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Leadership Manual

Grant Proposal Writing

UNDERSTANDING THE RFP

When working with government agencies, the Request for Proposals (RFP) becomes the basic tool in developing the grant proposal. The RFP may be called Invitation to Apply, Notice to Apply for New Awards, Program Announcement, or Grant Announcement. Whatever the name, the RFP is the means of communicating the vital information about the grant: how many grants will be awarded; what types of programs will be funded; what types of agencies should apply.

By law, all government grants are officially announced in a Request for Proposal or an Invitation to Apply. These announcements guarantee equal access to the federal funds and ensure that the competition for the funding will occur. Demonstration grants are often sponsored by government agencies. The purpose of a demonstration grant is to fund projects or programs that "demonstrate" new approaches to a certain problem, usually a social problem. The goal is to provide a model program that can be easily adapted to other communities with the anticipation of similar results. For this reason, the evaluation component of these grants is usually an important consideration in the awarding of the grant.

In approaching the RFP, it is important that the grant announcement match the mission and the proposed project of the nonprofit agency. The announcement should be carefully scrutinized to ascertain that the agency meets the applicant qualifications and that the proposed project is within the funding areas of the grant.

Most government RFPs are organized in the following pattern:

• Introduction/Background: who is funding the grant, the purpose of the grant, what has been done in this area to date, what types of proposals will be considered, how the grant will be funded, and what the target populations will be.
• Program Goals: the governmental agency's overriding program goal -- the broad purposes of the agency. Any grant application must address the program goals of the governmental agency that is the potential funder.
• Eligibility: what types of agencies and organizations are eligible to apply.
• Letter of Intent: advance notification from organizations that are planning to submit an application in response to the grant announcement. The Letter of Intent usually must be submitted 30 days prior to the deadline for the grant application so that the funding agency can plan appropriately for the review process. The Letter of Intent does not obligate the applicant to follow up with an official grant application or commit the applicant in any other way.
• Application Characteristics: how the narrative section will be organized. Normally, the RFP will specifically define the contents of the application and the length of each section. It is important that careful attention be paid to this section. A grant will be automatically rejected for any incompleteness or inconsistency with the RFP requirements.
• Abstract: a short, concise statement that includes the critical information about the grant: the who? what? when? where? how? The abstract should be well written and complete because it may be the only part of the grant that some reviewers read. Although the abstract is written last, it is placed before the grant narrative.

It is vital that the RFP be carefully reviewed. Most grant proposal writers outline the RFP so that important information is not overlooked. Additionally, the information found in the RFP will normally indicate the average size of the awards, how many awards will be made, what the anticipated competition will be, and the geographical distributions of the awards, if any. The RFP will also clearly indicate what types of organizations are eligible to apply and what types of proposals will be funded.

Many government grant sponsors offer Technical Assistance (TA) Workshops for potential applicants. If these are available, they are worth the effort and expense of attending. The TA Workshops elaborate on the RFP and provide additional information on the types of projects that the government agency is seeking, along with valuable tips on how to write the proposal. Information on developing the budget and completing the assurances and forms is also available.

---»THE NARRATIVE

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