Typically, the purpose of a concept note is to get the donor interested enough in your project to contact you and ask for the full proposal. The project summary and why the project matters section should motivate the readers, the call to action should convince the readers to contact you, and the contact section should tell your readers how to contact you. This section is fairly straightforward, but some concept notes make the mistake of providing either too few or too many modes of communication.
Including too few contact options makes it difficult for donors to contact you. For example, if you only include a telephone number but the donor needs to mail you a letter, then that is a problem. Similarly, if you accidentally mistyped your telephone number and did not provide an alternate form of contact, then the donor will never be able to reach you.
Conversely, providing too many options can be confusing to the donor and risky for you. For example, if you provide 10 possible contact methods, you will have to check all 10 regularly or risk missing the important message you were waiting for. Including too many sites also risks the donor contacting you in ways you cannot control. If a donor decides to send you a message via an account you do not check regularly or that is entirely run by a volunteer intern that could potentially damage your credibility with the donor.
Most commonly, the contact information of a concept note will contain:
In general, the modes of contact you include should match the ones you check regularly and the modes the donor checks regularly.
Alta Alonzi is a writer and researcher focusing on international development funding and grassroots NGOs. She works with the fundraising consulting company Philantropia conducting research for clients ranging from small NGOs to UN organizations. She also works closely with FundsforNGOs running training webinars, contributing resource guides, and updating the Premium donor database.
