Copyright © 2003 by Cheryl Carter New and James Aaron Quick. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada.
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ISBN: 0-471-21220-2
James Aaron Quick is the Chief Executive Officer for Polaris, a South Carolina Corporation. He has served in this capacity since 1989. As the Senior Instructional Specialist for Polaris, he has spoken before thousands of potential grant seekers from the fields of education, healthcare, and nonprofit management. He has written successful grant proposals for over 10 years, for projects ranging from $10,000 to $7.9 million to grant makers including federal sources, foundations, and corporations. He is coauthor of many Polaris publications as well as the best-selling trade book on grant seeking entitled Grant Seeker’s Toolkit: A Comprehensive Guide to Finding Funding (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998) and Grant Winner’s Toolkit: Management and Evaluation of a Granted Project (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1999). Jim also writes nonfiction articles and books, as well as novels and short stories.
Cheryl Carter New is the President of Polaris Corporation. She is the founder of the company, which was incorporated in 1984. Her background includes instruction at kindergarten, primary, and middle school levels; administration at kindergarten and primary school levels; and curriculum, course development, and instruction at the college level. She wrote her first successful grant proposal in 1969 and has continued to be active in the field to the present. She has written numerous articles in the field as well as on negotiation, management issues, and strategic planning. She has spoken on the subjects of grants acquisition and negotiations at many national, regional, and state conferences. She is the developer of several college level courses and workshops in the field of grant seeking, offered and presented in 45 states. She is coauthor of many Polaris publications as well as the best-selling trade book on grant seeking entitled Grant Seeker’s Toolkit: A Comprehensive Guide to Finding Funding, published by John Wiley & Sons, and the upcoming Grant Winner’s Toolkit: Management and Evaluation of a Granted Project, also to be published by Wiley. Cheryl also writes and illustrates children’s books. More information about Polaris and free information for grant seekers can be found at www.polarisgrantscentral.net.
To date, we have written three books about how to be successful in acquiring grants. This is our fourth book. One would think we would have exhausted the subject by now. On the contrary, the subject of grant acquisition is such a complex subject that we have more books yet to write.
There are so many different types of grants with so many different facets that one can spend a lifetime studying all the possibilities. Most people think of two things when they think of grants—either scholarships or entitlements such as Social Security. But there are so many other types. There are government grant programs for individual needs through various departments and agencies. There are small business grants and small business innovation research grants. There are research grants—probably the best-known grants. There are also project grants, which make up the bulk of grants to organizations.
Each grant maker has its individual “personality.” Federal grants vary by department and agency. One might fund traditional research, while another funds wildly innovative programs. State grants can be highly political and personal. Foundations run the gamut from very hands-on to almost aloof. Corporation grants usually reflect their management and can be the toughest to get because of the many ways they can be approached.
Funders all have two things in common. Their business is investing money, and they all want to solve one or more problems. That is why they are in business—to solve problems. Some grant makers have been established by a person who experienced a life-changing event. As a result, the grant making focuses on a particular issue. Some respond to public awareness that a problem needs solving. Whatever the reason, they are all focused on one problem or another.
As grant seekers, it is our job to study the problems within our organization’s mission. When we discover an unmet need for our client population, we analyze a possible solution. Our solution requires action— as such it is a project. A project is an undertaking made up of activities leading to a positive conclusion. Once we have projects developed, then we search for funders wanting to solve the same problems. The connection with the funder is the desire to solve the same problem.
The way we tell the funder about our project is through a proposal. In fundraising, we might send letters to a thousand people or organizations requesting donations. That is not the way the world of grants works. With grants, you write an individual proposal to an individual funder. You follow the funder’s directions for writing that proposal to the letter.
Many people make the mistake of writing a single proposal, getting a list of names and addresses, and sending that proposal around. Then they wonder why they never get funding. They only think they are writing a grant proposal. Funders disregard such proposals as “non-responsive.” Those people have not understood about the investment the funder is trying to make in a project that will solve the problem in which they are interested.
