Most funders ask for the same handful of things. The order shifts, the word limits shift, and sometimes a funder hands you their own form to fill in. But the substance does not change much, and a proposal that answers all of the questions below will fit almost any application.
One rule sits above everything here: the funder's own instructions win. If they give you a template, a character count, or a required order, use theirs and ignore this page.
1. Summary
A short paragraph, usually written last, that states what you are asking for, how much, for how long, and what it will accomplish. Many reviewers read only this before deciding whether to read on.
- What you are requesting, in dollars, and over what period.
- The one sentence version of the problem you address.
- The one sentence version of what changes because of the money.
Avoid: opening with your organization's founding year. Reviewers care about the work, not the biography.
2. Statement of need
The evidence that a real problem exists, in a specific place, for specific people.
- Name the community and the geography. "Rural southwest Georgia" beats "underserved communities nationwide."
- Use data from sources a reviewer can check: census data, county health rankings, school district reporting, your own program records.
- Say who else is working on this and what gap remains. Funders dislike a need statement that implies nobody has ever noticed the problem.
Avoid: adjectives standing in for evidence. "Devastating," "critical," and "urgent" persuade nobody who reads forty of these a week.
3. Organization background
Who you are and why you are equipped to do this work.
- Mission, in plain language.
- Your track record on this specific kind of work, not your whole history.
- Relevant capacity: staff, facilities, partnerships, prior grants of a similar size.
- Governance basics if the funder asks: board, 501(c)(3) status, audit history.
4. Goals, objectives and outcomes
The difference between these three is the most common place proposals lose points.
- Goal: the broad change you are working toward. "Reduce food insecurity among seniors in the county."
- Objective: a specific, measurable step toward the goal, with a number and a date. "Serve 1,200 unduplicated seniors with 24,000 meals between January and December 2027."
- Outcome: what is different for people as a result. "Participants report eating two or more balanced meals per day."
Objectives should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. If you cannot count it, it is not an objective.
5. Project description and methods
How the work actually happens, month by month.
- The activities, in sequence, described concretely enough that a reader could picture a Tuesday afternoon.
- Who does the work and how much of their time it takes.
- Who is served, how they are identified, and how they are enrolled.
- Any partnership and what each partner is responsible for.
6. Timeline
A month-by-month or quarter-by-quarter schedule. Include the start-up period, and be honest that hiring and setup take time. A timeline that shows the first service delivered in week one reads as either very small or not fully thought through.
7. Evaluation
How you will know it worked, and who is checking.
- Which measures you will track, and where the numbers come from.
- How often you collect them.
- Who reviews them and what happens if the numbers are disappointing.
Funders increasingly want to see that you would notice a program failing, not only that you would report success.
8. Budget and budget narrative
Two documents, not one. The budget is the table of numbers; the narrative explains every line.
- The narrative must add up to exactly the total you requested. Every line needs a sentence of justification.
- Salaries need a basis: role, percentage of time, and the math.
- Show any matching or cost-share funds and where they come from.
- Explain your indirect or administrative rate rather than burying it.
This is the section where an unverified figure does the most damage. Federal reviewers can and do check line items, and a budget narrative that does not reconcile is grounds for rejection on its own.
9. Sustainability
What happens after the grant ends. Funders do not want to fund a program that disappears when their money does.
- Other revenue sources, confirmed or in progress.
- Earned income, individual giving, or other grants already secured.
- What the program does to reduce its own cost over time.
10. Attachments
Check the funder's list against what you actually have, line by line, before submitting. Commonly requested:
- IRS determination letter.
- Most recent audited or reviewed financial statements.
- Current operating budget.
- Board of directors list.
- Letters of support or memoranda of understanding.
- Organizational chart.
- Proof of registrations the funder requires, such as a Unique Entity ID or SAM.gov registration for federal applications.
The mistakes that get proposals rejected
- Missing a required section or exceeding a word count. Automated screening removes these before a human sees them.
- A budget that does not reconcile with the narrative, or with the amount requested.
- Unsupported numbers. Every figure needs a source: your own records, a cited dataset, or a funder's own document.
- Copy-pasted proposals. Reviewers can tell when the statement of need was written for a different funder. Reference their published priorities by name.
- A deadline missed by a day. Federal portals in particular close exactly on time, and many require registration weeks in advance.
Where software helps, and where it does not
Drafting tools are good at producing a structured first draft from your own material, and at saving you from the blank page. They are not a substitute for reading the funder's guidelines yourself, and they should never be trusted to supply a number you did not give them. Verify every figure against your own records before you submit anything.