10 Grant Writing Tips & Tools for Sustained Success

Grant writing brings many benefits to nonprofits: reliable funding, new connections, sharpened skills, and generally elevated fundraising and operations. To succeed over the long run, though, you need the right tools and strategies.

Jumping into grant writing with little preparation is a recipe for stress and confusion. Thankfully, it’s a learnable process. There are tons of tried-and-true best practices and tools that grant writing teams of all sizes rely on every day.

If you already regularly seek and win grants, how sustained are your efforts? Is it a recurring priority or an ad hoc project that you undertake when the right opportunity shows up?

By making grant seeking a regular activity, you’ll maximize its benefits and fuel your organization’s growth. However, you may feel limited by capacity or lack a clear-cut, repeatable process for doing so. Sound familiar?

Whether you’re a grant newcomer or have some experience but struggle to sustain your results, this roundup will help.

6 Key Tips for First-time Grant Writers

Have a concrete project in mind first.

Before you can make a compelling pitch for your organization, you must have a specific project that needs funding. This is essential for two reasons:

1. A project developed to address real unmet needs in your community strengthens the sincerity of your proposal with the right funder.
2. Reversely, developing a project to satisfy a grant’s requirements creates mission drift and results in projects that stretch your resources, time, and patience.

Remember, focus is key. Have a clear vision and stick to it. Not only will you be more likely to win funding for it, but you’ll also build a more focused, impactful culture for your organization.

Learn how to prioritize your grant opportunities.

Knowing where to focus your efforts to maximize your chances of success will enable you to win more funding more efficiently. Before committing to any new grant proposal, take a look at a few key aspects to determine how to prioritize it:

• Competition. How much attention is this opportunity likely to get from other nonprofits? Is it a prominent funder or a very high-value grant? Are the grant’s requirements or focus areas broad and applicable to many nonprofits?
• Alignment. Do the grant’s requirements and the funder’s mission closely align with your own? This is one of the biggest indicators that you’ll have a strong chance of success.
• Connections. Do you have any existing connections between the funder and your staff, board members, or donors? A funder already familiar with your organization’s work is often more likely to give your proposal extra attention.

Try comparing multiple grant opportunities using the above criteria to determine which ones will be most impactful for you and which ones you’re most likely to win. Repeat this process on a rolling basis, and you’ll have a helpful pipeline of relevant grant opportunities to sustain your funding.

Get everyone on the same page.

Once you know which opportunity to pursue, take a moment to gather the team members who’ll be involved in the process. This will include those directly involved in writing the proposal, plus anyone who will provide supporting materials, like budgets and board resolutions.

A kickoff meeting is a small investment of your time, but it can pay dividends down the road. Establish what you need, from whom, and by when. Lay out a quick timeline of check-ins and due dates leading up to the grant deadline. This framework will keep your grant writing process organized and on track.

Gather your supplemental documents early.

Once you know what you’ll need from different team members, get the ball rolling on gathering those documents early. They might include:

• Program and organizational budgets
• Letters of support from partners
• Risk assessments
• Various IRS documents
• An official resolution from your board
• Data appendices to support your claims

It can take a while to secure these resources, particularly those requiring signoff from your board. Budgets are particularly critical, and you can expect all applications to have sections devoted entirely to budgeting, expense projections, funding step-down plans, and more. Treat securing these documents as important standalone priorities early in the grant writing process, and do not lump them all together as a last-minute “gather documentation” step at the end.

Use the grant requirements to fill in an easy outline.

Use the funder’s requirements for the grant as a guiding reference point for your proposal. The easiest way to do this is to turn the requirements into a straightforward outline that lists all the required sections and details.

Then, as you work to align your team and gather supporting information, you’ll just need to fill in the outline with more specific talking points. Use your data and experience to tell a balanced, compelling story.

This process ensures your proposal will be (1) aligned with the funder’s expectations and (2) comprehensive, not leaving any key requirements behind. Funders will be able to quickly look through your proposal and see that it matches the requirements. Bonus points if you echo the funder’s language in key sections to further signal relevance!

Write fast, then slow down.

By following all the previous best practices, you can efficiently gather everything you need and create a fill-in-the-blanks structure for the proposal itself. 

This prep work allows you to write quickly. Devote a day or two of focused work to cranking out a complete draft of the proposal, leaving space for any key data or documents you’re still waiting on. 

Remember, momentum is your friend at this stage—lean into it and avoid the temptation to get bogged down in perfecting all your messaging on the first pass.

