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How to Create a Practical Crisis Management Plan [+ Templates]
Writing a compelling grant proposal can unlock essential funding opportunities for your project.
However, one of the top three challenges when seeking grants is the lack of time, with grant writing and budget calculations consuming the most time.
Even if you have the grant proposal written and the budget finished, you still have to put it all together into an attractive document or presentation. That’s the perk of having a grant proposal—they help you save precious time while pitching for a grant award.
In this guide, we share nine pre-designed grant proposal templates that will help you put your proposal together fast. Plus, we’ll briefly cover how to write a grant proposal for your project without hiring expensive grant writers or figuring out complicated design tools.
A grant proposal is a document submitted to an organization or government agency to request funding. It is typically used by non-profit organizations, researchers, or other individuals seeking funding for a specific project or program.
Non-profits, for example, use grants to carry out activities, provide services or run their operations. Likewise, academic research projects use grants as their primary source of funding for lab testing or surveying.
The proposal includes information about the project’s objectives, goals, methods, strategies and budget. The success of your grant proposal relies on writing that's clear and to the point, which will help you gain credibility, reach more people, and secure funds.
You’ll most likely present your proposal to grantors in a presentation format, either in person or asynchronously. To design a pitch deck that keeps their attention, use any of Visme’s proposal presentation templates. Alternatively, harness the power of AI and create a presentation grant proposal using Visme’s AI Presentation Maker.
Write your prompt in the AI chat window explaining your project, goal and budget. Then, select a visual style from the chatbot's suggestions and let the AI work its magic. In less than two minutes, it’ll generate a presentation grant proposal that’s ready to customize.
Grant proposals differ slightly between industries and academic fields, but they all share a similar structure.
Keep in mind that many funding agencies have unique requirements for how the grant proposal should be put together.
When they do, follow those instructions to the letter for a better chance at being awarded the grant.
That said, here’s an overview of what every grant proposal should include.
The title page is the first thing the grantor representatives will see. They need to get a good idea of what they’re about to review, so make it attractive with eye-catching and relevant visuals.
This is the information you must include, plus an optional tidbit.
Don’t miss any of the vital title page elements by using the checklist above. And watch this video to help you create and design the ideal grant proposal cover page:
The table of contents helps grantors navigate your proposal quickly to find the section they’re most interested in. Link each section name to its relevant page, and don’t forget to add the page numbers.
Here’s an example of a table of contents page from one of our grant proposal templates:
Your grant proposal cover letter must follow a business letter format with a header that includes the date, your name and address. In the body of the letter, introduce yourself or your organization and offer key information about your proposal.
Here are some things to mention in your cover letter:
Here’s an example cover letter from one of our grant proposal templates:
The abstract or executive summary in your grant proposal serves as a brief synopsis of the entire document. It summarizes the project’s goals, objectives and grant request in one or two pages.
Your grant proposal executive summary helps grant reviewers have an understanding of your project before they dig deeper into the details. For example, share the amount of funding you’re requesting and an overview of how you plan on spending it. Or give a short sneak peek into your organization’s history or professional journey.
Before you get started, here are some do’s and don’ts for writing your abstract or executive summary:
Next is the introduction, where you present your organization and its history, value statement and goals.
Here are the elements you should include in this section:
See this goal and objective page from the introduction section of one of our grant proposal templates:
In this section, go into detail about how you or your organization plan to take the project towards completion. Keep this section organized and use visual techniques like timelines or roadmaps to clearly show how things will progress.
The information you must have in this section includes:
Take a look at this project design example for your grant proposal.
This page also discusses how the project's success will be evaluated.
In the dedicated team section, present the people behind the project. If it's just you, share your CV and professional career highlights and what led you to start this project. If you’re an organization, share the team that will work on the project.
If you’re working with a team, use an org chart visualization that not only introduces each team member but also highlights their roles in the project. For example, here’s an organizational chart template you can use to showcase your team.
Finally, the grant reviewers will want to see how you’ll use the grant money, if they decide to award it to you. At the end of the proposal, include a budget breakdown and a justification of expenses.
Design a visual table that separates the budget into sections for easy comprehension. Don’t forget to include overhead and contingency costs alongside the detailed budget items.
Here’s an example of a grant proposal budget template. You can use it as is or customize the colors to suit your taste with the Visme editor.
In this section, we’ve put together 9 customizable grant proposal templates for your next project.
Pick the one that best fits your needs and start customizing with Visme’s intuitive editor right away. Swap out the text, colors, fonts, icons, images and other design elements with a few clicks
Get funding for your community volunteer initiative with this vibrant grant proposal template. Use the cover letter page to introduce your project in an interesting light. Explain why your project is worth funding and tell your exciting story to support it.
Grab the grantor’s attention right from the start with an executive summary that highlights your project’s vital details. Inside the template are a number of images you can easily replace for your own or others from the image gallery.
