NGO Complete Guide: How To Plan, Prepare and Write a Successful Grant Proposal?

Image Sam Alsrore - Proposal Writing by Sam Alsrore

Whether your NGO is dependent on Pooled Funds or has a list of current donors they receive funds from you still have to develop proposals.

The same idea applies if your NGO is starting or you’re an international organization — budget cuts and short funds is everyone’s problem in the organization and having a successful grant and proposal writing skills is important.

This article contains:

— Introduction
 — Proposal and Concept Notes
 — Problems and Challenges
 — Before Writing a Proposal
 — Preparing Your Plan
 — Managing a USAID Solicitation
 — Writing the Proposal
 — Proposal Packaging
 — Conclusion

Although donors like Innovate DFID , European Commission , and the USAID have different processes, we will be looking into both major themes in writing a proposal and examples.

Proposal— also called an application or grant application is a document prepared by your NGO and submitted to the funding source (donor) as a request for a grant.

In some cases, a concept note is requested before the proposal — a short document which outlines the basic facts of the project idea.

These are short (1–3 pages) and may not have a standard format but should include project title, context, rationale, goals and objectives, activities, expected results, innovation (how is it different from other projects?), organization background, estimated budget and contact details.

A proposal has a framework which enables a clear understanding of the project for the donor.

This usually involves the affected population in the planning, project management and logical framework approach which provides the basic information for proposals.

Each donor may have its own framework but generally include

PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES

Proposal writing has many challenges, especially for small and starting NGOs.

Some of these challenges can be per your organization capacity and resources.

That being said, these two issues are often encountered:

1- Formatting and planning

There are as many proposal formats as there are a number of donors and each donor has a different format.

Although the basic information requested by various donors is generally the same, you should check first with the donor if they have a format or guideline to use.

Go through their website or where you found the grant request.

Tip: the TOR document sometimes has specific guidelines for you during the application process.

Read them first as it helps your planning process and speeds it up.

2- Solicited and unsolicited proposal

Many NGOs work hard and submit proposals to donors, but soon they get a letter or an email saying that they had never asked them to send. Sometimes you don't even get a response back!

Donors don't care about your organization' needs. Donors care about the people that you benefit. It is not about your organization, it’s about the people you serve.

To send a solicited proposal for a grant (solicitation) is only effective when the right person / organization asks the right prospect (donor including individuals, foundations, corporations, etc.) at the right time for the right project at the right amount in the right way.

For example, personally asking an individual face-to-face; developing a proposal for a donor;; writing a letter and sending it to individuals.

Read more on donors challenges, solutions and tips here!

BEFORE WRITING A PROPOSAL

Before you sit down to write, consider these pre-conditions to assure a positive outcome.

Meet with your executive management (could also be the program staff) and learn where you stand. What you need to prepare and how.

Write a few points on paper. The information (and data) you'd have to allocate to the proposal would come from your program team members so don't be afraid to talk about what concerns you!

Before you start writing your proposal, consider these steps:

1- Understanding the Donor

There's four key pieces of information you need to know about your donor

• Aid priorities and issues of the donor
• The donor’s country strategy paper (if any)
• Proposal Guidelines
• Previously funded projects and programs

For example, if you are writing a proposal for USAID then you’d start by visiting USAID website, USAID mission sites and USAID business forecast reports to get an insight into the kind of work/programs that are supported by USAID.

Once you come to learn about USAID works and the kind of programs it supports, go through your Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS).

The CDCS document outlines the strategic framework and objectives of USAID for supporting a particular country.

RFPs (request for proposals) issued by the USAID will come from the CDCS and therefore any organization planning to approach USAID for funding should surely go through it.

Tip: beware of matching requirements, reporting requirements, and contract specifications.

Remember: Always follow grants guidelines / application procedures from funding sources.

2- Assess Your Organization

Before you start the application process for a USAID proposal, it is advisable that you conduct an organizational capacity assessment.

The assessment is designed to see if your organization has the required capacity to implement a project, or the technical expertise and internal processes to implement the project.

If you find certain gaps/issues, resolve them before applying.

You should now have an answer to these four points

1. Technical: Do you have the resources (time is considered a resource) and/or staff to do this?
2. Reputation: What’s your current NGO reputation in the community? This will help you get new (updated) info about your organization.
3. Compatible: How well you did your research in matching your needs to the donor’s areas of interest?
4. Testing: Have you spoken with other NGOs about grants they have received? What was their experience?

Make sure that the program or project fits in with your organization’s mission and vision.

Tip: Vision attracts gifts and grants. Note: Do not invent a program or project in order to seek gifts and grants.

PREPARING YOUR PLAN

You're done researching. You have enough information. You're now preparing.

Start with establishing clear and practical deadlines for you (and your team), so that the proposal can be drafted, edited and submitted timely.

