Did you know that grant-makers often receive hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of grant applications for a single grant cycle?

It is a dog-eat-dog world out there when it comes to securing grant funding. But there are ways to ensure YOUR grant proposal stands out. To write the most competitive grant application, and beat out thousands of other applicants, just like students inside the Freelance Grant Writer Academy, you need the Competitive Grant Application Framework.

What Is the Competitive Grant Application Framework?

I’ve been writing winning grants for more than 20 years and have taught thousands of freelance grant writers to do the same. I even wrote a book that is used in universities and nonprofit organizations around the world, “The Beginner’s Guide to Grant Writing”. Additionally, I’ve been a federal peer grant reviewer since 2015, reviewing hundreds of grant applications from all over the nation and Territories, and have seen all the things not to do. 

Over my successful grant fundraising and grant coaching career, I realized that some grant applications simply needed an extra “boost” to succeed when competition was high. And I knew that standard advice to “work harder” or “invest more time” wasn’t cutting it. 

That’s why I developed my four-part Competitive Grant Application Framework to help my clients and other grant writers succeed even when grant competition is high. 

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Step One: Follow the Grant Formatting Directions 

In high-competition funding cycles, a majority of grant applications are immediately vetted out due to grant writers not following basic directions. 

Even the most compelling and well-written grant proposal could be eliminated due to not following formatting directions! 

For example, your grant application could be immediately kicked to the curb and never hit a reviewer’s desk if you simply don’t follow the required:

• eligibility requirements
• word count 
• character count
• page limit
• font style
• font size 
• margin size
• required attachments

Imagine spending all that time writing a grant application and meeting the tight submission deadline, only to never have your grant application even reviewed?

Makes you feel sick to your stomach, right?

To avoid this fate, follow this checklist: 

• Ensure that your organization is eligible. Some grant instructions will only give grants to IRS tax-exempt 501(c)3 organizations, to organizations in a certain geographic area, or for certain types of funding.
• Check the eligibility for what you want grant funding to pay for. For example, you might need to purchase a vehicle or build a community center. Before you write a single word of a grant application, check the eligibility requirements for the grant budgetand confirm that vehicles or construction are eligible to be funded under the grant program. 
• The grant opportunity might have a cost-sharing or matching component. If so, you need to ensure that you have documentation for those requirements.
• Set up your Word Doc with the correct margins, font style, font size, and make notes if you have a page limit or word/character limits. 
• If there are any required attachments (such as Letters of Support, IRS Tax-Exempt Letter, etc.) you need to pull these attachments together NOW. Do not wait until the day before the deadline to gather these required documents. I like to gather these as soon as we start planning the grant and before I write it!

These are the basics to get started. 

But don’t stop there. When you are finished writing the grant application, come back to this phase and repeat it:

Upload or attach your required documents.

Run a word count and/or character limit review

“Select All” and check if all your documents are in the correct font and font size (sometimes you may use headers, etc. and that can mess this up)

Step Two: Create a Fool-Proof Customized Grant Application Template

Now that you have a basic formatted document, you need to fill it in with a more substantial and customized grant application.

Never start writing your answers on a blank document! 

Instead, go to the grant opportunity/instructions. These are most commonly called a Request for Proposal (RFP) for foundation grants or state grants and Notice of Funding Opportunity or Availability (NOFO or NOFA) for federal grants.

Read these proposal requests carefully! 

At the most basic level, most grant opportunities will have specific questions that will be asked, and you obviously need to answer those.

However, many federal grants, and some state and foundation grant opportunities, will include a “criteria.” This criteria is usually located towards the back of the application and includes a rubric. The rubric will give you specific information on HOW the reviewers will score the grant applications and even what score each section gets. 

For example, here are screenshot examples of the Overall Program Narrative and the Approach Scoring Criteria for the grant Drug-Free Communities (DFC) Support Program – Competing Continuation (Year 6) under the Department of Health and Human Services.

So what I teach our students to do inside the Freelance Grant Writer Academy is to literally make each of the main areas a Header One and then each of these questions a Header Two to create their grant application. 

Create this grant template before you even start to answer any of the questions. 

First copy and paste the criteria or questions into a Word document. You can even include the points for each section and highlight it so you know how much time and energy you need to devote to certain areas. Just remember to remove this before you submit the grant application!

Not all RFPs, NOFO/As, or grant opportunities have this level of criteria. That is still okay. Just use the basic questions they ask to create a customized template for your grant application.

Step Three: Read the Grant Application Directions Closely

Make sure you read the entire RFP, NOFO/A directions closely. If the opportunity has limited information (many foundation organizations may only have a website and ask limited questions), then be sure to read their websites closely.

What you need to review are:

• The funder’s stated priority areas
• Mission and vision statements
• Any other grants awarded
• What type of language they use

Reviewing Funder Priority Areas

If the funder does have an RFP or NOFO/A, then you are in good hands. Inside the actual grant instructions, there is usually a summary of why they have created this grant program or what priority changes they have this year. Oftentimes, they will even tell you specifically about which priority area will score higher. 

This information is gold. Find out which priority areas your organization’s programs align with the best and highlight those.

Use the same language the grant-maker uses to talk about your aligned priority area.

If the funder doesn’t have these priorities explicitly stated, then review their website. Find their mission statement and vision statement, and look for any key words they use. See if any of those words make sense to add into your narrative. 

If the funder also posts awarded grants on their website, be sure to see which groups they have funded and what programs they have funded. See if your project aligns with the types of funding or locations where they have made past grants. 

And finally, repeat language from the directions. For example, from the grant we have been using as example, they explicitly list their purpose: “The purpose of this program is to support the efforts of community coalitions who work to prevent and reduce substance use among youth.”

If you have been using “substance abuse” in your normal copy, I would switch to using their verbiage of “substance use” and other tweaks like that.

You want the grant-maker to see themselves and their goals in your programs. But moreover, you want them to understand your programs through the language they use.

Step Four: Use a Master Grant Application to Answer Questions

We highly recommend utilizing a Master Grant Application Template to easily draft  RFPs, NOFO/As, and grant applications. 

When you create a Master Grant Application Template, you have much of the information that will be requested. 

We do NOT recommend that you use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to write your grants to directly answer questions, without including human-first writing (such as a Master Grant Application Template).

If you do use AI without human-first writing, the AI will simply regurgitate the questions or answer the questions with a scope of work that may not be appropriate for your budget or organization. 

So, utilize your Master Grant Application Template or answer the questions to the best of your ability with statistics, examples, testimonials, work plans, and more. To learn more about how to create a Master Grant Application Template check out our full guide. 

Making Your Grant Application Competitive

Even though this process may sound simple, these four steps are the key to writing a competitive grant. Your grant application will stand apart from those who just start answering questions on a blank page.

Remember, follow the instructions, create a fool-proof document, read the priority areas of the application closely, and utilize your developed Master Grant Application Template.

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