On rare occasions, you might be the sole person responsible for writing a grant proposal and preparing the application for submission. More often than not, the proposal will require the knowledge, skills and contributions of individuals from several disciplines. The complexities of writing a collaborative grant proposal necessitate that one person should take the lead on creating the proposal development timeline, convening working groups of other contributors, keeping track of writing assignments and deadlines, and ensuring that all of the application components flow well together.

Many grant agencies request standard information that can make up a substantial portion of the grant proposal. These include, but are not limited to, cover pages, summary pages, budget forms, pages to describe your working spaces and other resources. This is the kind of information that does not frequently change and can therefore be compiled and kept on file for use in multiple grant applications. Having access to this kind of “boilerplate” documentation can save loads of time and help teams to keep from re-inventing the wheel. Other examples of “boilerplate” information include:

• • Organizational history
• • Partner list
• • Staff resumes/bios
• • Past funders
• • IRS designated status
• • Board of Directors
• • Leadership
• • Organizational capacity
• • Anti discrimination statements
• • Annual operating budgets/Audited financials

Grant budgeting is an important skill and is covered in depth in the Grant Budgeting module. However, there are some important points to consider as you are planning to write a proposal.

• • First, the overall budget should be designed by those who will be responsible for creating the project implementation plan. They will have the greatest knowledge of the work to be performed and the resources needed to accomplish the project. If you are planning a multi-year project, you will have to extend your budget over the project’s life.
  
  
• • Second, once a high-level budget has been established, somebody should be assigned the task of filling in the details and doing the math. Often, this task can be completed by people other than those who are writing the proposal. This should be someone who has access to salary information in order to budget for project staff, someone who has knowledge of organizational fringe rates, travel reimbursement rates, indirect cost calculations, subcontract flow-through policies and cost-of-living salary increases, etc.. This individual or individuals should also have a very good understanding of the funder’s budget requirements as well as allowable and unallowable expenses based on the funding source.
  
  
• • Third, does the budget need to be routed for review? Often, organizations require grant budgets, once developed, to be routed through an office of grants and contracts or through a finance department for pre-auditing. This is an important step to consider for a couple of reasons. For starters, this requirement will need to be figured into your proposal development timeline. Depending on the size of your organization, this process can take days or even weeks to complete. You should also build in enough time to make any requested changes or corrections. When you are dealing with a complex budget, a lot of potential problems can arise. Errors in spreadsheet formulas and small errors in fringe rates or indirect costs can affect every bit of the budget. Budget reviews or preaudits can help to minimize mistakes.

Once all of the application sections have been written, the budget reviewed and approved, and all of the forms and sections completed, someone will need to put it all together and verify that everything is there and is compliant with the application guidelines. This is one of the final steps in the grant development process and one for which you want to ensure you have enough time built into your planning timeline. If you discover missing components or other errors in the application, you will need to have ample time to correct the problems.

Depending on the funder, you might be required to submit your application electronically, as a hard copy, or both. If you’re submitting electronically, it is important to know whether you can submit the proposal on your own or if you need to go through your office of grants and contracts for submission. If the funder requires a hard copy (sometimes multiple hard copies), you need to make sure you have built in enough time to package the documents and send them off to the funder.