For example, RFPs (Request for Proposals) issued by USAID give the organizations a period of 30-45 days to prepare their application and submit it.

Now you are comfortable to start. Again, you're done researching. You're good to go!

Develop a proposal calendar or your timeline (call it whatever you like), it should look like the below example of a calendar used by grant writers in proposal process.

Joint Proposals

This is a good step because your proposal gets stronger in the eyes of the donor.

If you plan to submit a joint proposal with multiple partners, you should speak to your partners about their roles/expectations in advance.

While identifying partners focus on organizations which have a good track record and can demonstrate their past performance.

Keep all documents available

During the application process you may be required to submit several documents as part of your proposal.

Make a folder containing scanned and attested copies of necessary documents (such as registration certificate, tax exemption certificates, audited reports, bank details, past performance record etc.)

Do this during your preparation stage and keep adding throughout the process.

Responding

This is the stage when the solicitation has been published by the donor and your organization is applying for a grant.

Usually, how you respond to a funding opportunity starts with you being registered (where the grant requests are sent) and you may be required to send an eMail or respond back to one.

Tip: most of the time the process is online and you don’t need to send anything — you can start the process of preparing — if you haven’t already.

MANAGING USAID SOLICITATION

The technical part of any proposal can be the hardest part If you don't know what you're doing and/or starting new in the field of proposal writing.

Therefore, always rely on existing guidelines. For example the solicitation document provided by the USAID should be read once and twice.

1-Read the Solicitation Very Carefully

The solicitation provides important information such as the scope of work, evaluation criteria, eligibility information, and activities that the USAID wants to fund.

Be sure that you understand all of the requirements included in the solicitation.

2 - Outline the Solicitation

Review the section that tells you how to prepare and organize the various sections in your proposal.

This section can be called ‘Technical Proposal Guidelines/application format’. The technical section of the application will have several sub-sections which need to be completed by you.

Some of the important subsections that you will have to complete are:

• Problem Statement
• Justification of Intervention(Why/What/Where)
• Program Description
• Goal and Objectives
• Beneficiary Details
• Critical assumptions
• Program Strategy
• Outcome/Outputs
• Management Structure
• Institutional Capacity
• Past Performance
• Work Plan
• Cross cutting sector
• Result Framework

3-Check the Solicitation Requirements

Once you have completed the solicitation response, go through the solicitation requirements once again to ensure that all sections and requirements have been completed by you.

See for information related to the following:

• Page Numbers
• Font size and font
• Completion of all sections and subsections
• Budget

Make sure that you have followed the solicitation instructions properly.

Register timely

If you are applying or responding to a USAID funding grant then remember when to respond.

You should register your organizations on grants.gov timely.

Do not wait for your solicitation response to be completed, register yourself well in advance to avoid last-minute hassle.

WRITE THE PROPOSAL

A general format of the proposal consists of the following parts:

1. Problem Statement
2. Project Rationale or Justification
3. Project Goal and Objectives
4. Strategies and Activities
5. Results: Impact, Outputs and Outcomes
6. Monitoring and Evaluation
7. Budget

1-Problem Statement and Project Justification
The problem statement or project rationale in a proposal is generally an introduction and context.

You are giving an explanation about the issue that is being addressed by the project and why it needs to be addressed.

You also argue in favour of implementing the project in the proposed area in the existing conditions.

Ask yourself these three questions for a start

1. How does this proposed project fit in with your organization values, mission and direction? (Briefly summarize your organisation’s scope of service, management and governance, and financing.)
2. How does this proposed project fit in with the donor’s values, mission and direction?
3. How does this proposed project reflect emerging issues, innovative strategies, sound research, or proven models?

Apply the Effect > Problem > Cause technique

The relationship between the three (Effect, Problem and Cause) has to be outlined in the Problem Statement of the proposal.

For example, if we have an issue, it will be a good exercise to go a step back and forth to find out its cause and effect relationship.

The best way to understand the cause of an issue is to ask “Why” continuously. This will help reveal the cause of the problem. A problem can have many causes and effects

It is critical that we give evidence to what we are writing in this section of the proposal.

Evidence can be in the form of other research, or data collected by the organization itself.

Tip: Explain the why of what you will do and what the results will be not what you do and how you do it.

2-Project Goal and Objectives

A project goal is a very general, high-level and long-term objective of the project.

It is different from project objectives because the latter are very specific and have to be addressed alone by the project.

For example, "Reducing the impact of natural disaster over communities belonging to the hilly region” – is a project goal, because you are contributing to the problem in addition to other efforts.

An example of an objective can be "Providing housing facilities to earthquake-affected victims” – This can be a general objective.

But a goal cannot be achieved by the project on its own since there will be other forces like the Government and other agencies as well working to achieve it.

