Although you do not evaluate activities, you should include in the plan how you will assess the progress of staff as the project gets underway.

2. Use multiple measures: An evaluation plan should explain how you will collect valid, credible information systematically to determine if the project goal has been met and objectives achieved.

Usually, funder like to see hard data on empirical research as well as qualitative information. It also helps to include anecdotal or observational information to give the funder a feel for the personal impact of the project they are supporting.

3. Chose an expert as an evaluator or an evaluation consultant. Ask a local professor or a nationally known expert to help design and conduct the evaluation. Selecting an expert in the field will lend credibility to your proposal and impress the funder.

It is better to identify the evaluator in the proposal than say that one will be selected later. Also, it strengthens the proposal to show that the evaluator was involved in planning and that the evaluation design has been completely prepared before the project starts.

4. Write the Evaluation Early – As you begin to plan your project, ask the evaluator to participate. Along with assessing the need for the project, and determine how to meet it the evaluator can help you build the data collection procedures and evaluation measures you will need. The valuator can offer many new ways of collecting evaluation data.

Developing project goals, objectives and plan of operating simultaneously with an evaluation design can result in a strong project with clear and measurable outcomes. The proposal should demonstrate that the need for the project, the goals, objectives and evaluation measures are all interrelated.

5. Create a simple, basic evaluation plan. All an effective evaluation plan has to do is produce reliable, objective and quantifiable data to determine the results of the project and whether they are attributable to the project itself. The plan should describe measurable criteria for assessment, data collection methods and record keeping activities, and include a timeline for reporting finding to the project director for continual revision fo methodology.

Data collected for measurements can include statistics, record, observations, interviews and questionnaires responses. Most evaluations use data in a summative fashion to assess overall impact of the grant as well as employ formative evaluation methods to monitor the progress of the activities.

6. Start the evaluation when the grant begins. An effective evaluation should start as soon as the grant project begins. The projects progress should be monitored continually, and the evaluator should be a key member of the project staff from the beginning. By continuously monitoring progress, the evaluator can help the project director keep activities on track on time.

Jazz musicians play from scores that have very few notes. They are called chord charts. I’ve refined that to “core” charts. Imagine the melody line to Bob Marley’s “One Love” in that red space at the center of the painting.

That’s what these four are playing. Hum along in your head – “One love, one heart/Let’s get together and feel all right!”

Is Your Vision Statement Clear, Concise, and Comprehensible?
I’m constantly surprised by leaders in organizations dismissing the importance of a clear, concise, and comprehensible vision statement as an essential tool for coordinating collaboration.

It should be lucid, illuminating the core purpose the organization serves. It should be short – fifteen words max, preferably fewer. And it should be made up of words that are loaded with value and feeling.

That’s what makes them understandable and sticky. You can remember them easily. They can refocus and align your hearts and heads quickly in the midst of distractions and disputes.

Does Your Vision Statement Have a Melody Line?

Think of a melody line. Are you still humming “One Love?” That’s what a good vision statement is. It keeps you humming along together. Here are some examples from organizations I’ve worked with.

Nourishing souls to flourish in the grace of Jesus Christ

Being influential leaders

Healthy and affordable community living for seniors

Helping people, changing lives, building community

We nurture respect and collaboration to create meaningful lives and work

Some organizations had them already. Some composed them as we worked together. All tested them out over a considerable period of time in a variety of situations to ensure that they helped to shape the cohesive culture all those organizations wanted to nurture.

What this kind of clarity provides is a compelling centre for all your efforts to serve your constituencies, be they customers (Peter Drucker’s word for those we often call clients), staff, board members, funders, and community allies.

Now you can create space for big ideas and big personalities. You can create space to be creative with strategic and generative ideas for improvements. You can handle differences in strengths, talents, temperaments, and opinions. Because at the centre of that space is the melody everyone has agreed to play. The defining questions have shifted from “What are we all about here?” to “How can we best achieve our core purpose?”

Jamaican-born pianist Monty Alexander said in the liner notes for Impressions in Blue (2003), “Jazz, at its best, is a situation in which participants willingly support each other, working together as one, each musician bringing virtuosity, optimism, mutual respect, good will, and the desire to make it feel good.” If you are constantly wondering what melody you’re playing together, then none of this happens. Every now and then, you might be lucky enough to be in sync for a little while, but the overall performance is all over the place.

If that sounds like your nonprofit these days, then get up into the balcony with your whole organization and figure out your core vision. Compose it as a melody line that everyone knows and loves. Orient everyone who comes into the organization to contribute their creative and passionate best to that melody/vision/purpose.

It sounds simple and it is. Here’s one way to do that composing that has worked well for organizations I’ve assisted. Ask as many people as possible what they value most about what your organization offers to the community. Transcribe their answers verbatim and circulate that raw data. Invite the most engaged people to identify the ten most powerful words or phrases found in those answers. Do that again to refine it even further. Out of those words, draft a number of vision statements. Combine and refine until one ‘melody line’ stands out as the most compelling. Test that version for three months, using it to structure meetings, do staff and board training, resolve conflicts, attract funding and support, coordinate volunteers, and, above all, serve your customers. Refine it as needed, then keep reviewing and refining it every year or so.

