Focus On: Grants

As a sweeping generality, it’s more likely that large, institutional grantmakers fund with their heads and prefer “just the facts,” while small, family foundations follow their hearts and welcome an illustrative story or two.

6. Poor objectives and/or evaluation. Too often, proposals don’t tell the reader what the program intends to accomplish, but rather they focus on what the program will do. There’s a critical distinction between objectives/outcomes and methods. Strong objectives indicate the desired level of change (e.g., “a 15 percent increase in the number of people securing stable employment within one year of graduation from our job training program”), while strong evaluation measures the change (e.g., follow-up mailed questionnaires and phone survey of each graduate). The method simply is the path you’ll take to implement change (e.g., a job training program). Make sure you fully describe each element in your proposal.