The process of applying for a grant program, known as grantsmanship, takes real talent. It takes a lot of skill and hard work, and can cost serious time and money.

Follow these important points while processing your grant application:

* Benefit your community.

Grants are created to provide benefits to certain communities. This is an important fact to remember before you approach the agency with your grant application. Your project must be able to help the agency in their efforts to improve the community. Make sure that your grant application reflects the overall goal of your prospective funding source.

* Learn about the specific goals of your funding source.

Although the general goal is to make a difference, you also need to know the particulars for grant application. Ask the staff at the grant agency. They will be eager to tell you.

Ask if the grant agency provides funding in your area. Some of these agencies provide grants to entrepreneurs who operate in a particular area. If you are one of these entrepreneurs, you may have a better chance of getting a local grant than a national one.

Agencies may limit their grant funds to certain institutions. These details can be very helpful in your successful grant application.

* Know the person who would be evaluating your proposal.

Does the person providing application approval understand your particular field? Has he or she acquired any experience or background information? If the evaluator is not experienced with your field, avoid including too much technical information that they may not understand. Your grant application should be written in layman’s terms, keeping their level of understanding in mind. Technical terms and definitions may be used if the evaluator is familiar with your field. Write clearly, and only use jargon with necessary.

* Familiarize yourself with the funding source.

You should know how to frame the information in your proposal. Confirm all of your statements with facts and show that you have a clear understanding of the need for the funding.

* Prepare a budget that’s easy to understand and clearly shows what you want to do.

Be as thorough as possible in your proposed budget. Always fully explain everything that is going to require funding and include other match funding from other organizations. Doing so would give your funding agency a clear picture of what your proposal entails.

No matter what, never ever throw together a proposal and hope for the best. It never works and they see through the sloppiness right away. In fact, the proposal is half of your grant application, and it is the one half over which you have complete control. Don’t muck it up.

* Don’t spend a lot of money on an elaborate presentation.

Funding agencies are rarely impressed by expensive, overblown presentations. The content of your proposal is far more important than the style of the presentation. Spend your money on the actual project planning, rather than on the presentation.

Tags: Business

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