Grant Proposal

Grant Proposal Instructions

Grant Proposal: Item 1 - Identify a 501 (c) (3) organization

I believe the best way to learn the knowledge and skills of grant writing is to write a Grant Proposal, and your first class assignment is critical in your successful completion of the course.

For Grant Project: Item 1, you need to identify a 501 (c) (3) organization to serve as a non-profit entity for which you have been employed, hypothetically, to design and write a Grant Proposal.

You have 2 options to choose from in order to complete this task. This assignment should be no less than 2 pages double-spaced, using AMA format. Format with underlined subheadings, and provide your name in the upper right hand corner of the 1st page.

Option 1:

Select a familiar local organization. Contact its Executive Director, tell him/her about your class, and see if they are willing to serve in this way as part of your education about Grant Writing. Be sure to inform him/her that someone within his/her organization will need to be available to you (either by phone on a daily or weekly basis) to answer your questions promptly throughout the 8 weeks of the course.

The selling point to him/her, in addition to assisting your education, is at the end of the 8 weeks, the organization should have a solid Grant Proposal—a product, if approved by the Board of Directors, that could be submitted to a Foundation for funding consideration—at no cost. Be sure, however, not to promise success.

Option 2:

            Create a fictitious organization for which you answer all the questions and tasks in the weekly assignments. This involves creative writing on your part, but eliminates the possibility of miscommunication and/or delays between you and the contact person of a real organization. My advice is, unless you are aware of an organization with a current need and are desperate for Grant writing help, choose Option 2.

To complete this assignment, you need the following Non-Profit Organizational data:

1. Name and address
2. Mission Statement
3. Copy of its By-Laws (if you’ve chosen Option 1)
4. A listing of the Board of Directors (last name only)
5. Board of Directors annual meeting date
6. Organizational Chart (on a separate page)
7. Name and contact data of its Executive Director