Think again about the red energy in the centre of Colin’s painting. Think what would give it the most beneficial power if your organization was a jazz group (which it is, by the way). I suspect that you will come up with something like a melody line that is clear, concise, and comprehensible.

This article is Copyright 2018 CharityChannel LLC. It was originally published by CharityChannel at https://charitychannel.com/vision-statement-melody.

You can find Brian’s CharityChannel biography at: https://charitychannel.com/contributor/brian-fraser/

Good! This idea to help in relieving your communities experiencing some problems is an honorable one. Very powerful and unique.

Charitable organisations are inspiring ways of giving back to communities. They help to correct some inequalities and/or support disadvantaged groups overcome needs.

They spend their lifetime committed to providing services that benefit the public in very many ways.

In all countries of the world service-providing [different from grant-giving] charities start as community groups, non-profit organisations or voluntary associations.

They become charities only when they regularise their existence by registering with the charity regulatory body of their countries of origin and are issued with a charity registration number.

Securing a charity number goes with a lot of privileges and advantages.

Are you one of those people thinking of setting up a charitable organisation, community group, voluntary association or a charity?

Let me show you the process:

• From the time of conceiving the idea
• To the setting up of the charitable organisation or association
• What you should do to make your organisation legal, and
• Then, registering the organisation as a charity

What then is a charitable organisation or association?

Any association or group formed with charitable aims and objectives is called a charitable organisation. This type of organisation is also referred to as voluntary association, non-profit organisation or community group.

Organisations are charitable in the sense that they are formed specifically to use their resources in supporting the public to resolve their needs. They have no profit motive or plan of benefiting financially from the help and support they give.

These organisations have charitable objects like relieving poverty, promoting health, advancing education, providing advice and information, etc. Their objects are aimed at resolving identified problems or need among specific populations.

No one person can form a charitable organisation. It’s a community issue. However, it is usually one person that identifies the problem, thinks of a solution and nurtures the idea of forming a charity to help people in need.

That person will strongly believe that, his or her ideas when implemented can alleviate or resolve the problem and bring about desired change or relief to the community experiencing the disadvantage.

The individual will then discuss the problem and its solution with others around him or her with the suggestion that they form an association to help those in need!

If the people consulted also believed that the problem actually exists and feel passionate about doing something to relieve the need, then they will agree, come together and form a charitable organisation for that purpose.

The group will set itself up to use specific means, methods or activities and services to resolve or alleviate the need.

I want to illustrate the process of establishing charitable organisations with three examples.

Example 1

I live in an area called Tenably, an inner-city suburb of Mandy City. This area has lots of temporary accommodation which are occupied by refugees, asylum seekers and homeless families and people.

These families, many with children are put in the reception centres, hostels and temporary accommodations by local councils.

I’ve observed that these families live in very deplorable conditions. Their homes are cramped, overcrowded and inadequate. The young ones are exposed to risks of drug and alcohol abuse, indiscipline and peer pressure.

I see this as a social problem and would like to help. But I can’t do it alone.

These families need services, activities and support for themselves and their children to experience good quality life. Parents can’t find school places to enroll their children because they have no permanent addresses. There are no play facilities for the children. Families struggle to access mainstream and community activities including GP services.

Interestingly, there is no charitable association or organisation in the area to help these families and people overcome their disadvantage.

I hold my strong opinion that society should help. The social cost to society will be very high if nothing is done to help these families and children.

It breaks my heart! I am worried.

In a situation like this, I’ll discuss the idea of helping these families with advice, information and practical support with my friends, colleagues or family members. I’ll suggest to them that we set up a charitable organisation to help homeless families and children in Mandy City.

If my friends or family accept my idea and agree with me, then I’ll call a meeting for us to discuss the setting up an association to help homeless families. We’ll give our charitable organisation a unique name.

Example 2

You come from a rural community in Ghana, Zimbabwe or Nigeria, Africa. You and others you know from your area now live in the UK, Europe or USA. Anytime you travel back home to Africa, you can see and feel the high level of poverty engulfing your people.

Children are not in school because their parents could not afford it. School buildings are crumbling, the only health centre in town lacks basic facilities. Many families find it difficult to feed themselves.

On your rounds in town, you notice groups of young people gathered near drinking spots. They have no employable skills. No doubt, unemployment is very high in the community. Your village is gradually dying out.

This is the problem you’ve identified in your community. You thought hard about what you could do to relieve the community of hardship and poverty. “If we could engage young and older people in our community to deliberate on issues affecting them” you heard yourself talking aloud, “we can come up with ideas and solutions to reduce poverty levels in many homes”.

