Grant Preparation
The process of developing a proposal or application for funding can be daunting. As the project owner, you have a good idea of the importance of your proposed project but now you must convince funding agencies that they should allocate their shrinking and limited resources to your project. This section provides information to help you through the process of proposal preparation.
Create a Concept Note
Some Calls require the submission of a concept note before the submission of the full proposal. A concept note is like an Executive Summary. Key Features of a Concept Note:
- Can stand alone as a description of your proposal
- Is relatively short (2-3 pages)
- Should parallel the sections of the proposal narrative
- Should include at least one sentence on objectives
- Should include at least one sentence on methods
- Should include total cost, funds already obtained and amount requested in the proposal
- Goes at the beginning of the proposal
- Developing it at the start helps you to think through what the rest of the proposal should look like
- It’s the last thing that you re-write
- Will be the first thing that is read by potential funder (and maybe the last!).
Find Funding
If you are not responding to a Call, while preparing the Concept Note, start identifying organisations whose funding priorities are in line with your proposed project. Find funding by searching the websites of various funding agencies or databases that list funding opportunities. But also, use your network to find out about funders that might be interested in your project.The Campus regularly distributes a list of funding opportunities. These and other sites can be found on the Grant Funding Opportunities page.
Grant Preparation Workshops
The Cave Hill Campus periodically hosts grant preparation workshops to provide hands-on assistance in preparing a grant application.If you wish to be part of an upcoming session, please indicate your interest to ricch@cavehill.uwi.edu.
