Publication Details
Writing Effective Grant Proposals
Price: $99.00
Business Focus: Grant Writing & Nonprofit Management
Instructor: JillianPoole
Course Code: wgp
Delivery Method: Instructor-led Online Course
Frequently Asked Questions
     
Course Overview:
Preparing successful grant proposals to receive funding from corporations or foundations requires careful research, meticulous preparation, and graceful writing. Unfortunately, very few grant requestors have a true mastery of the proposal writing process.

If you learn how to avoid the errors that lead to the rejection of your proposal, you will win most of the time. This course will walk you through all of the essential steps--including a discussion of what you should do when the grant arrives!

In this course, you’ll learn how to become fully familiar with the institution or project for which you are requesting support. You’ll get valuable guidance in preparing a background statement and a brief financial statement to support your request. You’ll also research some charitable foundations and corporate giving programs.

Then, you will learn how to put everything together to assemble, write, and submit complete grant proposals to foundations, corporations, and wealthy individuals for any number of your pet projects.
Instructor Biography:
Jillian Poole has raised money for schools and colleges, arts organizations, community organizations – you name it – in the U.S. and abroad. She loves fund raising, because doing so empowers her to make wonderful things happen. She has had many years of hands-on fund raising experience for non-profit organizations, large and small. She taught a graduate course in arts management and fund raising at The American University for 16 years, and authored Managing for Money: A Handbook for International Cultural Institutions, a book that has been translated into six languages.
Course Syllabus:
Lesson 1 Syllabus There’s nothing magical about preparing a grant request, but in this lesson, you’ll learn some easy and fun tricks of trade that will help you with all sorts of writing projects, even those beyond grant proposals. And you’ll learn special ways to practice these tricks!
Lesson 2 Syllabus Those of us who work for causes we think are important care about them in a very special way, usually a rather subjective one. But grantors who deal with literally thousands of institutions and causes have a rather different way of thinking about them. In this lesson, you’ll put yourself in their shoes. And in the process, you’ll learn a great way to describe your own cause to anyone.
Lesson 2 Objective This lesson is an introduction to the fundamentals of grant writing styles. In this course, we are preparing for a simple grant application, and we'll learn a format that you can use in more complex applications if you need to do so later.
Lesson 3 Syllabus Now that you’ve tried on your grantor’s shoes, let's talk about why those grantors look for certain kinds of information and documents. You’ll learn what these documents are so you can dig them out and be ready to supply them when you prepare a grant request.
Lesson 3 Objective In this lesson, we talk about mission statements and the elevator speech!
Lesson 4 Syllabus There are lots of interesting things to know about each individual nonprofit organization, but all nonprofits share one thing: They're not in it to for the money! We all know that you can measure a good business by its bottom line—whether it makes money or not. But how do you measure the effectiveness of a nonprofit that needs money? In this lesson, we’ll start to look into it.
Lesson 4 Objective This lesson gives some background on non-profit organizations and private foundations.
Lesson 5 Syllabus The hunt for funding sources is the eternal game of hide and seek that we all play in this business. How do you find sources that might be appropriate for you? It’s a game that we can play in a library or on the Web, but the Web makes it easiest! This lesson will point you toward the most effective research tools available.
Lesson 5 Objective In this lesson, we continue to talk about non-profit organizations and their nature and structure.
Lesson 6 Syllabus Once you find some foundations that you think might be a good fit for your cause, how do you choose among a field that might include hundreds? In this lesson, we’ll discuss ways to sift through these foundations, and in the course of this process, we may unearth sources you haven’t even considered!
Lesson 6 Objective Here we begin the all-important task of tackling foundation research for your project.
Lesson 7 Syllabus You've looked at all the possible charitable foundations that fit your cause, but don't stop there. What about the corporate world? Corporations have foundations, but they also have other ways of giving. We’ll talk about packaging your projects for corporations, then we’ll decide when to ask the corporate foundation and when to approach them in another way.
Lesson 7 Objective In this lesson, we continue to discuss locating foundation sources that will be productive for you.
Lesson 8 Syllabus For those of you who are word people, you’ll learn another way to tell your story—let the numbers do the talking! People reviewing your proposals will attach great importance to numbers, so you can’t get away with simply describing a project with words. In this lesson, we’ll discuss ways of preparing numbers effectively. It’s not hard to do, and it’s essential to the success of your proposal.
Lesson 8 Objective Now we turn to corporations as funding sources, and discuss how they are similar to and how they differ from private foundations.
Lesson 9 Syllabus By the time you reach this lesson, you’ll have all the pieces you need for your proposal. Here we’ll fine-tune what you have. Then we’ll put them all together and add the finishing touches so you can finally put a complete proposal in the mail.
Lesson 9 Objective This lesson is about the financials, budgets specifically, that you must include in your proposal.
Lesson 10 Syllabus Everyone knows that you can’t win ‘em all! But when you do get a turndown, there are positive alternatives to doom and gloom. The suggestions in this lesson will help you deal with those inevitable turndowns.
Lesson 10 Objective Now we're ready to put together your final proposal. We review all the elements and look at the order they should go in.
Lesson 11 Syllabus Okay, just as you hoped—you did get a gift! There’s an old saying in this business: Every gift paves the way to the next. In this lesson, we'll make sure you know just how to pave that road!
Lesson 11 Objective Having given you the rules, we talk about exceptions. We also cover that inevitable day when you are turned down!
Lesson 12 Syllabus Now that you have all the elements you need for your proposal, can you also send it to an individual? Well, not really—at least not the whole thing. You need to think about what would interest those individuals and how you can best present it to them. That’s what we'll cover in the final lesson of this course. I think you’ll enjoy it and I know you’ll find it useful!
Lesson 12 Objective You'll be turned down, but you'll also receive gifts! Here we talk about what you do then, because your work isn't over when the check arrives.