Creating Winning Proposals

This two-day workshop will help you teach participants how to:

• Locate potential funders for your organizations on the Internet and use evaluative skills to identify the appropriateness of funding related to their own organization
• Explain the necessity of matching funders interests with organizational needs and use this knowledge in decisions about the validity of submitting a funding proposal
• Describe and understand the basic elements of proposal writing for not-for-profit organizations
• Describe and understand the basic process for successful proposal writing
• Analyze effective relationship-building strategies to engage with funders and use this knowledge in writing a funding proposal
• Describe at least five reasons why funding proposals can be rejected
• Plan, write and submit a proposal in response to funders guidelines

Course Overview

• You will spend the first part of the day getting to know participants and discussing what will take place during the workshop. Students will also have an opportunity to identify their personal learning objectives.

Sources of Funding

• To begin the course, participants will identify trends in the funding environment, types of funders and will identify potential funders to connect with.

Funder Selection

• Next, participants will investigate the potential funders identified in the last session to see if they are indeed a good fit for your proposal.

Types of Proposals

• In this session, participants will learn about three of the most common forms of proposals; Proposal Forms, Letter Proposals and Partnership Proposals.

Proposals as a Relationship Builder

• In this session, participants will look at the stages of building a relationship with a potential funder.

RFPs/RFQs (Requests for Proposals or Request for Quote)

• This session covers the common elements of RFPs, sources of RFPs, how to increase your chances of success and you will work on an RFP Case Study.

The Ten Steps of Proposal Writing

• Next, participants will learn about the ten steps in proposal writing.

Defining Your Proposal

• Participants will use the first six steps learned in the last session to develop a draft outline for a proposal.

Key Elements of a Proposal

• Here, students will learn not only the key elements in a proposal but also the order in which to write them.

Defining the Needs and Desired Results

• In this session, trainees will learn how to define the needs they are addressing and the direct and indirect results of their project.

Resources and Activities and Evaluation

• Students here will learn what funders are expecting to be covered in the Resources and Activities as well as the importance of having a measurable evaluation process in place.

Sustainability and Budget

• This session will indicate what funders expect to be shown in the form of sustainability and good stewardship of money.

Conclusion, Introduction, and Executive Summary

• Here, students will learn the essential information to include in the Conclusion, Introduction and Executive Summary.

Workshop Wrap-Up

• At the end of the course, students will have an opportunity to ask questions and fill out an action plan.