Good practice in fund raising Pt 9 – Top tips for Writing a fundable funding application    

17Dec 2019 by Nigel Ring

In this concluding part of the series on fund raising Julia shares her top tips for success and reasons why things can go wrong. But she also stresses that there is a lot of information available online to help you write a good funding application.

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Reasons applications might get rejected, regardless of the competition:

    1. It did not link the project well enough to what the funder wants to fund
    2. It was submitted after the deadline
    3. Not all the information requested was sent in
    4. The budget did not make sense or it looked unrealistic
    5. The organisation did not demonstrate that it was well run, stable or financially viable – such as accounts being filed late, little or no reserves
    6. It did not clearly state what it wanted the funder to fund

Some Do’s – Make sure that your application answers these key questions:

    • Who?
      Who are you? Who are you planning on working with – client group – age / issues etc?
    • What?
      What are you planning to do / deliver? What is the problem you want to solve? What changes do you expect to make? What are you asking us to fund?
    • Why?
      Why have you chosen your approach to solving the need? Why should we invest in you – Do you have a track record of doing things in the community?
    • When?
      When will your project start and finish?
    • Where?
      Where are you going to deliver it – geographically? Urban / rural.
    • How?
      How do you know there is a demand for this service / activity? How many people do you expect to work with? How are you going to monitor and measure your impact? How much is it going to cost?

Top tips to maintaining your sanity in the process:

  1. Copy the questions from an online application form into a Word document first and fully craft all of your answers (to the correct word or character count) on your computer, before then copying and pasting them into the online form to submit it

This has three main benefits, all of which I have learnt from bitter experience!

      • If the online application system goes down and loses your part completed application, you won’t need to start from scratch again
      • If your internet goes down when you were planning on working on the application, you can still get on and not lose time – especially important if the deadline is looming
      • When you send the online form off, you have still got a record of what you have said you will do – as sometimes the reply only says thanks for submitting your application, but does not send you back a copy of it for your records!

2. Make sure you keep all records relating to an application together in one place. This helps to know what you have promised to deliver when it comes to monitoring your activity a year after you have been awarded it

3. Give yourself enough time to apply – it will generally take longer than you hoped!

4. Don’t let rejections discourage you – the competition is getting bigger for less money. Don’t take it personally, be kind to yourself and don’t give up!

With these encouraging words Julia ends this series. I am most grateful for her help in seeking to equip people in this important area. She is willing to receive enquiries although she no longer works as a fund raiser. Contact her here: Julia Miller

This will be my last post this year. Happy Christmas and New Year to you all.