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.