Guidelines for a Project Proposal – Why are they so important?

If you followed our page for a while, you will have read many times that we stress the importance of guidelines. But why is this actually? Today we will talk about the importance of guidelines for a project proposal and how they can help you to be more successful in your grant writing.

The guidelines are a catalogue of rules and regulations that the donor agency develops to help you write a proposal. The guidelines can be any size, from a couple of sentences and up to several pages. Some are very basic, while other can be incredibly technical. Normally, you find the guidelines in a separate document that accompanies the call for applications. Sometimes, the donor also publishes them on the website.

Why does the donor write guidelines?

The donor takes the time to write detailed guidelines for a call for proposal, because they only want to receive a specific type of proposals by a specific type of applicant. This can just be their own priority or even laws and rules that the country the donor is based on applies. When they tell you exactly what they want to see in a proposal and who should apply, they can make sure that they only receive projects they can actually consider.

If there would be no guidelines, everybody would apply and no one would know exactly, which documents to send. Some organizations might send a Letter of Interest, while others might send a fully-fleshed proposal. There is no way to compare these two, thus it would be impossible to choose which one is better. With the providing of guidelines, donors make sure that everybody is on the same page and that the applications they will receive will be comparable.

Sometimes the guidelines are also a way to see if applicants are willing to do the extra legwork and properly read the accompanying documents. When an organization cannot adhere to guidelines, this might be a hint that they will also not follow through with their proposal in the future. Also, guidelines are a way to cut down on the number of applications a foundation gets, as they can be quite overwhelming.

Why should I pay attention to guidelines?

You should always follow the guidelines meticulously. As stated above, some donors use this as a first test, and if you fail it you will immediately be disqualified. Even if it sounds unimportant to you, follow every step, from the content to the formatting. Even if you write a great project that would fit perfectly, the donor will not accept it if you do not follow the guidelines.

Another reason you should pay special attention to the guidelines is the fact that they can give you very important hints towards what is important to the donor. They tell you exactly what they want to see and you don’t have to wonder anymore, what to include in your proposal. Even a step further, if the guidelines focus specifically on one topic, you can be pretty sure that it is important. I.e., in guidelines I recently read, it was stated over and over again that the math in the budget should be checked and has to be correct. This tells you, that there is a lot of emphasis on the budget and that you should pay extra attention to it. Sometimes the donor even includes, how many points can be achieved for which part of the proposal in the process of evaluation.

Download: The Ultimate Checklist for Proposal Writing (FREE)