Again, you can’t do this alone. Back in the UK from your holidays, you could discuss your observations, problems identified and your ideal perceived solutions with friends, colleagues and people who you believe will share your concern.

And if they do, you’ll promote the idea of establishing an organisation with the charitable object of helping to relieve poverty for families in your community back home in Africa. You’ll form a charitable organisation and give it a unique name.

Example 3

I’ve observed that young boys and girls aged about 8 to 16, who live in my area idle about after school hours and at weekends. They hang around a particular spot on the pathway to the local market and indulge in activities that intimidate passersby.

This is a problem I have identified. I talked to a few of the young people who confided in me: “We don’t have any place to go to after school. We like hanging out and playing with our friends”.

One way I think I can help to reduce this negative attitude among the young people is to engage them in constructive activities after school and at weekends. I’ll think of forming a youth club with colleagues in the area to help the young people.

I’ll discuss this problem and my idea of forming an organisation to support young people with my friends and colleagues. If they agree with me and share my views, then, we’ll come together to form the charitable organisation for that purpose – to serve young people.

Again, we’ll give the organisation a unique name to show that we support young people. The organisation will not have any profit motive or wish to gain financially from activities it will be providing to its clients.

This is how charitable associations, non-profit organisations and community groups are started. From humble beginnings, they flourish and later register with a regulatory body to become charities.

After you’ve agreed and formed the charitable organisation, there are few steps you should take to formalise the group and make it legal.

It’s advisable that before you start a charitable organisation, you should find out if there is any other organisation in your area which is providing the same type of support you want to give.

If there is any, it’s better to join hands with them and not duplicate what is already taking place in your area.

It’s good to set up the charitable organisation properly. This how you do it.

First, one of you in the group or a hired expert should develop a set of rules and regulations that will govern the way you operate as a charitable organisation. This written document produced which we call constitution should include your charitable objects.

Interestingly, there are other types of governing documents that newly established charitable organisations can adopt. The charitable structure that your group selects to model on, will determine which governing document you’ll develop.

When the constitution document is ready, those of you who agree to form the charitable organisation will come together and adopt it.

At this meeting, you will elect a number of you, at least 3, to serve as the first trustees or management committee members for the organisation. I recommend that, to reflect the community nature of your charitable organisation, you should elect at least 5 to 9 people in your group to serve as trustees at each time.

The trustees will agree to meet regularly [at least 4 times in the year] to discuss the strategic direction of the charitable organisation. They will elect an executive board, with a chair person, treasurer and secretary from among them.

The group will spend quality time to discuss and come up with a plan on where and how they will generate income to support the charitable activities they will be providing to their user group.

Thirdly, the group should take a copy of their constitution and a special resolution they have adopted to a bank of their choice and ask that they open a charity account. This account should be in the name of the charitable organisation.

At least two people [three (3) is a preferred number] from the executive board should be selected as signatories to the new charity account. The signatories should neither be related in any way nor live at the same address.

Finally, the organisation should secure the services of a development officer to write relevant policies and procedures, including health and safety, equal opportunities and others for the organisation.

Depending on the type of people your group is set up to support, volunteers working with older and younger people are mandated to undergo the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check before they can work with such groups.

Newly elected trustees should also be DBS checked. The Local Council for Voluntary Services (CVS) in your area can help you with the checks.

When you have completed all these processes, know that you have established a legitimate charitable organisation to support an identified disadvantaged population experiencing some need.

After some time of operating as a charitable organisation, community group or voluntary association you can apply to the charity regulatory body of your country to be registered as a charity.

This should happen when your activities are well established and you are able to generate an annual income of £5K or more in the preceding financial or project year.

Anytime we talk of sustainability, our minds drift to how projects we initiate with grant support will continue when the funding is ended. Sustainability is more than projects just going beyond their grant funding period. Sustainability for an organisation could mean three things:

• Financial sustainability: How the organisation is able to ensure steady flow of funds by generating revenue to maintain and continue its work

• Institutional or Organisational Sustainability: This refers to ensuring proper working systems in your organisation that were developed as part of the project.

• Programme Sustainability: Means the organisation continuing its projects and programmes in the absence of donor support.

An organisation is able to sustain its projects or programmes if it’s financially stable and not being threatened with closure. This can happen if the organisation has proper planning strategies in place, good governance and effective leadership. It is only then can that organisation develop and sustain programmes to benefit the community for long periods of time.

One source of funding to sustain projects is grants. [There are other funding sources for projects]. Funders award grants to support projects only for a fixed period of time. They are therefore concerned about how projects they fund can go beyond the funding period. For this reason, funders will carefully look at an organisation’s sustainability plan before awarding grants to them.

Funders want assurances that their funds will be put to good use. That the funds have long term impact, and projects continue to provide benefits to the target community even after the grant is finished.

During the recent financial crisis, many non-profit organisations around the world closed down. The sole reason was the inability of leaders of these organisations to raise enough money to support the work they do. Service users can no longer depend on those organisations to benefit from projects they provide. The promises to make life better for service users are lost. And the community is the loser.

