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As the Grants Committee Chair on the Board of an Educational Foundation that gives small grants to teachers, I have participated in two grant review sessions. There, I learned more than I could have in two years of simply writing grants. Reading grants was like interviewing candidates to invest the money we spent all year fundraising and taught me the no grant will be funded if it appears financially risky. Here are some tips on creating a budget that will attract funders, rather than scare them off.

1. Ask For a Definite Amount of Money

Requesting “as much as you can give” does not make you more favorable to a Board because you are saving them by unburdening them from an excessive grant. Instead, it leaves several bad impressions: a) You do not have enough confidence in your program to believe it worthy of full funding; b) Your budget is either inflated or unrealistic; c) You have not fully thought out your budget and are unsure of the real costs of your program. When you make a request, make it confidently and show you know exactly how much you need.

2. Ask For a Reasonable Amount of Money

During our second round of grant making, when our total assets were under $100,000 and the only grant we had ever given was for $2,000, we received a grant request for $10,000. This mistake automatically eliminated the proposal from consideration and could have easily been avoided if the writer had done a little research on our past grants.

3. The More Detailed Your Budget, The Better

The first rule of budgets is to follow exactly the format that the RFP requests. If there is no specific format requested, then take the following advice to heart.

It is essential that you break your budget into, at minimum, the following categories: salaries, fringes, equipment, materials, purchased services, and indirect costs. Within some of those categories, be as detailed as possible. If you are buying equipment or materials such as books, computers, or other supplies you can easily predict their market cost by searching Amazon.com or an Office Depot Catalogue. Use these price listings and either reference them in your grant or attach copies of them. Our committee once shared a good laugh over an applicant who requested $100 for something we knew the Walmart in town sold for $20.

4. Don’t Ask For What They Don’t Give

Foundations are usually very clear about what they will and will not fund. Read their website and grant guidelines carefully and be sure not to ask for that which they already said they won’t give. This seems obvious, but sometimes applicants excited about their projects hope that the funder will be just as excited and make an exception. Trust me, they won’t.

This article was first published in the October 2006 issue of Find Funding Newsletter, which is FREE to subscribe!

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