Actual language from a 10-page narrative grant application to joint Federal agencies.

Grant written by Write It For Me with intensive input from client

** Result: Award of $50,000.00 for immediate capacity-building **

Winning Grant Application

Excerpt:

As demonstrated in prior sections, this proposal is extremely focused and single-minded in its simple—but crucial—objective: to increase [Client*]’s funding source diversification and long-term fiscal sustainability. Toward this end, [Client*] proposes to invest the $50,000 granted by the Compassion Capital Fund to: (1) fund a part-time expert donor development specialist; and (2) fund work by a grant writer seasoned in seeking funds from a variety of non-Federal sources. Through the mechanism of these two people/positions explicitly dedicated toward increasing funding capacity—and devoted to teaching our staff and leadership best practices in this area—[Client*] will use CCF’s capacity-building ‘seed’ money to open many new future doors, through which non-Federal funding & revenue will flow.

Specific examples of activities that we—and the funded functions—will pursue under the funded initiative are: (1) identifying corporate, state, county, and private foundation funding sources and deadlines; (2) responding quickly to relevant requests for proposal ( RFPs); (3) developing/holding fundraising events and drives to collect from local philanthropists and the local community; (4) pursuing “ planned giving,” or the willing of money/property to [Client*] long before donors pass away or become unhealthy; and (5) using the concept of “donor development” to build a meaningful outreach and database of immediate and prospective donors. We will also explore other revenue-generating activities. In a concerted effort to emphasize private sector funding opportunities, we hope to learn also much more about such proprietary databases as The Foundation Directory and other organized subscription-based compilations that this funding will allow us to uncover.

In this section, we have described [Client*]’s capacity-building approach. We have detailed our plan for developing organizational capacity in the critical area of funding/financial sustainability. We have demonstrated that this capacity-building approach is logical and reasonable. You will also see that our approach is clearly linked to the desired results and benefits expected as outlined in the upcoming “Results or Benefits Expected” section.