Does it mean that the founders, trustees or directors of the organisations concerned did not do their homework? Did they not set plans in motion to sustain programmes? It’s always advisable to integrate sustainability aspects in projects right from the beginning. This would ensure that once the primary funding ends, organisations have credible plans of support, to continue their projects.

As I said earlier on, sustainability is more than finding funding to continue with services developed through grants. It’s a combination of various strategies to maintain the elements of your programmes that are responsible for positive outcomes. It’s an organisation’s ability to continue providing benefits to its community of users over long periods of time.

It’s a recommend practice that organisations have sustainability teams with designated leaders. This team should be vexed in marketing, social media, and communication and should be responsible for thinking sustainability for their charities and projects.

Below are 7 key steps organisations can take to sustain their projects

1. Create and develop partnership work

One way organisations can sustain their projects is to work in partnership with other groups. This could be in the area of cross referrals, project development and/or sharing of resources. Strong partnerships can bring on board diverse strengths, skills and experience to better serve communities and sustain projects.

Experienced trustees will add their skills to running projects effectively and efficiently. Skilled personnel with good grant writing or fundraising skills can be shared to generate much income to continue with projects. Limited resources like space, staff, volunteers, equipment can be utilised at little or no cost to benefit the community.

Together, partners can establish actions to keep projects benefiting communities for longer periods of time. Having groups in an area coming together to provide services will generate benefits of division of labour. There will be no duplication of services but variety of available and accessible activities which can benefit many.

Involving others who have the same goals and affected by similar problems can lead essentially to developing supportive services with minimal resources. It’s important to identify the strengths of partners and build on them for maximum benefit to service users.

An example of partnership working could be a charity collaborating with a community centre to run computer literacy lessons for adults and/or young people. One will donate space and the other, teachers and resources for the project. In this way more people are engaged, organisations learn from each other and the community becomes the winner. Or a homeless support project can work with an interfaith group to support homeless people.

Funders recognise synergy of groups working together and are more prone to supporting such initiatives.

2. Involve key stakeholders:

Another major step in ensuring sustainability of projects is to involve key project users, stakeholders and the community you serve in project development, delivery and evaluation. Building projects together in this way can win the hearts and minds of users and build community support. People in the community will embrace activities because they are part of the development and implementation. Communities will take ownership, feel valued and endeavor to do things that can help the project to continue into the future.

It’s a challenge for non-profit organisations to ensure a steady flow of funds to execute projects and programmes. The community, valuing the project will be concerned when monies are running out. Those with community skills can arrange fundraisers to supplement dwindling income. Stakeholders with skills can step in to volunteer in case a staff is not around. In this way projects will continue to thrive for longer periods in the community.

3. Regularly evaluate projects

When an organisation undertakes constant and consistent evaluation of its projects, it’s able to identify projects that the community needs. Evaluation results show which activities are achieving results and those that need to be dropped. This means only valued projects will be carried forward.

It’s advisable to present positive evaluation data on how you continually measure success, make ongoing adjustments to projects and produce benefits to more people. This can help you to generate more support and income for your projects to enhance sustainability.

4. Build capacity of trustees, staff and volunteers

Capacity building in an organisation can lead to project sustainability. A well-trained and highly skilled staff as well as an effective leadership is valuable asset in developing and preserving projects that the community needs. Trained staff are better prepared, more confident and effective in implementing and sustaining projects.

Recruiting a mixture of old and young people, present and former users of the organisation’s services with diverse skills in the management committee give strong backbone and community involvement. They understand service users better and are able to implement projects that users need. This enhances sustainability. Well-trained and supported staff can support project growth.

5. Develop marketing and communication plan

Trustees should make the presence of their organisations felt in the community. Staff should establish clear ways of sharing organisation’s profile and the good work it does in the community with large audiences. This can open doors for funding agencies, corporations and individuals to remember the organisation with giveaways and sponsorships of events.

The way staff in an organisation communicates and informs others about their programme’s goals and successes is key to creating and maintaining a base of community support.

The way they develop presentations about problems and how projects are reducing or eliminating those problems can help to publicise organisations to gain support and partnerships. Marketing involves building your image, community relations, awareness creation and developing members and trustees

These actions can contribute to sustaining the organisation’s programmes and functions by bringing support from a range of stakeholders and donors whose interest match what the organisation does.

Successful marketing and communication initiatives engage programme participants, key community members, stakeholders and decision-makers. Together, they can deliberate on how best the benefits they bring to their communities can be sustained far into the future.

6. Diversify your funding base: 

Financial sustainability is an essential goal for most community groups. It allows them to become buoyant long enough to accomplish their goals.

Most organisations think that once they are set up, they will get grants from various sources to support the work they do infinitum. It doesn’t work like that. It’s good to develop long term partnerships with donors to support your work. However, it’s better to diversify your funding base by starting fundraising activities and events.

