This is an extract from my course Grant Writing For Freelance Grant Writers. If you’d like to learn more, you can join the course here. If you’d like to discuss how to apply this thinking to your own work, send me an email or book in a strategy call today.
The Win-Win-Win Nature of Successful Grant Applications
Grants are all about outcomes. Successful grant applications deliver exceptional outcomes for everyone involved.
A great grant proposal needs to be win-win-win – that’s three wins. Any less, and it’s just not enough to get across the line. Let’s break that down:
- A Win for the Grant Maker:
Your proposal needs to be a win for the organisation or person that is funding the grant. It must credibly show how the project will lead to the change the grant maker is wants to see in the world. They have specific goals, and your idea should align with those objectives. It’s not just about a good idea; it’s about their priorities. - A Win for the Community:
The grant must be a win for the target community or grant beneficiaries. Whether it’s people with disabilities, small agricultural businesses, individuals with cancer, endangered species – the grant you’re proposing must be a win for them, that is, it needs to achieve outcomes for them. - A Win for the Organisation Delivering the Project:
This is essential. The proposal must be a win for the organisation that is actually going to deliver the project. That means it must align with the organisation’s mission and capabilities, and it needs to be something they actually want to deliver, and that they’ll do a good job of. There’s no point in applying for a grant if it’s going to take the organisation off-mission.
When any of these “wins” are missing, it’s not a good proposal.
When grant applications miss the mark
Proposals that aren’t win-win-win are usually pretty obvious to assessors. You’ll often see:
- Lack of mission alignment: Some proposals look like a win for the grant maker and a win for the community, but when you look a little closer you can see that they are far removed from the organisation putting up the project. It’s clear that the organisation will have trouble delivering – and as a funder, that’s not a project you’ll select.
- Not meeting community need: Some proposals don’t address the actual needs of the target group. I even once saw a proposal that planned to violate the human rights of its target beneficiaries. We didn’t fund that one, obviously. And it does seem obvious, but make sure they thing you’re proposing will actually help people (or animals or the environment or whatever).
- Ignoring the grant maker’s goals: The most common issue I’ve seen is applications that propose great ideas that the community wants, but which don’t address the issue that the grant maker wants to fund. Grant makers have chosen their goals for a reason, and that’s what they want to spend their money on. If you don’t allow the grant maker to spend money on that thing, you’re not going to get funded.
The Bottom Line: Three Wins, Always
Successful grant proposals deliver win-win-win:
- A win for the funder, by addressing their goals.
- A win for the community, by meeting their needs.
- A win for the organisation, by aligning with its mission and capabilities.
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If you found this system helpful, you can learn much more in my course Grant Writing For Freelance Grant Writers. You can join the course here. If you’d like to discuss how to apply this thinking to your own work, send me an email or book in a strategy call today.