Basics of Writing a Winning Proposal - Revision history

Frederick Swarts at 18:48, 3 September 2008

2008-09-03T18:48:44Z

Frederick Swarts: /* References */

2008-09-03T18:48:04Z

‎References

Frederick Swarts: New page: When most people think about winning a grant, they start by writing the proposal. Bad move! Why? Because when they find a prospective funder, they discover that their proposal fails to ...

2008-09-03T18:46:57Z

New page: When most people think about winning a grant, they start by writing the proposal. Bad move! Why? Because when they find a prospective funder, they discover that their proposal fails to ...

New page

When most people think about winning a grant, they start by writing the proposal. Bad move! Why? Because when they find a prospective funder, they discover that their proposal fails to meet the funder’s expectations. They either submit it as is, and get a rejection; or start all over, a waste of time.

At WANGO’s annual conference in Santo Domingo, Dr.Michael V. Gershowitz presented a better way: Think through the seven critical questions that all grantmakers want answered; then find the right funder for that project, and finally, write the proposal according to that funder’s requirements.

One of the participants in his session was the WANGO Chapter President for Ghana, who offered to sponsor a series of grants workshops in his country. In January, I was there for three weeks training delegates from some 150 NGOs. For virtually everyone, Dr. Gershowtiz's approach was an eye-opener. He was not surprised; almost everyone he trains, in the U.S. or internationally, starts with what should be the last, not the first, step.

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==The Seven Critical Questions==
When you know the answers to these seven questions, writing the proposal is easy, because the words just flow. The hard part is coming up with good answers. The questions are a logical progression:
# Why do you need the project?
# What are the expected results that meet or reduce the need?
# How are you going to achieve those results?
# Who is going to do the work and what are their qualifications?
# How much is all of this work going to cost?
# How will you know if it’s working, and what will you do if it’s not working?
# How will you keep the project alive after you’ve spent all the grant money?

Thinking these issues through, and coming up with compelling answers, is a team project.

==Writing the Winning Proposal==
Coming from a background in print journalism, Dr. Gershowitz never views grant writing as technical writing but rather as storytelling. Human interest sells newspapers, and it also sells grant proposals. Every project has a story to tell, and he emphasizes telling it, focusing on the needs of people.

Here are the exact words of a proposal Dr. Gershowitz wrote for a grant to help Latino immigrants assimilate into American agribusiness: “An examplar is Luis T. [name withheld], Manager of Training, Safety and Auditing at the [company’s] operation in North Carolina. Arriving 15 years ago from Mexico, he earned English, acquired U.S. citizenship, and took community college courses to advance from his starting job as a farm laborer.”

Good writing of any kind should be transparent, or invisible. The readers’ attention should be focused on the project, not on the writing. You don’t want them to say, “Wow, that’s a well-written proposal!” but rather, “wow, that’s a fantastic project!” For instance, Dr. Gershowitz writes in conversational tone, using the first person “we will…” rather than the formal “the applicant will…” Note that the above example doesn't say that Luis’ first position was as a laborer. It was called a job. And Dr. Gershowitz doesn’t call fires “conflagrations.” Don’t let your ego lead you astray into flaunting your vocabulary. Readers will be thrown off, not impressed. After winning 200 grants for his clients, averaging $500,000, Dr. Gershowitz assures that it works

==References==
By Dr. Michael V. Gershowitz

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−	By Dr. Michael V. Gershowitz	+	The foundation for this article are excerpts from a presentation by Dr. Michael V. Gershowitz on October 20, 2002 at a WANGO Conference in 2005.

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 At WANGO’s annual conference in Santo Domingo, Dr.Michael V. Gershowitz  presented a better way:  Think through the seven critical questions that all grantmakers want answered; then find the right funder for that project, and finally, write the proposal according to that funder’s requirements.
-One of the participants in his session was the WANGO Chapter President for Ghana, who offered to sponsor a series of grants workshops in his country.  In January, I was there for three weeks training delegates from some 150 NGOs.  For virtually everyone, Dr. Gershowtiz's approach was an eye-opener. He was not surprised; almost everyone he trains, in the U.S. or internationally, starts with what should be the last, not the first, step.
+One of the participants in his session was the WANGO Chapter President for Ghana, who offered to sponsor a series of grants workshops in his country.  In January, Dr. Gershowitz was there for three weeks training delegates from some 150 NGOs.  For virtually everyone, his approach was an eye-opener. He was not surprised; almost everyone he trains, in the U.S. or internationally, starts with what should be the last, not the first, step.
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