The Road to Success: Pro Tips to Win a Grant

You have been alerted to a funding opportunity that might just be the right fit for your NGO. There are thousands of funding opportunities published by donors around the world each year.

Where to start to ensure success?

Let us help you make a good start.

This guide will help you do two important things:

1. Guide you in your decision whether it makes sense to apply.
2. If you do apply, provide tips and tricks to increase the chance of success.

So, let’s get started!

Should I apply?

To decide whether it is worth your time and effort to apply you should answer the following questions.

Question 1: Am I eligible?

• Carefully read the eligibility requirements on the donor website. They typically include:
  • Are you legally registered
  • Are you working in a country where the work takes place
• Do you have partners
• Do you have a bank account
• Can you show a track record of success
• Is your country included in the list of eligible countries?
• Can you apply in the language required (often English, but not always)?
• Is the annual budget of your NGO a good match with the grant size? So not too small or too large compared to the grant size.
• Are you the type of organization the donor is looking for?

If you are not eligible, do not apply!

The donor will not review your application, no matter how good it is. You are wasting your own and the donor’s time. It will make you look like you didn’t pay attention and reflect badly on your reputation as a serious NGO.

If there is confusion or it is not clear ask the donor, preferably via email.

Question 2: Is my program a good fit?

Carefully review what goal/objectives the donor has for the grant funding. The focus of your submission has to be on the specific topics the donor wants to see addressed. There are three basic priorities you should look at:

• Location: Most donors have a specific geographic location or country. While some donors claim they award grants anywhere in the world, in reality, very few donors actually give grants to any country in the world and they often have a preference. Are you working where the donor wants to work?
• Issue, theme, or area of interest: Focusing on funding around an issue area, theme, interest, or problem is another common way donors describe their funding programs. While some donors have very specific thematic areas to fund such as “female genital cutting” or “HIV/AIDS drug research”, it is more common for donors to have looser requirements. This might be “education” or even “general charitable purpose.” Is your program focus the same as the donor’s program focus?
• Beneficiaries: Donors also have specific beneficiaries they would like to support. Who does the donor want to help? Are you helping the beneficiaries the donor wants to help?

Do not apply if your NGO does not clearly work in the area the donor has highlighted. They will not review an application that does not solve the problem they have identified – no matter how great it is.

Learn more: Top 10 Tips to Write a Great Project Proposal

Question 3: Do I have a reasonable chance of success?

Many funding opportunities published online are very competitive. You should consider applying if your NGO is a good fit for the opportunity offered.

In short:

• I am eligible
• I work in the country the donor wants to work in
• I work on the topic the donor wants to work in
• I am capable of doing the work
• I can submit all required documents
• My budget is a good fit for the grant size.
• The amount of work to develop the application is worth the effort

Most funding competitions will be very competitive, with a low success rate. Many donors publish success rates of between 1 and 10%, but it depends highly on the type of opportunities. The success rate is influenced by the following:

• A global opportunity will have the lowest success rate – possible below 2%
• A country opportunity for a country with many great NGOs will have a medium success rate – possible around 5-10%
• A country opportunity for a country with only a few great NGOs will have a good success rate – possible as high as 50%

Organizations with proven capacity will also have a higher chance of receiving funding. So if you have a great NGO running a quality, relevant program, in a smaller country with not as many good NGOs, your chance of success may well be quite high.

The grants size offered is also important. The rule of thumb is that your annual budget should not be less than 50% of the grant size. So if the grant size is $100,000, your annual budget should be at least $50,000. This is because the absorption capacity of your NGO, how much money you can take on without running into trouble, is based on the size of your annual budget. So small NGOs with small budgets should not apply to grant opportunities where the grant offered is comparatively large. The donor will not review your application if you are too small to successfully implement a program of the size they have in mind.

You can get a sense of your chance for success by checking the website of the donor. How many grants have they provided each year, how much money was involved in total, do they publish the results of competitions? For example, if the donor has only a very small number of NGO partners, the number of grants provided each funding round is likely to be small. If they indicate they give away $100,000 each year and that 4 NGOs were successful last year, the average grant size is likely to be around $25,000. If they tell you that had 1000 applications last year but they only show 10 partners on their website – It is highly likely the success rate was 10 out of 1000 applicants = 1%.

The lower the estimated success rate, the stronger and more relevant your application has to be to succeed.

How to write a winning application

• Carefully review the rules of the donor, including:
  • Submission deadline. Make sure you submit well before the deadline date
  • Word counts and page limits
  • Eligibility documents and registration certificates
  • Accounting documents and audited statements
  • The manner of submission: online or paper
  • Required signatures, if any
  • Required co-financing or sharing of cost by the NGO. Make sure to outline how you intend to raise this contribution from partners or other donors
• Make a checklist list of documents required to be submitted. Start collecting these documents in both electronic and paper format in a file. To see a sample checklist please click here.
• If things are not clear or there is confusion ask the donor for clarification.
• If the donor requires a partner or a consortium to apply, make sure you identify partner(s) early on so you can discuss and agree on the project outline the division of tasks, and the budget. To learn more about how to effectively work with partners click here.
• If the donor uses an online submission portal, first draft a short summary of your project and budget before submitting the online form. This will allow you to work off-line, use spell-check, share the document with colleagues for comments and editing, and save a copy for future use. Once developed, you can cut and paste the relevant text from your document into the online application form.
• Clearly explain how your project will promote the goals of the donor. Repeat the donor objective(s) in this part. To learn more about developing objectives please click here.
• Check the donor website to view examples of previous projects funded and copy some of the relevant elements described there.
• Show impact. The project should have a high impact in a relatively short amount of time. The impact also needs to be sustainable and grow once the donor stops funding.
• Outline how the project will be innovative. How will you do things better and differently from before? If the old proven ways work best, clearly explain this to the donor.
• Prepare a proper budget that covers all the expenses of the project. Remember that the donor wants a high impact, value for money project, not just the cheapest project around.
• Have an accountant or someone good with number review the budget. Make sure the budget covers all the costs associated with the project.
• Have a native speaker proofread and edit your application before submission.
• Thank the donor if successful. Follow-up with the donor and ask for feedback if not successful.
• Collect all proposals and budgets developed over the past years and have these available in one easy to access place, e.g. an online file folder. This will help save time the next time, as you can redevelop and rewrite an old application more easily than starting from scratch.

Now that you know how to write a great proposal, go ahead and aim for success!

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Did you just start an NGO and have trouble getting funding? We hear you – it´s not easy to get a grant if you do not have a track record of successful work. We have developed an online course to show you some workarounds though. Join us and learn how you can still get a grant, even if you just started your NGO.

Good luck!