Diversifying your funding base by using several different strategies is often very helpful. By developing multiple funding sources, you are less likely to be in trouble if any one source dries up. There are many different possibilities for funding that community groups can take advantage of. Some of these are:

• Charging fees for services

Your organisation can devise plans to charge fees for some of your services. Activities which led themselves to such plans include luncheon clubs, social outings, advice sessions, etc.

• Support from local governments

Some projects, especially for older people and others for youth activities support objectives of many local authorities. Thus, if an organisation is able to develop such projects to high standards, it’s possible to court the partnership of local governments to take over funding of such projects.

• Organise fundraising activities and events

Your non-profit can organise both sponsored and stand-alone events like health walks, dinner dances, musical programmes to generate money for projects. You can recruit volunteers to wash cars for donations or sale cookies to generate income. Staff need to plan for the myriads of things an organisation can do to generate income to sustain projects.

• Set up endowments

If possible, your organisation can secure endowment funds from grants, bequest, or cash contributions which you can invest to generate residual income. You will use the interest earned to support your projects and activities. This leaves the principal to gain further interest.

You can also develop planned giving programmes such that people give you donations once or on regular basis to support your immediate needs. These charitable gifts may be acquired through wills, trusts, gift annuities, life insurance, securities, real estate, etc.

• Membership fees

There are also membership dues that can keep organisations and projects going. This is only if you are a membership organisation.

• In-kind Support

Make plans to solicit for resources from local stores or businesses to support projects. This can relieve money for the organisation to use on other projects. You could request for paint or building materials from the local hardware store or food from supermarket if the organisation runs foodbanks. Volunteers can render services for free. This is in-kind support. Make the seeking of in-kind support a core part of your organsation’s sustainability plan.

• Trading /contracts

Depending on how your organisation is set up, you can develop some trading ventures to generate regular income to sustain projects. In the UK and other countries, most organisations set up charity shops to sell donated items. This generates extra income for project support and sustainability.

Your group may decide to form a business as a nonprofit organisation or form a separate “for-profit” side of the organisation in order to avoid some of the often confusing regulations put on not-for-profit organisations.

For more information on how you can generate income from diversified sources to sustain your projects, please read: Discover 40 Funding Sources for Non-profit Organisations.

7. Avoid mission drift

As an organisation, you should be able to demonstrate how you have been able to keep your projects afloat since incorporation. In planning and developing new programmes and projects, you should always have your mission in mind. Never develop any project without considering the reason why the organisation was established.

All non-profit organisations, community groups and charities are set up to do some good work in disadvantaged communities. At birth, these organisations develop well-established aims and objectives, mission and vision which they pursue to bring changes or difference in the lives of people who benefit from their projects and activities.

Whatever projects you develop should support the established aims and objectives of your organisation. Doing this will always sustain your projects because this is what you have been set up to do, and this is what your service users want.

Charitable organisations across all countries vary in many ways, but all of them strive towards a shared goal: To sustain their establishments and the work they do beyond the initial founding day. It is normal that they develop sustainability plans, strategies and actions to carry them into the future.

The various steps organisations can follow to sustain their activities and benefits to communities are usually written in the Fundraising Strategy. This document details plans to strengthen organisations and programme support through various means. It includes processes to generate diverse resources.

You must exercise enough caution to prevent your proposals from failing to win grants. Please, be aware of those pitfalls that can result in your proposals or applications being turned down and guard against them.

Funders do have nice ways of rejecting proposals. They will write to say, “We received very many good applications more than we could fund. Competition for funds was very strong and we had to make very difficult decisions”.

Your goal must be to strive and beat the competition to win the grant! Common mistakes like submitting incomplete application forms, poor presentations and requesting funding outside the limit of funders can make your applications to fail.

Here are 17 basic mistakes that can result in your proposals and applications being rejected by funders. Try and avoid them when planning, preparing, writing and submitting grant proposals and applications to funders.

1. Your application will fail to win grants if it does not fit in well with the funding guidelines, criteria and priority of the funder you are submitting the proposal to.

Take the example of a funder who has written in its funding guidelines that it funds projects that improve education in primary schools. Then you send an application to this particular funder seeking grants for a literacy support project for older people. Your application did not take notice of the funder’s priority and therefore will be turned down.

2. When you do not show that the project you are seeking money for, is related to, or fits in well with what your organisation does, your project will
fail. For example, your charity was set up to provide services and support to children and young people in a particular town.

Then, in your proposal to this particular funder you are asking for grants to reduce isolation for older people. This project is not related to what you do
as an organisation unless you can prove that the project is for young people to work with older people.

3. You will fail to win grants if you submit incomplete applications. This can happen if you forgot to include details of contact persons, dates, addresses or other information as required on the application form.

If you fail to answer a question on the application form, just because you think it’s not necessary, too difficult or for lack of time, your application is
incomplete and will not be successful.

4. Another mistake that can make your proposal or application to fail is when you do not show the link between your project and the stated interest of the funder you are approaching.