Grant seeking is 80% project development, research, and positioning. The rest is writing. One should never write the first line of a proposal until the project is fully developed. Otherwise you really have nothing about which to write. Once your project is developed, then the proposal writes itself.
Grant seeking is hard work but infinitely rewarding. When you have a good project that helps people, and you can see the fruits of your labor, the work does not seem like a burden. We have helped many organizations acquire grant funding. We have taught tens of thousands of people in our workshops. We never tire of seeing the happy faces of children who have a second chance as a result of a grant. We never tire of knowing that women will get timely cancer screening as a result of a grant. We never tire of knowing that people are getting counseling as a result of a grant. We never tire of answering grant questions online. This work is rewarding indeed.
The advantage of love at first sight is that it delays a second sight.
Natalie Clifford Barney 1
A cover letter should be sent whenever it is not prohibited. With some requests for proposal, there is a strict page limitation with explicit directions to follow for every page. In this case, a cover letter is not usually appropriate. However, you can leverage a cover letter to make an excellent first impression so it should be included whenever possible. Normally with proposal to a foundation or a state program, a cover letter can be included. Often with a federal grant program, a cover letter is not included.
A cover letter is an introduction. It is a lot like making introductions in person. It is a way of getting started on the right foot by introducing yourself instead of launching into the request right away.
Make the letter one page only, keeping it as brief as possible. The letter should be printed on original letterhead. The type should be a 12-point text font, and the margins should be generous, which means at least one inch. We suggest you not fully justify your text (straight margins on both left and right). Use left justification and leave the right margin ragged (rag right). There should be a reference line between the inside address and salutation that clearly identifies the grant program for which the proposal is being submitted.
The salutation should be to a specific person. You may not use “To whom it may concern” or “Dear Colleague” salutations. They show that you have not done the basic research to determine the grant program contact person. The letter should come from (be signed by) the highest ranking person possible in your organization (the correspondent). The letter should be signed by a person, not a machine or a computer and preferably with blue ink. A letter signed with blue ink is indisputably an original. Don’t forget to include the “prepared by” line at the bottom of the letter. Show professionalism in all ways—including the smallest.
A cover letter is an opportunity for you to make an inviting introduction to the grant maker about your organization and also about your project. This is a place for creativity but not elaborate language. You want to warmly invite the reader to read about your excellent project.
The cover letter is one place to push the most obvious “hot buttons.” What is a hot button? It is an issue that is critical to the funder. As we have explained in detail in our other books, you must meet the funder’s agenda to receive an award. By reading every bit of information you can find on the funder, you will see recurring topics and themes. Perhaps the funder is particularly interested in diversity, or projects that promote preventive health care, or projects that promote family unity. These are hot buttons—issues that are at the heart of the reason the funder has gone to the trouble of setting up funds to grant.
Funders do not just decide to offer grants willy nilly. There is a problem or several problems they want to solve. If they had enough funding to solve the problem themselves, they would certainly try to do just that. For example, assume one grant maker wants to stop drug and alcohol abuse in the United States. How much money would it take to do that? More than even our federal and state governments have. So with the funds the grant maker has, they “seed” projects that, in their opinion, have a good chance of making an impact. They fund projects that can be modeled by other groups to help in their communities. Do they fund projects to set up animal shelters? Or water conservation? No, they fund projects that obviously and rationally directly impact drug and alcohol use in this country. This is just one reason why it is a huge mistake to write one proposal and send it to dozens of funders—you are wasting your time if your project does not match the hot buttons of the funder.
How do you find out about a given funder’s hot buttons? You read their literature—all of it. You read about projects they have funded in the past. You read any articles you can find about the funder. Most funders have an Internet presence now and that makes it a lot easier, but some are glad to mail you information about their programs. Funders do not keep their key agendas secret and they are not playing a game with you—they want to invest in the very best projects they can.
Let’s look at a couple of examples from actual information published by grant makers.
