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When confronting pressing community problems, the program planning of nonprofits is understandably motivated by their passion to set things right. The enthusiasm to make things better is a primal, driving force you’ve got to appreciate and nurture. But you’ve also got to temper the excitement behind a well-intentioned idea with a solid understanding of how to plan programs so they will really make a difference.

Nonprofits are dedicated to their missions, pouring every ounce of time, energy, and money they can muster into their fight to make positive change.

There’s much more to winning grant awards than writing! To win, it’s imperative to approach the right funder with a solid program plan that’s capable of producing meaningful results. But the quality of the writing does matter.

Accurately identifying the problem or need your organization wants to tackle is the single most important factor in developing a powerful grant proposal.

Federal resources and systems for grantseekers have been changing. If your organization participates in the federal grants process or plans to, it’s imperative to stay on top of developments at Grants.gov, SAM.gov, and the federal agencies with which you are most involved.

It’s a well-accepted best practice that the development of grant proposals should be well coordinated with the administrative, financial, human resources, and programmatic functions of the organization.

Supervising any high-level staff member is a balancing act. Star performers need leeway, appropriate decision-making authority, and a degree of flexibility about when and how they work. Hold the reins too tight and you’ll stifle them. But if you hold the reins too loose, you can lose control of the organizational functions they handle.

Is your organization’s grants specialist constantly frazzled, working nights and weekends and juggling a schedule bulging with proposal deadlines, program development meetings, and report due dates? Do other staff members tip-toe around the specialist’s desk, forgiving occasional expletives, ignoring the candy wrappers and dirty coffee cups, and excusing missed calls and meetings. If so, that’s a big red flag.

A successful grant proposal sorts the details and moving parts of a complex plan into a precise description of how things will work. It’s somewhat like writing a brief explanation of how a Rube Goldberg machine works! Each piece of the plan must be distinctly articulated and the connections between pieces must be clear.”