Grant Writing
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About grant writing
Grant writing is the practice of turning a plan into a funding application that a reviewer can score. It is applied writing under constraint: a funder publishes what it will support, how the request must be structured, what evidence counts and how proposals are judged, and the work is to answer that exactly while keeping the case coherent and honest.
Most applications share a spine. A statement of need establishes the problem with evidence rather than assertion. Objectives translate intent into something measurable, usually with a stated population, timeframe and target. A methods or activities section explains what will actually be done, by whom, in what sequence. An evaluation plan says how anyone will know whether it worked, and a budget with a narrative accounts for every figure and ties each one to an activity. Many funders also want organisational capacity, sustainability beyond the grant period, and letters confirming that named partners have agreed to their roles.
Craft shows in fit and in specificity. The strongest proposal for one funder is often unsuitable for another, because eligibility, priorities and allowable expenses differ, and a recycled application reads as recycled. Reviewers work through a scoring rubric, so an answer that ignores a criterion loses those points regardless of how well the rest is argued. Deadlines are usually absolute, submission portals reject files that break formatting rules, and required attachments left missing can disqualify an otherwise strong case before anyone reads the argument.
Guides related to grant writing
Grant Writing — questions and answers
- What goes into a budget narrative, and why isn't the spreadsheet enough?
- The narrative explains each line: what the figure covers, how it was calculated, and which activity it supports. A salary line shows the role, the proportion of time on the project and the basis for the amount. Reviewers use it to judge whether the plan is realistic and the numbers are justified, and unexplained figures read as guesses even when they are accurate.
- What are indirect costs, and why do funders cap them?
- Indirect costs are real expenses that cannot be attributed to one project: premises, utilities, finance and administrative staff, insurance. Funders often allow them as a percentage of direct costs, and many cap that percentage or exclude certain categories from the base. The cap is about comparability across applicants and about directing money towards programme delivery, not a claim that the overheads are imaginary.
- How specific do objectives need to be?
- Specific enough that success or failure is observable. "Improve literacy" cannot be assessed; "raise the proportion of participating pupils reading at their expected level from 40 to 60 per cent within twelve months, measured by the school's termly assessment" can. Reviewers look for a named population, a baseline, a target and a measurement method, because that is what an evaluation plan later has to deliver against.
- What is a logic model, and where does it help?
- It maps inputs to activities, outputs, outcomes and longer-term impact, usually on one page. Its value is diagnostic: gaps become visible, such as an outcome with no activity plausibly producing it, or activities generating outputs nobody will measure. Many funders request one, but the discipline is useful regardless, because a proposal that fails this test rarely survives review intact.
- Why do applications get rejected without being read on merit?
- Administrative failures: an ineligible applicant type or geography, a missing required attachment, exceeding a page or character limit, submitting after an absolute deadline, or a portal rejecting a file format. Funders apply these checks first because they have to be consistent. Reading the eligibility and submission rules before writing, then verifying against them afterwards, avoids losing a good case on process.
- How should a proposal handle risks and things that might not work?
- Name them plainly and say what the response would be. A plan that anticipates recruitment falling short, a partner withdrawing, or a delay in approvals, and describes a mitigation for each, reads as competent. Proposals asserting that nothing will go wrong read as inexperienced, and reviewers who have run projects themselves tend to trust the candid version more.
