One of the thing you learn in a
grant proposal course is that the best grants are written to be clear, concise, and understandable. Your grant proposal may be read by many different people from all walks of life. It should be written in good solid English that can be understood by an average person. Avoid getting too intellectual or too technical in your writing. Also you should try to make your points in an organized manner. Follow the rules of good writing by having a distinct beginning, middle, and end. In the beginning give a short summary of the entire proposal. You should wait until you have finished writing the entire proposal before you write the summary that you put at the beginning. The summary at the beginning should be one or two short paragraphs that tells the reader what they will read about. Follow this by the meat of your proposal which is the middle part where you explain everything in detail and then at the end write a conclusion and include a "call to action" statement that asks the reader to do what you want them to do and the positive effects of that outcomes such as "if this proposal is granted, the neighborhood homeless shelter will be able to help 50 more families get off the streets". Make your action statement concrete and explicit. It is the one thing you want them to remember about your proposal above all others, even if they have read three dozen proposals.
Every Hollywood movie has what is called a "tagline." This is one sentence that describes the entire story of the movie. No matter how famous or complex a movie is it can be described in one sentence. Take the "Wizard of OZ" for example. Its tagline is " A young girl goes on fantastic adventures in strange lands, only to discover there is no place like home." Make your call to action the one sentence summary of your grant proposal in the same way. Avoid a sense of begging in your proposal and also avoid thanking your reader. Just identify the needs, and explain how you intend to solve the problems.
This is why a
grant proposal course is helpful to get you to write grant in an award winning way.