After you’ve completed the first draft, then you can slow down to add remaining information. Have a team member who hasn’t yet been closely involved review the draft and provide feedback on the proposal’s language, logic, and narrative flow. Implement these edits, and you’ll have a solid proposal ready in no time.

4 Essential Resources to Succeed with Grant Writing Long-Term

Next, we’ll review the key elements of an effective grant writing toolkit. Not all of these resources are necessary right off the bat. 

If you’re just beginning with grant seeking, you can certainly start small, but you should be aware of the tools of the trade. Then, as your grant efforts grow, you can build your arsenal along the way.

Grant Databases

Grant databases compile grant opportunities, and they come in all shapes and sizes. Many large database platforms collect opportunities very broadly and allow you to filter down by topic, funder, amount, etc. Specialized grant databases might focus on types of grants, mission areas, or geographic regions. Learn Grant Writing’s roundup of today’s top databases includes a mix of paid and free, general and specialized options like these top platforms:

• Instrumentl
• Candid
• Grants.gov
• GrantStation

State and regional nonprofit associations often maintain their own grant databases, as well. Take the time to familiarize yourself with the most popular resources for your mission and region

When browsing grant databases, know that not all are created equal—some are of higher quality and are more frequently updated than others. Compare their freshness, reputation, and specialization (if needed). If you want to invest in a paid platform, take a close look at their affordability, reviews, and additional tools.

Project Management Tools

It’s no secret that grant writing can be logistically complicated. Grant proposals have many moving pieces and sections, and the specific requirements of one may be much more complex than the next. Plus, many different team members may be involved in the grant seeking process. 

To make grant writing an effective sustained activity (and protect your sanity), you must keep everything organized. Use dedicated project management tools and processes to keep tabs on the resources, documents, and steps of grant writing. 

Asana and Trello are popular, inexpensive, and accessible examples of web-based project management tools. Your organization might also already have its own preferred tools, or your preferred software provider might offer additional tools that could help. For smaller shops, even free platforms like Google’s suite of document, spreadsheet, and file-sharing tools can get the job done if you stay organized.

Just be sure to look for tools that offer collaboration, visibility, and easy file-sharing features. Dashboards and visual workflows that illustrate the statuses of projects and proposals are a big plus, too.

Effective Budgeting and Accounting Tools

You need a clear picture of your organization’s finances not only to apply for grants in the first place but also to effectively manage them once you’re awarded funding.

Funders have specific requirements for reporting back about how you’re using the funding. Various grant structures (paid in installments over time, reimbursable after you cover upfront costs, etc.) also bring financial complications.

This means your budgeting and accounting house must be in order for you to succeed with grants long-term. 

Again, small shops can start small. If your finances are less complex to begin with, and you feel confident that your existing processes can handle the additional tasks of grant reporting, you’re likely good to go. Just keep in mind that as you grow and/or seek larger and more complex grants, your financial logistics must keep up.

If you want to ramp up your grant seeking efforts or know that financial reporting has been a pain point for your organization, take a close look at the budgeting and accounting tools you currently use. Do they need upgrades? Are you using them effectively? Are you missing key parts of a financial toolkit? What about impact and outcome measurement for your programs?

Making these improvements and sustaining the right practices will bring significant long-term benefits.

Grant Training and Coaching

Finally, it may be a smart move to invest in grant writing training or coaching. 

If you’re new to the field, feeling confident in the fundamentals will immediately set you apart from much of the competition. It’ll simplify the grant seeking process, help you better prioritize your grant opportunities, and ultimately win more funding over time.

If you’ve sought and won grants before, consider how you initially learned the process. Are there gaps in your knowledge? Are there parts of grant seeking that you dread or feel like you don’t fully understand? 

For many nonprofit professionals, learning grant writing is a trial-by-fire process—being thrown into a new proposal with minimal preparation and support. Direct experience is invaluable, but it’s even more helpful for your mission and community when it’s backed up by best practices.

Online courses, continuing education classes through higher education institutions, coaching services, and digital communities of grant writers exist to help newcomers and experienced grant writers alike. Learn Grant Writing offers another review of the top grant writing classes available today, broken into these key categories:

• Free resources
• Ideal programs for grant writing freelancers
• Courses and programs designed for nonprofit professionals
• Resources specifically for seeking federal grants
• University-based grant writing programs

As with paid grant databases, you should carefully compare your options before committing. Look at the price, intended audience, and comprehensiveness, and compare them to your key goals. New grant writers will benefit from thorough training programs, while experienced grant writers may just want to cover specific topics they’re unfamiliar with.