And if you’re having trouble finding specific stock images to visualize your initiative, use Visme’s AI image generator. That’s what our designers did with this template. There were no attractive visuals of teenagers picking up trash in a park, so the images were generated with AI. You can do the same!
Make your project stand out using this professionally designed grant proposal template. This is the ideal template if you’re looking for funding for a training bootcamp.
Training bootcamps aren’t one-off projects; they’re usually ongoing and need various rounds of funding. That’s why it’s important to include a section about how your team will evaluate the project’s performance and progress, like on page eight of this grant proposal template.
List out the evaluation processes and take advantage of visual icons to represent each item. Add more information about each evaluation metric or process with an interactive hotspot that appears when the reader hovers over the icon or the text.
Does your extensive survey project have a big goal? Share yours on the goal and objectives page. dd the strategies you’ll be undertaking during the survey.
Share your surveying methods in detail so the grantor can get a good idea of how you’ll be working. Being direct and explicit is the best way to convince funders that your project is worth their money.
Then, showcase your intended budget proposal clearly with a color-coded table separated into sections. Save time and import your budget data directly into Visme tables using the Google Sheets and Excel integrations. Here’s a video showing you how to do it:
Present your grant proposal using this professionally designed template. Highlight your health project essentials throughout the pages of this attractive design.
Make the most of your grant proposal summary with a dedicated page. Provide an overview of where you’ll be conducting workshops and share why they’re important. If your grantor has demographic eligibility criteria, this is the place to show that you are an ideal candidate and fit their requirements
You should work on each section of your grant proposal with care and a good eye for detail. Involve everyone on your team or ask for their input and feedback. Use Visme’s workflow feature to assign sections to the right people to write or edit them. And finally, review the entire document to ensure all sections flow into each other seamlessly.
Secure the funding to improve women’s health in your community with this grant proposal template.
On the cover page, you have the option to include a relevant image or video to support your project idea. Search Visme’s vast library of stock photos and videos for the perfect visual, then drag it into the canvas. You can also click on the placeholder image and tap on Replace. Then, search for another in the photo gallery.
Furthermore, page eight includes a section where you can describe your project design. Go into details about what types of activities you’ll conduct and how progress will be evaluated. To add more info about each item in the template, duplicate the page and adjust the text boxes to fit your content perfectly.
Your non-profit organization needs grants to continually spearhead projects for the community. That’s why you need a grant proposal template like this one, which you can use as many times as necessary.
Share valuable information about your project alongside full-page images to give the reader a more comprehensive view of what you need funding for. Upload your own images or search for relevant ones in Visme’s royalty-free image gallery. Ensure that they fit with your proposal content and follow grantor guidelines.
To make more than one version of a grant proposal for the same project, use Visme’s dynamic fields. Input dynamic fields for information like dates, monetary amounts and other relevant data. Then, when you need to update a dynamic field in one grant proposal, it will update all the others.
Secure funding for your agricultural project with this grant proposal template. It has all the sections you need in pre-designed layouts that are super easy to customize. It includes pages for an executive summary, problem statement, goals and objectives, project design, methods, strategies and a project budget.
Take advantage of page five—the About Us—to display vital information about your organization. Use the big numbers to highlight important data. Or take it a step further and incorporate data widgets to present percentage amounts and other values.
Need to present more historical agricultural data about your organization? Use Visme’s data visualization tools to add bar graphs, line charts, histograms and more.
Propose your training program project to potential funders with this bold grant proposal. The titles in big letters call attention to each section, making the proposal easy to skim.
Take advantage of the map visualization on page six to highlight where you’ll be implementing your project activities. As the grant reviewer flips through the pages of your proposal, the interactive map will grab their attention and they’ll want to know more.
Make this map more engaging by applying interactive hotspots that show location details when hovered over. The video below shows you how to do it.
The last template on the list is a medical research grant proposal, ideal for medical students or health organizations.
This clean and neat design is ideal for the medical industry, but you might have more content than this template can handle. That’s an easy fix.
To add more information to any of the pre-designed sections, add another page and insert your text. You can use a blank page or import one from another template.
For larger grant proposals, like medical research projects, it’s best to share them as live Visme links. That way, the funder or grantor can easily review your proposal from any device. They’ll be able to move through pages easily thanks to the flipbook effect. To top it off, any interactive elements, like videos and animations, will play seamlessly.
To achieve a successful grant proposal, follow the standard grant writing process. There are three prewriting steps you cannot skip and four actual writing steps.
Review this visual flowchart and keep it close at hand when working on your grant proposal.
Made with Visme Infographic Maker
If you’re having trouble starting or even coming up with grant proposal ideas, get Visme’s AI Writer to help. Ask it to give you project ideas, draft an outline or help you summarize long chunks of text.
Now you’re ready to get started.
The first step, before you even start writing your grant proposal, is to identify your project objectives, goals and needs. It’s during this stage that you set up the premise for your project and why it's important.
An educational nonprofit, for example, is working on a grant proposal for a project that provides support to underprivileged children.
