David Taylor Corporate & Foundation Relations
Major Elements of a Proposal/Grant
The following guidelines will be useful to follow when developing a grant proposal for external funding.
- Introduction/Description of University and Department or particular program
- Mission
- Number of people serves/students in program/major
- Services provided to students
- Benefits to community
- Geographic region served
- Demographics
- Experience and previous successes with this type of project
- Brief history of organization/program/department
- Describe the Project (Who, What, When, Where, How)
- What will you do?
- To whom?
- How will it benefit them?
- How long will the project last?
- How much will it cost?
- Why is this a good idea?
- How will you do it?
- Methods you will use
- Personnel and their qualifications
- Why is Appalachian State University/department best suited for this project?
- How is this program different?
- Are you duplicating resources?
- Who can you partner/collaborate with to make your case stronger?
- How much will it cost?
- Total cost of the project, detailed budget
- Cost breakdown by category (salaries, materials, equipment, travel, etc.)
- How long is the project? (One year, five years, etc.)
- Contingency plan - what will you do if you don't get full funding?
- How will you fund the project?
- Who else are you asking for a grant?
- Do you have any other financial or in-kind resources?
- Matching funds?
- User fees/earned income
- Expected results
- What are your expected results?
- What is your plan to measure/evaluate results?
- Objectives
- Qualitative results?
- Other
- Sponsorship, publicity: how will you acknowledge the funder?
- Articles, website addreses, handouts, supporting documents
- A one-page Executive Summary on the project
