and it?s essential to the success of your proposal.
Lesson 9
By the time you reach this lesson, you?ll have all the pieces you need for your proposal. Here we?ll fine-tune what you have. Then we?ll put them all together and add the finishing touches so you can finally put a complete proposal in the mail.
Lesson 10
Everyone knows that you can?t win ?em all! But when you do get a turndown, there are positive alternatives to doom and gloom. The suggestions in this lesson will help you deal with those inevitable turndowns.
Lesson 11
Okay, just as you hoped?you did get a gift! There?s an old saying in this business: Every gift paves the way to the next. In this lesson, we'll make sure you know just how to pave that road!
Lesson 12
Now that you have all the elements you need for your proposal, can you also send it to an individual? Well, not really?at least not the whole thing. You need to think about what would interest those individuals and how you can best present it to them. That?s what we'll cover in the final lesson of this course. I think you?ll enjoy it and I know you?ll find it useful!
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