Say how your organisation’s mission fits in well with the funder’s goal for funding? Showing this link clearly is very critical to your application being successful.

5. When you ask for more money than the funder gives, your proposal will fail to win the grant. This is a grievous mistake that can only happen if you do not read the instructions that funders send out to you.

Let’s say that a funder writes in its guidelines that the grant amounts it will award during this funding round are between £5,000 and £10,000. In your proposal or application, you are asking for £12,000 to run your project. This is more than the funder can give. Obviously you will not be successful.

You will also fail to win grants if you do not present an honest budget with your proposal or present a realistic request for funding in relation to your charity’s turnover.

Here is another example. In your current proposal you are asking for £30,000 for this particular project that will last for one year.

However, in the last financial year, your total annual turnover was just £15,000. This is half the amount you are requesting from this one funder.

Why this sudden and big leap?

6. Most trusts will fund projects in a particular town, district or region. Your proposal will fail if your organisation is not within the geographical area that the funder says it awards grants.

For example, if a funder says it funds projects in Mandy City and your project beneficiaries and non-profit work is in Brinton. Do not expect to be awarded the grant.

7. Your application will fail if it does not tell whoever reads the proposal anything about the problem or need you are addressing. Use your need statement to educate the funder about the deprivation, inequality or gap preventing your target population from attaining their potential. Then call for an action to help them.

8. When you fail to tell a funder why your organisation is the one to be funded to undertake the project, your proposal will be turned down. Make sure your application is very clear about your group’s extensive track record in supporting project users.

That your charity is well-established, understands the needs of service users better that all other groups and are in the best position to help users gain from a project like the one you are proposing.

9. Clearly show what difference your project will make to beneficiaries to avoid your proposal or application being rejected. Funders are impressed if your projects concentrate on making a difference in the lives of service users rather than on your own charity or community group.

10. You will fail to win grants if you do not present clear evidence of your users’ needs and the solution you are proposing in a logical and comprehensive sequence.

You may have identified a genuine need through consultation with users, reports or statistics of deprivation in the area and developed very good ideas to resolve them. But if you do not show this evidence very clearly or they are poorly presented in your proposal, you will fail to win the grant.

11. Writing incorrect and incoherent sentences, making spelling mistakes and typographical errors can damage your proposal. Committing such mistakes show that you have not given enough time and consideration to your application. Your project proposal will be rejected.

12. When you have not build any relationship or developed any contact with the funder you are targeting with your proposal, you’ll fail to win the grant.

Once you have identified a potential funder for your project, try to establish a relationship using e-mail, telephone or personal contact.

Read about funders on their websites, funding directories or latest funding guidelines. If you are not sure on anything, call the grants officers to discuss your project before submitting proposals. This can save you much time, money and anguish.

Your application will fail to win grants if:

13. You don’t comply with deadlines given to you in the funding guidelines. All funders set dates by which you should send your proposals to them. You’ll make this mistake if you do not read the funders guidelines.

If your proposal is late, it will be rejected, unless there is a clause in the guidelines that says “late applications will be moved to the next funding round.” A small number funders say that they receive applications on a rolling basis. In such cases, you can send your proposal to those funders at any time.

14. You fail to include the required additional supporting information that the funder requested from you. For example, when a funder asks you to provide them with your organisation’s bank statement, annual account, project plan or any other information on your charity and you fail to submit them.

15. Your end of year accounts shows that you have too much money in reserves. The question on the funder’s mind will be, “if you have this much money in your reserves, why do you need this amount of money from us?” Make sure that you explain any reserve policy your organisation has in the notes section of your annual account.

16. Don’t comply with the directives of the charity regulatory body of your country. These bodies expect all charitable organisations to submit their end of year accounts and trustees report as well as annual returns to them promptly.

If the trustees of your charity fail to submit these documents or are always
late in submitting them, your charity will lose its credibility among funders.

Your organisation will be branded as not serious, not trustworthy or just defiant by the regulatory body.

Whatever good work you are doing in saving thousands of lives within the community, no funder will give you money when you fail to comply with simple charity regulations.

17. In all situations, your proposals or applications will be rejected if you do not follow funders’ simple instructions. Read the funders guidelines side-byside to what you are writing. Comply with the number of words you are required to use, the questions you are to answer, the information you are to send with the application. Make sure you do what the funder wants and says.

There is one big mistake that most charity personnel do. Because of pressure of time and the desire to reach out to so many funders at the same time, some charities write the same proposal and mail it to very many trusts, foundations and other funders. Your proposal will not meet many funders’ guidelines and requirements and will be rejected.

The mistakes identified in this chapter can easily be avoided if you read guidelines, follow all funders’ instructions and pay particular attention to details when preparing your grant proposals and applications.

All funders have their good sides too. Majority of them are willing to discuss with you why a proposal you submitted to them failed.

