I remember back when I was writing some of my very first non-profit grants.
I'd done some other types of writing before, so I thought, how hard could grant writing really be?
Through the help of a very patient mentor and a lot of practice, I learned that non-profit grant
writing is quite a bit different from a lot of other types of writing. So in this video,
I want to share a handful of some of the tips that my first non-profit mentor gave me that i really
believe contributed to my future success in grant writing and these are no nonsense super practical
tips that you can apply basically right away. Welcome or welcome back! I'm Amber Melanie Smith.
I'm a non-profit founder and executive director of the nonprofit that I started. I've done
a bit of fundraising in this role which includes grant writing and so i hope that this video helps
you out i make lots of videos here on youtube all about non-profit social impact projects starting
in organization social enterprise and more so definitely subscribe if that's your thing i hope
that this video and my other videos help you out and as always if you need a little extra guidance
and support from me i have a website founder to fulltime.com that features a handful of trainings
now all about helping you figure out how to start a non-profit from basically the idea stage up
through getting it ready to file your paperwork and now a new course on fundraising that i'm
really excited about - Find and Grow Your Funding - so check that out at FounderToFullTime.com.
Okay, so as i previously mentioned non-profit grant writing is a bit different from creative
writing technical writing lots of other types of writing now in non-profit grant writing there's
definitely some element of trying to inspire the reader to support your cause but it's more about
creating a clear and compelling case for how the funds that you would receive from the grant
will help improve the way your organization is able to serve the community and you want to do it
in as clear a way as possible so here are those six tips that my non-profit mentor from
long and far away ago gave me that really improved my grant writing and i hope that they help you out
too tip number one and this is probably the most important tip that is do your homework before you
even sit down to write a grant proposal or fill out a grant application you've got to do your
homework to make sure that the application you're filling out or the grant you're applying for
is one that you're actually eligible for one that is a good fit for your organization this is a top
mistake that people make when applying for grants is just throwing out all their applications in the
hopes of something sticking but what will happen is funders will get applications for projects or
missions that they're not actually interested in that they don't have listed as the issues that
they are interested in on their website and they will automatically disqualify those applications
so all of that to say in summary before you actually put pen to paper or pins to keyboards
or whatever make sure the grant you're applying for is the right grant for your
organization okay so how do you do that well funders in an effort to streamline this process
have attempted in many cases to make it easier for people applying for grants
they will typically list the issues causes and types of programs or projects they want to fund
right on their website so the first thing you should do is read through their website learn
all about their criteria what would make you an eligible organization make sure you're a good fit
you can also take a look at some of the past organizations and past projects that they have
funded to see if they are similar to the types of things that you might want to apply for funding
for sometimes you can also learn the grant amounts that they have given out in the past which will
help guide you and help you figure out how much grant funding you should be requesting from
that particular funder in your application if the funder only gives out five to ten thousand dollars
per organization but you are trying to ask them for a million dollars you might get rejected that
might not be considered within the scale or scope that they're willing to help out with so make sure
that you are aligning the issue the cause and the amount of funding you're asking for within
appropriate parameters for that funder in order to make sure that you aren't rejected outright okay
tip number two and this is also pretty important i mean i guess they all all these tips are important
but this one i would say brings pretty highly up there and that is to be succinct and clear
one thing people don't necessarily think about when they're applying for grants is the fact that
these grant makers or foundation team members are reading dozens or sometimes even hundreds
of grant applications so if the grants include a lot of unnecessary text or flowery language
or information that just isn't relevant to the application they might feel like you are wasting
their time and you're wasting your own time too so it's really important and helpful and the funders
will thank you if you can create your proposal or application in a way that is direct to the point
succinct really work on your wordsmithing skills here to get your point across in as few sentences
as possible i sometimes look back at some of the early grants that i wrote and just have a fun
cringe moment at how vague and long-winded i was but i hopefully have gotten a lot better now to
clarify i'm not saying don't include important things it's all about figuring out what is truly
important to that application and then expressing that succinctly so i'm not saying leave out
information if it is truly critical to the application and to the funders understanding
of your program the third super practical tip is to format your application or proposal for
easy reading now we know that grant applications and proposals take a couple of different forms
maybe it is an online application where you're just answering questions in fields sometimes it's
a bit more open-ended they might be asking you to write a letter or a proposal on a document that's
a little bit more free-flowing and you determine the appropriate structure in that case no matter
which way you would be submitting your proposal or application there are some things you can do
to help make the reading experience a little easier for the funder reading your application for
example wherever possible i like to use subject headers or um like titles of a section that mirror
