Week 6 paper

The Needs or Problem Statement

This is often the first section completed when developing a proposal and it lays the foundation for the

rest of the process. Funders may or may not be very familiar with your work or the needs of your target

population, so this section is to “sell” them on the importance of this project. I see it as a four -part

process:

1. What is the problem? This answer cannot be that you don’t have funds to this project. This

answer should be from a societal perspective, and can be somewh at broad. Childhood obesity?

Lack of quality child care? Insufficient services for mental health needs? Lack of support for

“aging out” foster children?

2. How do we know this is a problem? This part needs to include concrete data , the more specific

for your area the better. Nationwide data can be helpful, but state -specific data is better, and if

you’re in a major metropolitan area, information specific for that city is even better. Be sure to

briefly include your sources.

3. Why do we care about thi s problem? This section is about long -term impacts. We may care

about teenage smoking because of the long term health impacts and cost to society. We may

care about the lack of quality child care because it impacts the work force and growth of the

state . Again, think broadly, especially at first, but you can also narrow the focus to your region.

This section often also includes source -cited data about the long -term impact.

4. How will this project help solve the problem? While steps two and three can be switched if

that fits better for your narrative, this is always the last step, and leads to the rest of the

proposal. This section needs to be a brief description of your project, and often needs to

include information showing that this solution doesn’ t currently exist, the existing services are

insufficient, or this is an innovative method of addressing the problem. Funders rarely wish to

provide new fund s for more of the same. Later sections will allow you to g o into more depth

about your project, s o this first part is BRIEF.

This may seem like a lot of information , but t his section is often one of the shortest sections, so proposal

writers need to be brief and concise. Many proposals have length restrictions ; some are currently

available on line, so they have word count restrictions. Pick your pieces of information carefully. This

section is usually less than a page , even though it is the foundation for the rest of the proposal.

Gathering all this information may be a time consuming process. The good part is this information can

be used for multiple proposals, and in other aspects of your organization. DO NOT GUESS ABOUT

DATA!!! If you provide numbers, include the source. It is a bad process to have funders questioning the

information you’v e provided.

Information provided by Linda Zinke, Adjunct Professor, Bellevue University.