Last Modified October 2023
- Your financial disclosures are a big part of demonstrating your organization’s planning, strategy, feasibility, and sustainability.
- For these reasons, review of your application may begin with your financial statements and not with the merits of your project.
- Submit with your application an Income Statement which records your organization’s income and expenses. If you have them, also submit Cash Flow Statements and Balance Sheets. These are useful to the grantmaker as indicators for how your organization is operating and what it owns and owes.
- A funding organization should be able to look at your goals and objectives and tell exactly what your project is about.
- Goals are broad, general, intangible and abstract – they present the big picture of what you are trying to accomplish.
- Objectives are narrow, precise, tangible, concrete and measurable – they are the steps you will take to accomplish your goals.
- One method you may use to help best present the goals and objectives of your project is the acronym SMART:
- Specific: Who or what is expected to change
- Measurable: Are your results testable, repeatable, verifiable
- Attainable: How likely are your goals and objectives to be achieved
- Results-oriented: Focus is on outcomes rather than processes
- Timely: Target date for starting or project completion
- Grantmakers want to know HOW your project will make a difference, these are your outcomes.
- Grantmakers are less interested in WHAT your project will do, these are your activities.
- Identify the need, describe the activities, then explain how your project will make a difference in meeting or alleviating the need.
- Be aware of single source dependency. From a grantmaker’s perspective, a relationship where it is your only source of funds is not healthy. Describe your strategy for funding beyond receiving a specific grant award.
- Grantmakers like to stretch their money with matching funds. Be sure to list any funds you have received from any other sources.
- Grantmakers want to know you will not come back with requests year after year. Show your plan to secure new funding over time.
- Successful charities have outside partners, whether for tasking or finances. If you don’t already have them, consider adding outside partners to extend the reach, effectiveness and sustainability of your project.