Telling Powerful Mission Stories in Grant Proposals: 3 Tips
When you hit submit and send your narrative out into the world, your grant proposal stands trial solely based on the words on the page.
On the surface, creating a proposal that stands strongly on its own seems simple: make a convincing case for funding your proposed project. However, so much goes into making a convincing case: facts, anecdotes, data, and plans that all add up to convey meaning and impact.
What winning grants have in common is narrative salience; they tell logical, compelling stories about the invaluable work their nonprofits do in the world. Storytelling is how you bring your mission to life for funders who aren’t familiar with you. The grant writing process backed by storytelling looks different for every organization, grant, community, and proposed project.
However, grant writing can be tricky. Crafting your organization's story on a deadline with potential funding on the line can be stressful. Stories and even the North Star of your mission can get lost along the way as you navigate all the moving pieces of the grant seeking process.
While there’s certainly an art to infusing your grant proposals with powerful stories that reflect your mission, it’s a learnable art. We’ll review three key tips to help you write more effective grant proposals with your unique story baked in from the start.
1. Know your needs ahead of time.
You should match the grant opportunities you find to projects that you already want to complete, not the other way around.
Starting from something concrete makes for a more compelling proposal because it will be rooted in an immediate need. On the flip side, inventing a project, program, or event for the sake of applying for a grant is less likely to spring from as urgent or meaningful a need.
Remember, funders want to know that you have a coherent, guiding vision for your organization. When you find a grant opportunity that aligns with that vision, you set yourself up to write an inherently stronger proposal full of chances to infuse stories and more meaningfully reflect your mission.
This requires understanding your plans and needs ahead of time. Have a strategic plan and a pipeline of projects, programs, and improvements in various stages of development.
You’ll also benefit from having the right data on hand, which can include:
The past and current impact of your efforts (more on impact measurement below)
Your organization’s finances and mix of funding sources
Studies and statistics about your community, constituents, and mission area
When you clearly understand your impact, finances, and context, you can more easily identify grant opportunities that line up with your goals and needs. You can then do a better job of conveying exactly how the grant will fit into your work.
The bottom line: When seeking grants, start with a plan that you’ve already had in mind or have begun implementing. Flesh it out with data and compelling details about your work, and you’ll immediately create stronger alignment between your mission and the funding opportunity.
2. Actively gather the elements of a holistic story.
Your mission will shine through your proposal when you back it up with the right story elements. Specifically, you need both qualitative and quantitative details. Qualitative details like anecdotes and testimonials give your proposal a human element, while quantitative details give funders the hard facts they need to make their award decisions.
Anecdotes and testimonials from constituents, volunteers, staff, partners, and board members are among the most helpful qualitative story elements you can gather.
Use them to enrich background sections of the proposal and other sections where you discuss impact to bring your plans to life. Many grants also ask for letters of support from your organization’s partners in the community, which can further enrich the complete story of your proposal.
Actively collect stories and quotes from your stakeholders. Sitting down with a group of constituents once a month or so for casual chats about how they engage with your organization and what your work means to them can give you rich material to humanize your organization. Always secure consent to use individuals’ stories beforehand.
As discussed above, quantitative financial and contextual information will be important for writing comprehensive proposals, but let’s look more specifically at impact data.
Impact measurement and projections are invaluable but can also be tricky to get right for small shops. If your organization’s hasn’t yet devoted much attention to impact measurement, don’t overthink it. Just start somewhere. Take steps to begin collecting data about your impact like:
Satisfaction ratings from constituents who attend your programs and events
The number of constituents served by particular programs over time
Program graduation rates
Fundraising statistics, like donor retention, which can be a proxy measure of your community’s perception of your impact
The exact metrics and methods of impact measurement will naturally look different for every organization, so take some time to think it through. What are the outcomes you can measure that most directly reflect the progress you’re making toward your mission? Does your organization set big-picture goals to build its programs and campaigns around? An overarching strategic plan that considers impact measurement will be an invaluable resource.
Build the tech toolkit you’ll need for impact measurement and refine it over time. It’ll support your organization’s grant seeking efforts for years to come. Add qualitative stories to the mix, and you’ve got a rich library of information that will help you tell holistic, mission-infused stories in grants, fundraising campaigns, annual reports, and more.
3. Write your proposals quickly.
When writing a grant proposal, momentum is your friend. Constant second-guessing and fact-checking are not.
Learn Grant Writing recommends this process for writing a grant in a quick but organized way:
Kickoff meeting. Gather the people who’ll be involved in the proposal, whether by helping write it or providing key documents you’ll need for it. Walk through what the proposal will require and lay out a timeline with due dates for materials as needed.
Create an outline. Using the grant’s requirements, create a “narrative skeleton” that directly reflects the required sections and details. This will give you an easy framework to fill in and ensure you check all the needed boxes.
Gather materials. Check in with your team as needed to secure the materials needed for the proposal. Keep them organized as they start arriving.
Write quickly. Once you have your outline and enough materials to cover your bases, begin writing the first draft. Try to go quickly, completing the draft in just a day or two. Avoid overthinking it at this stage and instead focus on satisfying the requirements and framing your mission and plan in compelling ways.
Add supplementals. Once your first draft is complete or nearly complete, add the rest of the supplemental documentation and more stories and contextual data as needed.
Review and refine. Ask a team member who hasn’t seen the proposal to give it a close review to check for mistakes and logical flow. Incorporate their suggestions into a refined second draft.
Finalize and send. Make the finishing touches, tidy up the formatting, and send your proposal.
Why does this process help you write more compelling proposals? Because it keeps your mission and story front and center. Writing quickly and then filling in the blanks lets you focus on the big-picture meaning and impact of your plans without getting bogged down in fine details.
From there, you can fill in your first draft with additional data, background, stories, testimonials, and more. This process should result in a rich grant proposal that gives funders an authentic glimpse into your organization’s needs and goals.
Grant seeking is hard work, no way around it, but it pays dividends for nonprofits and gives them the room they need to grow and drive greater impact in their communities.
Reflecting your mission through stories will automatically help your proposals stand out.
The key to sustained success, though, lies in making mission-centric and holistic storytelling part of your organization’s culture. Actively collect stories. Measure the impact of your programs. Stay on top of developments in your community and mission area, and build processes to ensure you have accurate insights into your finances at any given time.