How to Write a Successful Grant Application

As a volunteer treasurer you may have the responsibility for preparing and submitting grant applications for your organisation.  While grants provide an excellent way to obtain additional funds, the process to prepare and make an application is not always easy and can be time consuming.  Furthermore, you are also competing with many other organisations so the quality of your application is important.

What can you do to give your organisation the best chance of being successful in your grant application?

  • Prior to commencing, make sure you are in fact eligible to make an application and that if you are successful you can use the funds in accordance with their guidelines.
  • The funding organisation will usually provide clear and concise guidelines to follow so make sure you follow them and address each point.  Do not leave out any required information and don’t provide any extra information unless it is asked for.
  • Ensure your corporate structure and legal status complies with their requirements.  For example, if you are required to be a registered charity with deductible gift recipient status but your organisation is not, then don’t bother to submit an application in the hope they may give you the money.  Often the funding organisation has legal obligations it must comply with so if you don’t meet their criteria they cannot consider you.
  • Don’t plead your case and appear to be begging for money.  Be professional in your approach and ensure you detail the benefits that the funding will achieve.  Clearly outline how the funds will be used, what outcomes you plan to achieve and how you will measure the success of the project and therefore the use of their funds.
  • If you need to provide statistics, financial or any other data use only current information and never use out of date, irrelevant or old data.
  • Often you are required to include a budget and specify how the funds will be spent.  Then when you acquit how the funds were used you are often required to submit an audited report.  Therefore, when you prepare the budget take the time to prepare the budget so if there are variations you can provide a good explanation.  If you do this badly then future applications may not be successful as the funding organisation may conclude you have poor financial management skills.

 

Remember that the funding organisation is likely to be reviewing a lot of applications so make sure you follow the above points so don’t provide a reason for them to reject your application.

Furthermore, if you are not successful, try to discuss with them the reason why as this can help you with future funding submissions.