what the grant maker wants to know for example a header might be organization mission statement
or um history of the non-profits program you know something that is very clearly the title of the
next section or set of paragraphs that they're going to read so that it meets their expectations
they know what they're about to read and if they need to find that information again they can just
look for that nice big header maybe that's bold or in capital letters whatever you've done to format
it to be found easily your grantmaker will be very grateful for that i also like to use bullet
points or short lists of things for example if i want to talk about all of the different benefits
or reasons that my project is important to the community i might choose to do that in a bullet
point or numbered list format so that they can easily know like okay here are the three reasons
that um amber thinks this project is important one two three boom boom boom easy to find
easy to understand one other little minor trick i sometimes use is depending on how the proposal
might be formatted i will sometimes choose to bold really important words phrases or sentences
um again to help draw the thunder or grant maker's eye to that part of my text so that they can see
that easily and it is emphasized okay tip number four is to use the funder's own language when my
mentor gave me this tip a long time ago i thought it was really interesting it's not something i
would have thought of on my own but the tip is to basically speak the language of the funder
of the grant maker use some of their own words or phrases back at them in your proposal she didn't
mean to do this in a disingenuous way or in a way that's not authentic obviously you only want to
use the funder's own words or phrases in a way that makes sense that is relevant to what you're
trying to say an example might be let's say um the funder has uh emphasized how important the idea of
systemic change is to their to their funding and their their projects and you know that stomach
change is also important to your mission so you've got an authentic connection if it were me i would
use the words systemic change in that proposal a handful of times this shows the funder that not
only have you actually read their website and that you've taken the time to learn a little bit more
about them not just treating them like you know an atm but that you actually are interested in
who they are also and secondly it underscores the fact that your mission and approach does
align with theirs also tip number five i think is a best practice no matter what you're doing grant
writing or other things but that is to use and cite credible research in your grant application
it's really important to demonstrate that you know your subject matter that you are
if possible an expert in your subject matter especially when it comes to
the research around the issue that your non-profit is tackling in order to
serve its community in general i believe any non-profit leader should aim to become
an expert in the topics related to their mission for example affordable housing or homelessness or
education or climate change whatever it may be if your non-profit focuses on those issues
you should really be a leader in knowledge on those issues and that is just going to help you
with your cause in general it'll make sure that your efforts actually make successful progress
towards the goals of tackling those issues and in the case of grant writing it will prove that you
are a credible resource and person to be trusted to carry out the mission that they might fund so
citing this credible research in your grant application not only shows that you've done
your research you know what you're talking about but it also shows that other researchers have
conducted studies or reports or have data that backs up and supports your nonprofit's approach to
tackling that issue too the sixth really important tip i will share with you today is to demonstrate
how funding will make a real difference for your organization this seems like a no-brainer
but i mean something a little bit more specific than what you might be thinking i mean of course
money will help with the non-profit this is obvious but what i'm specifically talking
about here is you want to be able to clearly articulate the difference in the future state
of your organization in a world in which you have received this funding and your current state of
the organization what are the concrete ways that you can explain how and why the money would help
you amplify your organization's ability to serve its community for example let's say you need
fifty thousand dollars to be able to hire a new staff person and increase your program capacity
and if you have that new staff person that is going to mean that you can serve double the
amount of people you were able to serve previously what that does in the funders mind is says wow by
this organization's calculations if they can get the money to hire this critical new staff position
they'll be able to help hundreds more people or double the amount of people or whatever the number
is and that is a very compelling argument for why you should receive the funding you've thought
about it you know the concrete weight will help serve your mission and you can explain that to the
funder i'd love to hear from you what are some of the questions that come up for you or the the big
challenges that come up for you when you are grant writing if you are new to grant writing or even
a seasoned grant writer what are your biggest challenges share those in the comments below and
let's see what we're working with alternatively i'd love to hear some of your tips too so what are
some things you've learned either through your experiences or a wonderful mentor of your own
that you think would be valuable for our change maker community here on my channel to know share
all that in the comments and as i mentioned before if you need some additional help with
the process of starting or growing a nonprofit or developing a fundraising plan for your nonprofit
definitely check out the trainings and resources on my website founder to fulltime.com
final thing we have a group on facebook called change the world or bust
come join us there we've got change makers from around the world having some good discussions
and getting some much needed encouragement from each other so i hope to see you there
and i hope to see you next time look for my next video next week see you later