1. Grant proposal should be neat, organized and easy to      read.

A good grant proposal must be organized in style and in form. But before deciding on the final look of your proposal, make sure that this is based on the required format of the grant making agency. After making sure of your format, make sure the proposal’s narrative is in its proper sequence for clarity and easy reading.

Attract the attention of the reader by making your grant proposal neat and clean. Do not use extravagant proposal packaging. Remember to give importance to substance over form.

In your final copy, be sure there are no typographical errors, misspelled words and more so grammatical errors.

2. Aim for clarity. Avoid jargons.

One of the most important principles in grant writing is clarity. The content must be clear and understandable. Use only simple words and avoid using jargons. Reviewers of your grant proposal have varied backgrounds and using technical terms in it will not help your cause at all.

Ask a friend or colleague to test whether your writing can be easily understood or not. Hear their comments as these may be the best you can hear. You can use their comments to continue improving your proposal until it can best represent your ideals.

3. Be brief and concise.

There is no standard length for a good grant proposal. You can consider it good if you can clearly state your message whether it’s a two-pager proposal or more.

But of course, the length of the proposal varies depending on your grant making agency. But whether the requirement is a long proposal or not, make sure all narratives are written briefly and straight to the point. Remember this important rule: Do not make the grant proposal too short making you miss out on important details and too long making your readers fall asleep.

4. Don’t beg! Cite your strengths instead.

When seeking for grants, it is important you do not show that you are desperate in getting the free money. Accept that you need the funding but there is a proper way of asking for it. Do not beg.

Focus on the needs of your organization. Show your grant making agency that you have a good project. Make them feel the importance of participating in an important, useful and noble project. Enumerate the strengths of the project and show the credibility of your organization. In doing so, you can increase your chance of getting the free money you are asking for.

5. Present reliable statistics to support credibility of your organization and your grant proposal.

Instead of giving unsupported assumptions in your grant proposal, cite reliable statistics and figures to add credibility to your organization and your request for funding. Do not assume that your grant making agency will search on your background. In describing the scope of the problem, provide supporting evidence or documentations and statistics to even strengthen your problem statement. Do not speculate. Avoid weak words such as ‘we believe’ or ‘we hope’ showing that you are not quite certain with your assumptions.