Before you start, you need to get ready. Writing the grant proposal or submitting a Head Start baseline grant application for a non-profit organization are only a small part of the overall process. Before anything, you need to decide why you want to raise money, how much it will cost, how long it will take, and where you can get grants.

• Write an Impressive Cover Letter

Your cover letter is your best chance to get the funder's attention and get your foot in the door. The letter doesn't need to be as formal as the rest of your grant application. You can instead talk straight to the reader. Your cover letter's primary purpose is to get the person who reads it to read your proposal. Funders receive hundreds or even thousands of grant requests, so your letter must stand out as much as possible.

• Begin With a Brief Summary of The Main Points

Every Head Start continuation application grant that does well needs to start with a summary. An executive summary, also called a proposal summary, is a summary of the whole proposal. It talks about your nonprofit, your market segment, your proposal, and the goals of your project. In short, it's your request for a grant.

Tell People about Your Nonprofit

When you've set up the proposal as a whole, you can talk about how it will be put together. This section shares as much helpful information as possible about your mission, experience, history and infrastructure. Here, you list the biographies of your key employees as well as the history of your nonprofit, its goals, and its philosophy. In short, you want to show how knowledgeable you are and you must include recommendations from clients, letters of thanks, and feedback from customers and the general public in your grant proposal.

Write A Clear Problem Statement

One of the essential parts of a grant proposal is the statement of the problem. This is where you explain what and why there is a problem in your community and how you can fix it. It's also called a "statement of need" or a "needs statement." This section requires you to do a lot of research on the history of the problem and the solutions that have been tried and may have failed. You must also demonstrate why your solution will make a difference.

Say What Your Objectives and Goals Are

Writing a grant proposal also requires a clear statement of your goals and objectives. A lot of proposals fail because people don’t know what their goals and objectives really are. When this happens, many nonprofit organizations feel defeated and ultimately stop operating. Write down what you want to happen and how you will know if it does. This section is critical because it tells the grantee, the community, the government, or the client what they will get from their investment. And even though Goals and Objectives sound the same, they should be kept separate.

Strategies and Methods for Making a Project Plan

Once the funding agency or grantee knows your goals, you need to state to them how you plot to reach them. Make a list of the new employees, skills, additional facilities, transportation, and support services you need to finish the project and reach your goals. Good project management disciplines and methods will help you keep your attention on tasks, deliverables, and results by giving you clear descriptions of each task and precise requirements.

Monitoring Achievement in The Evaluation Segment

This section talks about judging the process. How will you know how well your program is doing? It also asks who will do the evaluation, how long it will take, what skills or products will be needed, and how much it will cost. This is one of the essential parts of writing a grant proposal since all funders will want to see evaluations.

Other Financing Options and Long-Term Viability

Your funders won't put money into a short-term project with no long-term goals. They will be much more likely to recognize a long-term winner and reward a promising project that can run on a larger scale. So, you have to show how you can do this. This part of your grant proposal is for funding needs beyond the project, like ongoing maintenance, daily business, and support for operations.