Let’s say that, you believed in yourself that you’ve followed all instructions, did all things right and written a very sound proposal. You’ve written about who you are and what you do well; supported the need of your users with strong evidence backed by statistical data … and yet your proposal was turned down.

What do you do? Guess why you didn’t get a “yes” to your proposal or application. Rejection letters can dent your confidence, but let it not do so!

In today’s competitive grant market, you need to hold fast to your confidence. You need every ounce of it. Don’t just simply throw the rejection letter away in desperation.

Read this letter again. Find out why your application was not successful. If you can’t find a reason in the rejection letter, pick up your phone and call the grants officer of the funding organisation. Ask him or her to give you a genuine, honest and helpful feedback on why your proposal was not successful.

This can be a great learning curve for you. For most grant seekers, receiving rejection letters is a statistical reality. You can easily turn a rejection of your proposal or application to your advantage and win more grants in the future for your non-profit organisation.

Grants from trusts, foundations and government departments are major sources of funding for many non-profit organisations. To get grants, somebody in your organisation – a trustee, development worker or chief executive – must write a proposal or an application to a funder.

All funders – foundations and institutions that give grants – are set up purposely to distribute money to good causes. To achieve this objective, funders are always looking out for charities serving disadvantaged groups to help them promote their cause. They, therefore, periodically ask that grant-seeking organisations submit written requests for grants to them.

Charitable organisations doing good work in very many societies are always looking out for funders giving grants. And when they believe that a project of theirs meets with the interests of a particular funder, they plan, develop and write a grant proposals or applications to that funder.

Every one responsible for writing grant proposals wants to win ALL the time. However hard you try by following the process to the letter, you will be denied the grants most of the time. It’s difficult to be one hundred percent successful in winning grants any time you submit a proposal. This is a common fact that all grant seekers must brace themselves to accept. You must endeavour not to be among the rejected applications all the time.

The reason is not far-fetched. There are hundreds, if not thousands of other charitable organisations like yours out there who are also writing to the same funder for money from the same pot. Certainly, there will the problem of demand and supply. Over subscription.

All funders have some criteria which they use to judge proposals submitted to them. This enables them to weed off proposals that fall short, not follow instructions, not using acceptable processes or not looking professional.

The question now should be, how do you approach the grant writing process to enable you win grants most of the time?

You should understand that effective grant seeking requires clear vision of a project. This in turn involves a process of planning, researching, reaching out to, and courting the favour and partnership of funders.

Funders want details about a project, not generalities. They want to be assured that their funds will be spent effectively. To become successful at writing for, and winning grants, these are 8 proven steps I have been taking.

• Plan, plan and plan
• Define aims and objectives
• Research for probable funders
• Read funders guidelines
• Communicate and develop relationship with potential funders
• Write the proposal or application
• Revise and edit
• Submit the proposal or application package

I’ll suggest that you should also follow these steps anytime you want to write and submit proposals for grants. It will help you win most of the time!

Step 1: Plan, Plan and Plan

Before you apply for any grant, you or your organisation must have identified a need in your community which must require urgent attention to benefit the public.

Needs are problems that prevent sections of the population from attaining their potentials. They come in many forms – low skills levels, unavailability of employment opportunities, old people experiencing isolation and thousands more. When you identify needs like these, staff at the organisation should meet to discuss and plan how to resolve the need.

So, the first step in the grant seeking process is to form a team, if this is possible. The team should adopt strategies like brainstorming and research in a planning process to come up with ideas, suggestions and solutions for the problem. The planning team should:

• Think critically about a project to relieve those in need of the disadvantage they are experiencing.
• Decide on the best possible way to present the need identified and its solution to a funder you will later identify through research.
• Clearly identify the people that the project you are proposing will benefit or support. Conduct research to understand how disadvantaged the people are and how this is affecting them.
• Give the project a suitable – concise, clear and precise – name which should depict what the project is all about.
• Plan what activities people on the project will be involved in, the benefits they will gain and how you will track the outcomes.
• Decide how the organisation will sustain the activities after the grant you are requesting for is finished.
• Finally, develop a budget, assigning cost values to personnel, items and activities that will help you to run the project.

At the end of the planning process, the team should come up with a written outline of your project proposal. This outline will serve as a guide when it comes to researching for a funder – trust or foundation – which might be interested in funding your project.

Getting teams in non-profit organisations is difficult since many have less staff and volunteers. Where there is no team, the person responsible for seeking funding for your organisation’s upkeep should act as a one-man team and carry out the activities discussed above. In this case you must plan, plan and plan.

Step 2: Define Aims And Objectives

All projects should have aims and objectives. The staff team planning the project should come up with aims and objectives for the project. Aim are long term changes that you expect to see happen in the lives of people as a result of their taking part in the project’s activities. – Improved quality of life, increase in confidence, reduced isolation, etc.

Objectives are the specific and measurable actions that will help the project to achieve the desired changes (aims) envisaged for project’s beneficiaries.

