You Have a Proposal Due
Six steps from reading the call to pressing submit. Do them in order: most rejected proposals fail on the first two.
Step 1: Decide whether to bid at all
Check eligibility, fit with your mission, the match or cost share, and whether you can deliver the work at the budget on offer. A clear no saves weeks.
- Deciding Whether to Bid (Decision guide)
Step 2: Turn the call into a requirements list
List every instruction, page limit, annex and scoring criterion, and map each one to the section of your proposal that answers it.
- Proposal Compliance Matrix Template (Template)
Step 3: Agree the program logic before you write
Settle the problem, the change you expect and how you will know it happened. Writing goes faster once the logic is agreed.
- Problem analysis (Guide)
- Theory of change for grant applications (Guide)
- Build a problem tree from assessment notes (Prompt)
Step 4: Draft the narrative
Write to the scoring criteria in the order the funder uses them. Use AI for outlines and first drafts only, and check every fact and number it gives you.
- How to write a concept note for funders (How-to)
- Write a concept note with AI (Playbook)
- AI for grant writing without inventing facts (How-to)
Step 5: Build the budget and the budget narrative
Cost every activity in the narrative, include your full costs and allowable indirect costs, and explain each line so a reviewer can follow it.
- Proposal Budget Template (Template)
- AI prompt for grant budget narratives (Prompt)
- Full cost recovery (Guide)
Step 6: Review against the criteria, then submit
Have someone who did not write it score it against the funder criteria. Check the requirements list one last time and submit a day early.
- Concept note review rubric (Template)
- Grant proposal submission checklist (Template)
- Verify AI Drafts for Invented Facts (Prompt)