Grant Writing Fundamentals

Hours: 16 / Access Length: 180 Days / Delivery: Online, Self-Paced

Course Overview:

This course will prepare you to write a grant proposal. You will go step-by-step through the grant writing process, including research, planning, and goal-setting. You will work through real-life examples, or use your own grant proposal as practice.

Students will:

• Develop a proposal idea.
• Research prospective funders.
• Identify ways to develop relationships with funders. 
• Write a problem or needs statement.
• Write clear goals and objectives for the proposal.
• Create a workplan or strategies to reach objectives.
• Plan how to evaluate the outcomes of the proposal.
• Create a proposal budget.
• Draft a proposal summary.

Course Outline:

Lesson 1: Developing the Proposal Idea

This lesson will provide an overview of the grantseeking process and how to develop the proposal idea. Researching prospective funders and understanding their priorities is also covered.

Lesson 2: Developing Relationships with Funders

Understanding funders and developing relationships with them will increase the chances they will respond positively to a proposal. This lesson will provide tips and techniques for developing relationships with potential funders.

Lesson 3: Writing a Compelling Problem Statement

This lesson focuses on the problem that the grant will help solve. Sometimes called a Problem statement or a needs statement, this will tell funders what you are trying to accomplish. You will learn how to write a compelling problem statement in this lesson.

Lesson 4: Defining Clear Goals and Objectives

Writing goals and objectives is the focus of this lesson. These will show the funders how you intend to solve the identified problem.

Lesson 5: Developing Organizational Strategies

In this lesson, you will learn about writing organizational strategies, or a workplan. These are the steps your organization will take to actually meet the goals you set out previously.

Lesson 6: Preparing to Evaluate

In this lesson, you will write an evaluation plan. Once your organization gets the grant, how do you know your actions were successful? The evaluation plan will help you figure out if the program worked, and help identify areas of continued growth.

Lesson 7: Developing a Statement of Sustainability

Funders are interested in how you intend to keep your organization and program continuing. This lesson explores the creation of a statement of sustainability, which will describe ongoing fuding sources.

Lesson 8: Developing the Proposal Budget

In this lesson, you will learn about setting a proposal budget. Based on the type of program you are proposing, you will learn methods and terminology to help you understand the necessary elements of a budget.

Lesson 9: Writing the Organizational Background

Grant funders will want to know the strengths of your organization, and the background in order to help establish your credibility. This lesson will give you the tools you need to create an accurate and thorough organization background.

Lesson 10: Writing the Proposal Summary

Lesson 10 will prepare you to write the proposal summary. This summary is meant to act like an abstract for your grant proposal and is an integral part of your submission.

Lesson 11: Submitting the Application

The cumulation of your efforts will pay off in this lesson, where you learn how to submit your application. Whether submitting by mail or online, you will learn important tips about submitting your proposal in this lesson.

Lesson 12: Sustaining Relationships with Funders

This last lesson encompasses what may occur after you have submitted your application. It might be a site visit, a formal response, or simply a follow-up.

All necessary materials are included.

System Requirements:

Internet Connectivity Requirements:

• Cable, Fiber, DSL, or LEO Satellite (i.e. Starlink) internet with speeds of at least 10mb/sec download and 5mb/sec upload are recommended for the best experience.

NOTE: While cellular hotspots may allow access to our courses, users may experience connectivity issues by trying to access our learning management system.  This is due to the potential high download and upload latency of cellular connections.   Therefore, it is not recommended that students use a cellular hotspot as their primary way of accessing their courses.

Hardware Requirements:

• CPU: 1 GHz or higher
• RAM: 4 GB or higher
• Resolution: 1280 x 720 or higher.  1920x1080 resolution is recommended for the best experience.
• Speakers / Headphones
• Microphone for Webinar or Live Online sessions.

Operating System Requirements:

• Windows 7 or higher.
• Mac OSX 10 or higher.
• Latest Chrome OS
• Latest Linux Distributions
  

NOTE: While we understand that our courses can be viewed on Android and iPhone devices, we do not recommend the use of these devices for our courses. The size of these devices do not provide a good learning environment for students taking online or live online based courses.

Web Browser Requirements:

• Latest Google Chrome is recommended for the best experience.
• Latest Mozilla FireFox
• Latest Microsoft Edge
• Latest Apple Safari

Basic Software Requirements (These are recommendations of software to use):

• Office suite software (Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, or LibreOffice)
• PDF reader program (Adobe Reader, FoxIt)
• Courses may require other software that is described in the above course outline.