Remember a project will be judged by whether or not it attained its objectives. Make sure the objectives you formulate are SMART.

• S-specific: state what you intend to change with your project,
• M-measurable: show numbers that will indicate success,
• A-achievable: can be done,
• R-realistic: not beyond your capacity to do,
• T-time bound: by what time? days, month or year,

Step 3: Research Potential Funders

Before you write a proposal, you must know who could support it with money. This is the funder you will submit the proposal to.

Your third step in the proposal writing process is to conduct research for potential funders – trusts, foundations, government or other sources – which your charity can approach for support. Use the project outline you developed in process step 1. Search through on-line and published resources. Also use personal contacts to locate the most promising funding source for your project. A good research will fit your funding request with a particular funder’s interest.

All funders have some basic criteria which they use in judging which charitable group to support. It’s your duty to thoroughly research all funding sources using the internet, funding directories and magazines available in many libraries, to identify potential funders for your project.

A potential funder is that funder whose interests and priorities match what you do as a charitable organisation.

Step 4: Read The Funders Guidelines

After thorough research, you would have identified some potential funders which you believe will be interested in supporting your project. If that is the case, then take your time to carefully read the funding guidelines of the individual funders you have identified. Follow all the directions and instructions given in the guidelines.

Most grant seekers are in a hurry to submit proposals/applications to funders. In the process they fail to read funders guidelines and instructions properly. Don’t commit this mistake.

Following instructions will enable you to present proposals and applications that match the interests of your charity to those of funders. This will greatly help you to become successful at winning grants.

Step 5: Develop Relationship With Funders

One of the most important steps in setting yourself up to succeed with your grant seeking process is to build relationships with funders. You can do this by developing the habit of calling grants officers of identified funders and talking to them about your project before submitting proposals to them.

With the list of potential funders in your hand, try and call the grants officers one by one. Talk them through your project outline and ask each of them if your proposal falls within their current funding priorities.

Make sure you do your homework before you make this call! This is a fact-finding call to assure yourself that your project is something a particular funder will be interested in supporting. Be very brief and to the point.

Before making a call to a grants officer, write what you are going to tell him/her on a piece of notebook paper. Rehearse and master what you have written so well that when you meet your grants officer accidentally on the ground floor in a lift, going on to the third floor, you can communicate the message to him or her very clearly before the lift opens.

We call this, the ‘elevator speech’ – a very short but powerful 30-seconds description of what you want the money for! In this call tell the grants officer about your programme and ask if it is something the funder will be interested in supporting. The confidence you gain through calling grants officers and the information these officers give, will help you to develop and write very good grant proposals and applications that funders will love.

Step 6: Write The Proposal Or Application

When a grants officer gives you the go ahead, it is now time for you to write and submit the proposal or application.

So, what do you write?

1. You will write a proposal to an identified funder, seeking its support for a project you have developed in response to a community need.

2. Be very clear about what you want to say. Be creative and set your organisation far apart from others in the way you make a difference in the lives of disadvantaged people.

3. Show how your project fits in well with the guidelines of the funder. Give reasons why you think this funder should give you the money you are asking for.

4. Write your proposal using buzz words, phrases and terms that funders use in their requests for funding publications. Buzz phrases can push important buttons.

Take time to write a convincing and compelling proposal. Focus your proposal on the needs of people who will benefit from the project and not on the needs of your organisation. Remember, funders give grants to benefit people in need. Show how lack of opportunities are affecting your user group and how the money you are requesting for, will change beneficiary lives.

Write the application with passion and confidence. Convince the funder with words and figures that your clients need support to make a difference happen in their lives. Demonstrate how effective and capable your organisation is, to carry out a project like the one you are proposing.

Step 7: Revise And Edit

After you have finished writing the proposal or application, read it over and over again. Correct all errors, spellings and grammar,
It’s good and advisable that you put the completed proposal you have written aside for a day or two. Then read it again later, revise and edit your final version. In this way you can be sure of correcting any spelling mistakes, typographical errors, grammar or any technical issues. This is very important.

Another good habit you can adopt is to always ask someone else who does not know anything about the project you are proposing to read through the proposal or application for you. This person can give you an objective and honest feedback. Manage your time to avoid a hurried writing process
Because of pressure to beat deadlines, most fundraisers write and post proposals in a hurry without thoroughly reading them through. This is counterproductive.

Step 8: Submit Your Application

Finally, read the guidelines of the funder you are submitting the application to. Compare your proposal to the instructions and criteria as written in the funder’s guidelines. Ensure that you have completed all the required supporting documents that are needed to go out with the application.

You are ready to go. Once you’ve completed all these key tasks, place your proposal or application and all supporting documents together into a clearly addressed envelope and post the package to the funder’s address.

Make sure that the address on the envelope is correct and that the proposal package is addressed to an actual name of the relevant staff in the funding organisation.

Finally, wish yourself “Good Luck” and wait patiently for a response in the next 2, 3, 4 or 6 months’ time.