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Chaos Kills Proposals: Lock the Program Design Before You Write

Lightning Fast Grant Writing

Funders can smell a vague, incoherent proposal from a mile away. Use a simple logic model to guide the conversation: Inputs: What resources do we already have? You do pull proposals out of a hat. Use a No Brief, No Draft Policy Make it official: If you dont know what youre doing, Im not writing about it.

Proposal 130
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Bored Funders Don’t Fund—Keep Your Proposals Fresh or Risk the Trash Pile

Lightning Fast Grant Writing

Lets face itmost grant proposals sound the same. But if your proposal doesnt feel human, its already behind. Propose Bold, Data-Backed Ideas Funders love innovationbut only when its smart and supported. Instead of recycling last years program model, propose something novel with evidence. Simple: they innovate.

Proposal 100
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Training Junior Grant Writers—Without Losing Your Mind or Missing Deadlines

Lightning Fast Grant Writing

Youre deep in a federal proposal, juggling 10 stakeholders, two budgets, and a narrative that still needs serious polishthen your inbox pings: Hey, can I shadow you today? Over time, youll build a living library of resources: sample proposals, FAQs, cheat sheets, and checklists. Sure, its rewarding.

Training 130
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Logic Models, in Plain English

The Grantsmanship Center

Category: Program Planning and Design Proposal Writing and Grantseeking There comes a time when a proposal needs to include a logic model. A logic model is a picture of how your program is intended to work. A speed bump for a lot of people is the “outputs vs. outcomes” element of a logic model.

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The #1 Grant Writing Headache? Your Own Team.

Lightning Fast Grant Writing

They recycle past proposals, snag bios from LinkedIn, and mine old annual reports and budgets to pre-write the missing pieces. They guess at the logic model based on what makes sense. But because it works. Great grant writers dont wait for perfect input. They draft the program description based on what was submitted last year.

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A Classical Approach to Grant Proposals

The Grantsmanship Center

Category: Proposal Writing and Grantseeking Before campaign advisors, spin doctors, influencers or ad men, there was the Greek philosopher, Aristotle. As proposal writers, we sometimes get lost in the weeds of data, logic models, detailed methods and other granular stuff. The first of these is ethos.

Proposal 105
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Five Steps to Creating a Winning Logic Model

Think and Ink Grants

Last year, I presented the session "Logic Model LIVE!". It shows how serious (or maybe crazy) I am about logic models. If you've followed me for any length of time, you will have come across a presentation or two about logic models. In logic models, each prior step informs the next step.