The Ford Foundation2 is a resource for innovative people and institutions worldwide. Our goals are to:
This has been our purpose for more than half a century.
A fundamental challenge facing every society is to create political, economic and social systems that promote peace, human welfare and the sustainability of the environment on which life depends. We believe that the best way to meet this challenge is to encourage initiatives by those living and working closest to where problems are located; to promote collaboration among the nonprofit, government and business sectors, and to ensure participation by men and women from diverse communities and at all levels of society. In our experience, such activities help build common understanding, enhance excellence, enable people to improve their lives and reinforce their commitment to society.
The Ford Foundation is one source of support for these activities. We work mainly by making grants or loans that build knowledge and strengthen organizations and networks. Since our financial resources are modest in comparison to societal needs, we focus on a limited number of problem areas and program strategies within our broad goals.
Let’s look at what the Ford Foundation says about itself. What are its hot buttons? The obvious ones are the four bulleted items, but what are the less obvious issues critical to the grant maker, the Ford Foundation?
First of all they write, “we believe the best way to meet this challenge is to encourage initiatives by those living and working closest to where problems are located.” What does this mean? It means that the Ford Foundation wants to fund efforts at the grassroots level. It is not going to look kindly on a proposal by a think tank in California wishing to solve a literacy issue in the rural Midwest. It will, however, consider a proposal that meets one or more of the obvious criteria (the ones in bullets) and that is submitted by a group of organizations actually located in the rural Midwest.
So how do you use this information in a cover letter? Well you might write an initial paragraph like the one below.
Our project will go a long way to effectively offering literacy education classes right in the communities in which our most rural citizens live. Our organization is located centrally among five counties with the highest poverty ratings and lowest educational achievement in the state. Our illiterate citizens have failed in school and thus do not want to go to a school house for help. They are much more comfortable in their churches, grange halls, and local grocery stores. So we are taking our programs to them.
Here is another example from the David and Lucille Packard Foundation.3
The mission of the Conservation Program is to ensure a healthy future for all life on earth. The Conservation Program embraces an ecological approach that draws together the people, institutions, resources, and ideas that can best address our environmental crisis. Our primary goal is to conserve biodiversity resources in our core geography of California, Cascadia, Hawaii, the Western Pacific, and Mexico. To accomplish that, we support field-based projects in those areas. In addition, other program areas address some of the drivers of biodiversity loss and environmental decline; these program areas include Marine Fisheries, Energy, Western Land Use, and, in conjunction with the Population Program, Population-Environment.
The primary goals are pretty well clarified in this statement. However, take notice of the phrase, “draws together the people, institutions, resources, and ideas that can best address.” This indicates that this grant maker subscribes to the practice of partnering to solve a problem. This is a growing issue among grant makers around the world. The theory is that partnerships make best use of all resources and reduce redundancy in the use of resources. The following is a paragraph for a cover letter that addresses both the primary issues and the hot button.
In our coastal area, pollution from area industry has raised temperatures of the bay so that the native f ish and shellfish are dying or are contaminated by bacteria. This interrupts the ecosystem and interrupts the carefully and environmentally sound management of our f ishing industry. Through a coalition of concerned citizens, managers of the local fish processing plants, representatives of the f ishermen, and key top managers of the local industries, we believe we have developed a solution to the problem—one with lasting effect.
What have you done with this introductory paragraph in your cover letter? You have let them know that you understand their agenda, and moreover, you meet the essence of their standard. In doing this, you are predisposing them to like your proposal because you clearly understand their key considerations and, moreover, you agree with them.
What is another thing your cover letter accomplishes? It places your organization and project in the state, country or world. You know your community intimately. But remember, the readers who read your proposal may not know anything about your type of community. Many government grant makers bring in people from all parts of the country and not one may be from your part of the world. Even within a state, one part of the state may not know a thing about the problems and pressures of living in another part of the state. So one thing you do in a cover letter is try to give a thumbnail picture of your part of the world and the target population your project intends to serve.
