From Call to Submission: The Path in Ten Steps

Ten steps from reading a call for proposals to sending the finished application, with the eight parts a proposal usually holds and who does what along the way.

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What You Will End Up With

A finished proposal, a proposal that can run from 15 to 50 pages, ready to send electronically. It holds the eight most common parts of a proposal: a cover letter, title page and abstract; a statement of the problem; a project description; an evaluation plan; a budget request and its justification; the applicant's qualifications; plans for future funding; and appendices. It is also shaped around what this particular funder cares about, so a reviewer can see quickly why your project fits.

You will also have a working order for the job. Each step below says what to do and what to leave for later.

Before You Start

Apply only when your organization can give the writing real time and energy. Deadlines can be as short as one month after a call is released, and a proposal squeezed into a few days shows it.

  • Get the funder's guidelines and forms. Many foundations post them on their websites, and almost all that accept public applications will send basic guidelines if you call and ask.
  • Find out what the first stage is. Some funders want a short letter of one or two pages before anything else; others want the full application up front.
  • Check how they want it sent. Many public funders now require electronic submission instead of paper.

Steps

Expect the stages to overlap in practice. You will go back to gathering evidence while you write and revise as you go, so treat this as an order of attack, not a straight line.

  1. Read the call closely. Go through the Request for Proposals and highlight the submission deadline, the address, the number of copies and anything else that is a hard requirement. Put those items on one page where the whole team can see them.

  2. Decide whether to apply. Look at what the funder is trying to achieve and ask whether your project fits. Your interests and theirs will rarely match perfectly. If the fit is thin, or you cannot spare the time, say no now and keep your energy for a better call.

  3. Plan backward and split the work. Count back from the deadline and give every part a date. A working group can divide up the information gathering, the legwork and the first drafts. It should not write the application as a committee. Name one person who writes the final text.

  4. Settle the first-stage question. If the funder asks for a short letter first, write that and wait. If it wants the full application up front, move on. When anything in the guidelines is unclear, phone and ask.

  5. Gather your evidence. Collect statistics, reports and literature that show the problem and what has already been tried. Set your local figures beside state and national ones. A local number on its own is much weaker than the same number shown against the wider picture. If no local data exists, collect some: telephone interviews, focus groups or a short self-administered survey will do.

  6. Write the needs statement and the project description. The needs statement documents the problem with text, statistics and graphs, describes its causes and names the solutions already attempted, drawn from the literature. The methods section should include a flow chart of the sequence of events and a timeline chart, which is usually required. Every chart needs a title that says what it shows and the years of the data, labeled axes with units of measure, and a legend that explains the categories or colors.

  7. Write the remaining parts. That means the evaluation plan, the budget request with its justification, your qualifications as the applicant, your plans for future funding, and the appendices. Keep each part answering what the call asks, in the order it asks.

  8. Write the cover letter and title page last. By now you know what the proposal says. The cover letter is one page on your organization's stationery, signed by an official, with a short summary of the project and a named contact person. The title page carries the project title, your organization's name and address, the funder's name, the project dates and the total amount requested. Check that the total matches the budget.

  9. Get an expert to read it. The reader can be an expert in your subject or someone who knows how foundations work. Both are useful. If you want to see what a winning proposal looks like, politely ask a previous awardee of the same foundation for a copy. They are no longer competing with you, though they are free to say no.

  10. Format and submit early. Go back through the call's list from step 1 and tick off each item. Confirm that all eight parts are present, then send it before the deadline, in the format the funder asks for. Keep a copy, and read the award terms carefully, because they may set conditions for continued support.

Using AI Safely

An assistant can help you outline sections or tighten a paragraph. It can also leave out a requirement or make up a figure, so check everything it gives you against the call and your own records.

  • Check that it has not dropped any of the eight parts or the flow chart and timeline chart in the methods section.
  • Make sure local figures are set beside state and national ones, and that every number matches your source.
  • If it suggests a chart, check that the chart has a title with the data years, labeled axes with units, and a legend.
  • Do not paste in anything confidential about people you serve, and never paste in a funder's private correspondence.

Whatever the tool produced, the expert reader in step 9 should see the final text.

Common Mistakes

Writing by committee. A big group drafting one document produces a patchwork. Divide the gathering and early drafting, then give the final text to one writer so the voice stays consistent.

Ignoring what the funder wants. Describing only your own needs is not enough. Work out what the grant maker is trying to achieve and put the parts of your project that serve it where a reviewer will see them first.

Missing the format or the date. With deadlines as short as one month, a late or wrongly formatted file can cost the whole application. Plan backward from the deadline, and confirm the submission method before you start writing.

Writing the cover letter first. It summarizes work you have not finished. Write it last, once you can say in one page what the proposal actually does.