One of their objectives is to improve access to education and increase literacy rates among marginalized communities. What they need is funding for tutoring programs and learning materials. Another program or project would have a completely different set of objectives, goals and needs.
Brainstorm this prewriting step using Visme’s online whiteboard. Invite your team into a Visme workspace and work together on defining objectives and goals that will help you get the funding you need.
The next prewriting step is to search for grantors: foundations, organizations or companies that offer financial grants. Look for ones that align with your project’s industry or academic field. Read through all their requirements to see if you’re eligible for what they’re offering.
Make a shortlist of possible grantors and keep notes of their grant proposal guidelines and criteria.
The third and final step before you start writing the grant proposal is to develop a budget. To put together a detailed budget that your grantors will understand easily, you’ll need to conduct a cost analysis.
Consider all expenses, including:
Keep your budget in a spreadsheet for now. When putting the grant proposal together in Visme, connect your sheet to a customizable table. To that end, you can visualize the budget so it looks attractive and is easy to read.
Using the content and data outlined above, start drafting the content for each page. Leave the cover letter and executive summary for last. First, work on items like the problem statement, objectives and goals, methods and strategies, evaluation activities and budget justification.
Work on the sections one by one and then ask for feedback from your peers. Ensure that you’re following all the grantor’s guidelines and requirements for eligibility. You might have a general write up for all grant proposals, but each grantor must receive one that’s tailored for them.
With all the core pages ready, it’s time to write the executive summary and cover letter. These two sections are placed at the start of the grant proposal and help introduce your project.
The cover letter greets the reader and talks about the why behind your project. It shines a light on the importance of what you plan to achieve and how it will impact the community or the people involved. Use storytelling techniques to draw the reader in and pique their interest.
The executive summary or abstract is a synopsis of what’s inside the proposal. It highlights the project’s mission or objectives, methodologies and evaluation plans. Be concise and succinct; don’t give too much away in this section.
Now you’re ready to put it all together into a visual document. Use one of the templates in this guide or Visme’s AI Document Generator to create a first-draft design in less than two minutes. Simply input your text prompt into the chatbot, choose one of the visual styles and let the AI do its magic.
Whichever route you choose, you’ll have to customize the template or draft. The first step is to add all your written content to the placeholders. Then, you can switch out the visuals.
Finally, adjust the colors and fonts to match your brand. If you haven’t yet, set up your brand kit inside Visme and use the Brand Wizard to pull all the brand assets from your website.
Once your grant proposal is finished, it’s time to share it with your potential grantors. From the Visme editor, you have several options. If your grant proposal does not have interactive elements like video or audio, you can download it as a PDF and send it as an attachment in an email.
But there’s a better option.
Share your grant proposal as a live Visme link. This way, the grantor doesn’t need to download anything and can read the document on any device. Additionally, live Visme links can display interactivity like hotspots and interactive maps. Not only that, if you change something in the document after you’ve sent out the link, it’s as simple as asking them to open the link again or refresh the tab it’s in.
After sending out your live link, check the analytics dashboard inside your Visme account. You'll see who opened the grant proposal document, from where, and how long they looked at it.
Do you have pressing questions about grant proposal templates? These frequently asked questions will dispel any doubts.
A grant proposal template is a pre-designed document you can use to create your own grant proposal. The pre-filled pages and ready-to-use designs take the guesswork out of grant proposal creation. Simply input your own content and turn the grant proposal template into your own branded document.
A proposal is a formal or informal document presented for consideration or discussion by groups or individuals with influence and decision-making power. A grant proposal is a type of proposal. More specifically, it’s a formal document whose purpose is to secure a grant to fund a project or academic research.
There is no exact timeframe for writing a grant proposal. But it’s safe to say that it does take a long time, especially for big projects. Small grants of $5000 or less usually take about 10 hours to write. Medium grants that range from $5000 to $50000 can typically take up to 25 hours. Large grants above $50000 can take up to 120 hours.
These are all estimations. What’s important is that you take your time to write a grant proposal and have it reviewed by peers and experts before submitting it.
The number of pages in a grant proposal depends on the size of the project and the grant. Small grant proposals can be as short as five pages, while medium proposals range between ten and twenty-five. Larger grant proposals can have up to a hundred pages.
Some of the most common grant proposal mistakes include:
The most important part of your grant proposal is the project narrative or project design, where you describe the project in detail. It’s in this area that funders can get a real feel for what your project is about and why it’s important.
Writing and designing a grant proposal takes time and dedication. However, using Visme’s grant proposal templates saves you lots of time. Then, when it’s time to write and edit the content, Visme’s collaboration features help you revise the text with your team.
A winning grant proposal must be personalized and customized to match a grantor’s requirements and guidelines. Visme makes it easy for you to do that. Keep one base grant proposal template and then add the finishing touches according to the grant you’re asking for.
With a Visme team account, your non-profit organization is better positioned to secure grants. Get started today and create winning proposals, presentations, reports, survey forms and much more.
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