- Writing grants has not been prioritized by the organization.
- Your organization is unable to start, finish, and/or continue priority projects or initiatives as it does not have sufficient funds.
- Grants are applied to in an ad hoc manner by employees who do not have sufficient time and resources to dedicate to the process.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
There are three critical components to the grant application process:
- Being strategic about the grant opportunities your organization chooses to pursue.
- Dedicating sufficient time and resources to writing a competitive grant application.
- Ensuring your organization will be able to adhere to the grant parameters if awarded the funding.
Impact and Result
- By leveraging Info-Tech’s methodology, your organization will strategically select, write, and submit competitive grant applications, securing additional funding sources to support the organization and the communities you serve.
- This research can enhance the grant writing capabilities of the organization and ensure that every grant chosen aligns with your organizational priorities.
- This blueprint will drive consensus on which grant applications should be prioritized by the organization, ensuring resourcing, feasibility, and significance are considered.
Increase Grant Application Success Research & Tools
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should enhance your organization's grant application lifecycle and how you can increase the number of grants your organization is awarded. Review Info-Tech’s methodology and understand the four ways Info-Tech can support you in completing this project.Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
- Increase Grant Application Success – Phases 1-4
1. Identify Opportunities
Identify grant funding opportunities that align with your organization's priorities. Ensure the programs, services, projects, and initiatives that align with these priorities can be financially supported by grant funding.
- Increase Grant Application Success – Phase 1: Identify Opportunities
- Grant Identification and Prioritization Tool for Organizations
2. Grant Prioritization
Prioritize applying for the grant opportunities that your organization identified. Be sure to consider the feasibility of implementing the project or initiative if your organization is awarded the grant.
- Increase Grant Application Success – Phase 2: Grant Prioritization
3. Write the Grant Application
Write a competitive grant application that has been strategically developed and actively critiqued by various internal and external reviewers.
- Increase Grant Application Success – Phase 3: Write the Grant Application
- Grant Writing Checklist
4. Submit the Grant Application
Submit an exemplary grant application that meets the guidelines and expectations of the granting agency prior to the due date.
- Increase Grant Application Success – Phase 4: Submit the Grant Application
- Grant Follow-up Email Template
Infographic
Workshop: Increase Grant Application Success
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
1 Determine Your Organization's Priorities
The Purpose
Determine the key priorities of your organization and identify grant funding opportunities that align with those priorities.
Key Benefits Achieved
Prevents duplicate grant applications from being submitted
Ensures the grant and the organization's priorities are aligned
Increases the success rate of grant applications
Activities
1.1 Discuss grant funding opportunities and their importance to the organization.
1.2 Identify organizational priorities.
Outputs
An understanding of why grants are important to your organization
A list of priorities being pursued by your organization
2 Prioritize Grant Funding Opportunities
The Purpose
Identify potential grant funding opportunities that align with the projects/initiatives the organization would like to pursue. Prioritize these funding opportunities and identify which should take precedent based on resourcing, importance, likelihood of success, and feasibility.
Key Benefits Achieved
Generate a list of potential funding opportunities that can be revisited when resources allow
Obtain consensus from your working group on which grants should be pursued based on how they have been prioritized
Activities
2.1 Develop a list of potential grant funding opportunities.
2.2 Define the resource capacity your organization has to support the granting writing process.
2.3 Discuss and prioritize grant opportunities
Outputs
A list of potential grant funding opportunities
Realistic expectations of your organization's capacity to undertake the grant writing lifecycle
Notes and priorities from your discussion on grant opportunities
3 Sketch a Grant Application
The Purpose
Take the grant that was given top priority in the last section and sketch out a draft of what that application will look like. Think critically about the sketch and determine if there are opportunities to further clarify and demonstrate the goals of the grant application.
Key Benefits Achieved
A sketch ready to be developed into a grant application
A critique of the sketch to ensure that the application will be well understood by the reviewers of your submission
Activities
3.1 Sketch the grant application.
3.2 Perform a SWOT analysis of the grant sketch.
Outputs
A sketched version of the grant application ready to be drafted
A SWOT analysis that critically examines the sketch and offers opportunities to enhance the application
4 Prepare to Submit the Grant Application
The Purpose
Have the grant application actively critiqued by various internal and external individuals. This will increase the grant application's quality and generate understanding of the application submission and post-submission process.
Key Benefits Achieved
A list of individuals (internal and external) that can potentially review the application prior to submission
Preparation for the submission process
An understanding of why the opportunity to learn how to improve future grant applications is so important
Activities
4.1 Identify potential individuals who will review the draft of your grant application.
4.2 Discuss next steps around the grant submission.
4.3 Review grant writing best practices.
Outputs
A list of potential individuals who can be asked to review and critique the grant application
An understanding of what the next steps in the process will be
Knowledge of grant writing best practices