A project goal is:

• Very general, high-level and long-term
• A project cannot achieve the entire goal on its own
• A major benchmark to compare work between different projects
• Usually there is one project goal only
• It can be reflected in the title of the project
• Supports the overall policy of the government or the donor agency

Project objectives are the specific objectives for which the project works to achieve them within a stipulated time.

Project Objectives should be SMART: Specific — Measurable — Achievable — Relevant — Time-bound.

An example of a good objective can be “To increase the income-level of women farmers from 5% to 15% in the district.”

Some Relevant Words to be used while writing Objectives

• Decrease
• Increase
• Strengthen
• Improve
• Enhance

Some inappropriate words not to be used while writing Objectives

• Train
• Provide
• Produce
• Establish
• Create

3-Strategies and Activities

Proposals are required to outline how the objectives of the project would be achieved.

You would have to mention the Strategies and the Activities to be implemented in the project.

Strategies in a project can include:

• Capacity-building/awareness-raising
• Organizational development
• Research & Development
• Advocacy
• Victim Support Strategy
• Micro-finance and CBO development

Activities can include:

• Training workshops, street shows, rallies
• Staff selection, staff training
• Baseline, PRA, FGD
• Conferences, meetings, articles, publications
• Establishing shelter homes, counseling, legal support

4-Project Results

Results are changes that we expect to take place after implementing the project activities.

Generally positive experiences undergone by the beneficiaries.

Results are divided into three types:

1. Outputs
2. Outcomes
3. Impact

Outputs are immediate results that we achieve soon after the completion of the project or any specific project activity.

For example, if training on human rights is carried out in a project, the output or the immediate result of it is “a greater understanding of human rights amongst the participants.”

Outcomes are results that have been or that are to be achieved after a period of time, but not immediate.

Using the same example above, the outcome could be “the participants have gone further to communities to inform them about human rights or carrying out policy advocacy in favor of human rights.”

The impact is the longer-term result that has happened because of the activities undertaken in the project.

Using the same example above, the impact can be “policies are framed by the Government to protect the human rights of the people.”

5-Monitoring and Evaluation

The donor usually requires the plan from the implementing NGO so always have a solid M&E plan.

This is an easy part of you writing the proposal because you may use the assistant of the M&E Officer in your NGO.

You can edit the plan how you see it fit after consulting your manager.

6-Budget

Prepare a realistic and accurate budget for the organization and the project.

Remember that if you are funded, you will have to provide the financial results, compared to
budget, as part of your report. (income and expense).

Include administrative and management expenses within the project, as part of the project. (Often these costs are called overhead or indirect costs.)

It should be in line with the activities set in the project. It will be an added advantage to mention contributions from other sources such as the community or other donors.

Drafting and Reviewing

While drafting the proposal following the format requested in the solicitation and writing the details for each section, try to use any terminology used by the donor.

For example the USAID has its own references and terminology. Using such will make your solicitation response stronger.

Get a senior person to review the draft proposal.

Having a second eye is always important and sometimes you may neglect small details while being busy working on major sections like budget.

Henceforth a reviewer is always advised. The reviewer can ensure that basic grammatical, technical and budgetary errors are removed from your draft.

Attachments

If requested, you may have to submit some of these documents

• Biographies of key project or program staff
• Testimonials / Endorsement letters
• Articles written about your organization by a third party
• Appropriate NGO / nonprofit documentation required by the donor
• Financial report and list of board of directors and any relevant advisory groups

PROPOSAL PACKAGING

Congratulations! You completed the writing of the proposal! It's not over yet — ensure that the packaging is done properly before submitting it to the donor.

Keep these points in mind while packaging the proposal

• The Title Page should have Project title, name of the donor agency and name, logo & contact info of the NGO
• There should be a Table of Contents
• There should be one page for explaining acronyms
• There should be a Project Summary (not more than one page)
• Provide an overview of the organization
• Ensure that page numbering, header & footer are complete
• While writing use active sentences more
• Keep in mind the limit for the total number of pages for the proposal
• Attach appendices, if necessary
• Give Bibliography and references
• The proposal should be signed and sealed
• Covering letter is essential

Remember, a proposal ultimately is a fundraising tool. Proposals reflect your organization in the eyes of the donor. Make sure It’s well designed and easy-to-read.

CONCLUSION

Any proposal or grant writer should be able to finalize the steps efficiently and in time.

As you conclude this article, remember these three points

1. Submit more than one application for the same activity due to the likelihood of refusal.
2. Plan in advance for what you will do if you actually receive more grants than you need.
3. Plan in advance what you will do if you receive some money but not enough to do the program or project.

Remember! Practice takes courage. Failing is okay.

Learn to get back up!

Source: USAID, Joyaux, NGOfunds

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Thanks for reading!

Sam led projects in India, UK, Tanzania and Yemen as a humanitarian worker. He’s also the recipient of the “United Nations Africa Recognition Award” in 2018 for his work in the development sector.