Avoid these Grant writing mistakes at all costs!!

Welcome to another exciting #FundraiseWithAllwell insight to turbocharge your nonprofit fundraising.

You want to avoid making these mistakes whenever you are putting together your grant proposal. They happen all too often. Decide to avoid them at all costs. It is like they say “Proper preparation prevents poor performance.”

These mistakes have proven costly to me and other experienced grant writers. This is why as a #FundraiseWithAllwell pro, I expect you to bear these in mind and rise above them in your next grant writing.?

Grant writing mistakes to avoid

1?? Submitting on the deadline. It really is as simple as that. Things always go wrong on the deadline- the form refuses to accept your attachments, the network goes out, the portal closes before the actual time, or you forget to upload the right documents.

Michael Kiragu advises that getting in an early submission makes a good impression on the donor and helps you lock in an early favorable evaluation before the latecomers arrive.

2?? Failure to proofread your technical and financial proposals before submitting. ?It is never OK to submit the first draft of your written technical proposal. James Ellison says "You write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head." Something will be off with the first draft - grammar, lexicon, typographical errors, etc.?

You must take time to proofread it to make sure that it makes sense before sending it out. It is even better if you get a pair of fresh eyes to check it out- someone who wasn’t involved in developing the technical proposal. Of course, this only works if you avoid mistake no 1- submitting on the deadline!

3?? Ignoring the donor’s technical and budget templates or using them incorrectly. There is no reason why you should ignore the donor’s template and use yours instead. The evaluation of the grant application is tied to your using the templates-technical and budget and using them correctly.

Are you confused about the formulas in the budget template? Ask questions of the donor! Are you unsure of what should go into a particular section of the technical proposal template? Ask the donor!!

4?? Finally, overstating your capacity just to win the grant. Never overpromise because you set yourself up to underdeliver! I always tell folks that winning the grant award is easy- implementing it is way harder and subject to many risks and uncertainties along the 1,2,3 years of the project implementation.

Don’t promise to do too many activities for a comparatively small sum of USD. Offer to do the best that you can with the few strategic activities that you have proposed.?

And there you have it! Make sure you are keeping out these grant writing mistakes from your next proposal.

Please share these fun insights with your network too. #AllwellBDNuggets #funding #grantwriting #fundraising #proposalwriting #TravailleEnsemble #OnEstEnsemble #grants #nonprofits #africanphilanthropy #philanthropy #sustainability

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