Here is an example of how you might briefly describe your location and target population in a cover letter.
Our area is rural and our population is diverse due mostly to a large number of migrant workers. There are few cohesive communities with recognizable structure. Our people mostly work the land or work in the few small industries scattered across the three counties we intend to serve. Most adults reached no more than eighth grade and most clearly live in poverty.
Here is another example from a different type of environment.
We are a second tier city of half a million people. Most of our citizens work in steel or heavy manufacturing facilities. During a significant portion of the year, the climate is such that citizens rarely get out except to go to work. Loose communities surround each manufacturing plant. Other than school, there is little for our young people to do and there are many hours of isolation without adult supervision. For these and other reasons, we have a growing alcohol abuse problem both with adults and, significantly, with our young people.
It is also important to state your purpose for submitting a proposal. You do not need to go into detail but you need to say something more than “we need money.” They know that. Few, if any, funders will fund the entire budget of a project. This is not a money issue as much as a philosophy issue. If the grant maker funds the entire budget, what will happen after the grant funding inevitably runs out? The project will die. Other than entitlements, grant funding is not intended to go on forever. It has a limited time span and no grant funder wants to fund a project that dies when the funding runs out. They want to fund lasting efforts that are good investments.
So the grant maker wants to see your investment, and that of all the other partners and stakeholders in the effort. This is the overall project budget. There is a smaller budget that represents what you are asking of the grant maker. Here is an example of what you might say as a purpose for submitting the proposal.
Though we have funding internally and from our partners for the planning phase and for the actual structures within which the project will run, we do not have enough funding to cover all of the equipment necessary to accomplish the project mission.
Here is another example of a concise statement of purpose.
Our project is designed so that once it is implemented, project income and donated staff from our partners will insure continuation. However, for the project to be initiated, we need funding for staff training, for resource materials for our community resource center, and for the technology to manage the continuing project.
Next to last, it is important to thank the grant maker for the opportunity to submit a proposal. Everyone likes to be thanked and the representatives of the grant maker are no exceptions. It is an opportunity that you would not have if the people that set up the fund had not worked hard, first of all, to establish the fund and, second, to review, select and evaluate worthy projects.
Finally, give information on the project contact person. The project contact person is the one person in your organization who knows more about the project than anyone else. At this time, the contact person is probably the proposal writer rather than the project director. It is also probably not the cover letter correspondent. The contact person must be able to answer questions about the project, especially budget questions. Give the name, telephone number, fax number, and e-mail address for the contact person. If there are any special directions for making contact, such as time restrictions, include this information also.
Now that we have discussed all the pieces of the cover letter, what is an appropriate order in which to organize them? Your one-page cover letter should probably consist of four paragraphs in the following order. Each paragraph should contain this information:
The question arises, “Who should write this letter?” The answer is that the proposal writer should craft the letter. Submit a carefully crafted letter to the correspondent as a “draft” for changes. Make any changes, print on letterhead, and return to the correspondent for signature. Almost no one will turn down the offer of someone else writing a draft from which to work.
On letterhead. One page. 12-point, text font. Generous margins. Left justified. Reference line. Salutation to a specific person. First paragraph introducing the organization, community, and target population. Paragraph about the project including two key hot buttons. Paragraph explaining the purpose for submitting proposal. Final paragraph expressing thanks and providing contact information. Correspondent is the highest ranking person possible in the organization. Signed by a human with blue ink. “Prepared by” line. Enclosure line.The cover letter is the first impression the funder has of your organization. It is important to take the opportunity to make points by indicating your fit with the funder’s agenda. This can be done subtly by showing that you are an organization that can handle the project, that you fit with the funder’s hot buttons, and that you understand what the funder is looking for. Writing cover letters is something of an art because you need to say a lot in a little space.
The following four examples (1.1 to 1.4) offer sample cover letters used by four diverse organizations to request a grant. The elements described within this chapter have each been implemented in the letters.