How to Design a Project and Develop a Successful Grant Proposal in 2021

Active Citizenship

One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a grantseeker is to view a grant proposal as a means to buy products or hire new personnel for your organization. This is because grants fund activities aimed at a specific outcome or objectives and cover costs, such as personnel or equipment, only to the degree that they contribute to its implementation. Additionally, grants fund projects that have positive repercussions not just on the entity applying, but also on the broader community by, for example, furthering economic development and increasing employment rates in a particular region, improving access to services, or reducing carbon emissions.

In the European context, grants tend to support innovation and R&D activities and are often quite competitive. What this all adds up to is that pursuing grants requires conceptualizing and developing a well-articulated project that responds to the objectives of the grant call and programme to which you’re applying. Grants fund projects and the more significant the potential award, the more substantial the project required for a competitive application.

At first impact, the fact that grants fund projects can be daunting for applicants. You may worry that the process could be a waste of time and resources. Yet, conceptualizing and developing a project and building a consortium can, in the long run, help your organization grow in multiple ways, even if you should not succeed in obtaining funding on your first try. This is because a project-based approach can help clarify your organization’s objectives, identify the forms of expertise and resources you already have and those you need, and help you develop a network of partners.

Changing your mindset as a grantseeker will allow you to better understand what grantmakers are looking to fund and why, to weigh the pros and cons of taking on this challenge and to be better prepared to develop a successful application or grant proposal.

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The first, and perhaps most important, shift in your perspective on grant funding should revolve around defining your project. Writing a competitive proposal requires you to present a clear and concise set of activities and outcomes. If your only work on a grant proposal to date is to add up lines in a budget, this can feel like a rather daunting prospect. But do not fret. Taking the time to fully bake a project will not only make you a more competitive applicant but will also help you to better manage the project in the implementation phase.

Many grantseekers start the process by looking at what grants are open and then hurry to develop a proposal that responds to their requirements. Before you dive into the specifics of individual grants, however, it can help to take a step back to think about what you want to accomplish with the funding you are seeking. What is your objective? If you were awarded your ideal budget, what would you do? How would these activities impact your organization and, beyond that, your community? These questions should lead you to start thinking more in terms of a project rather than just a budget.

WHAT IS A PROJECT?

But what do we mean by “project” in a funding context? A project is a series of activities expected to lead to a particular outcome in a specific timeframe and with a fixed amount of resources. The key components of a project, then, include its objectives, the activities that lead to reaching those objectives, a timeline for their implementation and the budget required to support it.

Objectives

All the activities of a proposed project aim to contribute to achieving its objectives. In a grant proposal, a project’s objectives need to be clear, concrete and quantifiable, not to mention realistic. An effective way to start defining the objectives of your project is to ask yourself some basic questions and to try to answer them as specifically as possible:

  • What is the problem we’re trying to address?
  • What are the causes of this problem?
  • What are the potential solutions?

Some grant programmes require that you develop this process formally, through an analysis of the starting situation you intend to address, often through research on the area in which you intend to intervene, the market for a product you propose to develop or a review of the scientific literature relevant to the innovation you are proposing. Others may not require such a formal research process, but evaluators will want to see a clear link between the objectives of your grant proposal and those of the programme and grant call.

Additionally, grant funders also want to be able to evaluate your results, so concrete indicators that allow for measuring the success of your project relative to its objectives are required in many proposals.

Activities

In order to reach your project’s objectives, you will need to undertake a set of specific activities and tasks. These activities represent your project’s methodology and they usually need to be attached to some kind of concrete output or milestone. In projects that require a consortium of partners, activities need to be distributed in a logical way among the partners and reflect the distribution of the budget.

Budget

Activities, in turn, necessitate resources, for example for personnel, equipment, services, dissemination and advertisement and collaboration. Grant applications include a budget section where the funding you are requesting needs to be delineated and justified. Budgets need to correspond to the activities described in the rest of the application and of course to include only eligible costs.

Timeline

Projects, whether supported by a grant or not, are by definition not open-ended. Rather, they are an ensemble of activities to be carried out in a specific timeframe. This timeframe is specified in every budget call and proposals need to reflect those time limitations.

Work Packages

As we can see from the discussion above, objectives, activities, budgets and timelines are inherently connected. For example, the resources required to achieving a particular objective depend on the kinds of activities and the period of time in which they will be carried out. For this reason, many grant applications, particularly but not only for EU funding programmes, require applicants to organize their proposal into Work Packages (WP). Work packages form the building blocks of complex projects.

Each WP refers to a set of related tasks, identifies those responsible for carrying them out, the outcomes or deliverables, and the timeline and budget. Work packages are particularly useful when consortia are required as they help to organize the work, responsibilities and budgets across partners.

Whether you are applying to a large grant that requires that you structure your grant proposal around work packages or to a smaller, local grant that does not, logic, consistency and feasibility are always critical dimensions of a competitive proposal.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS

Many grant professionals use planning and program management tools to develop proposals, such as the Logical Framework Approach, Work Breakdown Structures, GNATT Charts and so on. Like work packages, they can be useful to support the design and management of complex projects. While these tools can get quite complex and would be overkill for smaller grant programmes and for non-professional applicants, basic familiarity with them can help structure the process of project design. Whatever tool you use, a systematic approach to developing your project makes it possible to check the internal logic of even the most complex projects.

A structured approach also helps with the critical process of building and justifying the requested budget by clarifying what actions, personnel and equipment it will need to support. Last but not least, should your proposal be successful, this planning approach will also serve your organization well in the implementation and grant management phases of the project.

TAKE YOUR PROJECT IDEA & RUN!

Given the wealth of funding opportunities available in Europe through recovery funds, as well as the increase in funding in many European and national and regional programmes, this is the ideal time to explore how a project-based approach could benefit the growth, effectiveness and sustainability of your organization.

With a well-developed project idea, basic familiarity with some project management tools and the beginnings of an implementation strategy, you are now well positioned to pursue even the most competitive grant funding. For starters, you will be able to more clearly identify funding programmes that are a good fit with the objectives, budget and timeframe of your project. If a consortium, either national or international is required, you’ll have a good idea of what kinds of partners would complement what your organization brings to the table. You’ll also be ready to pitch your concept to potential partners.

If you decide that you need expert help this process, either through national contact points for EU programmes or through private consultancies that, like Grants Office, specialize in project and proposal development, you’ll come to the table more prepared and thus well positioned to get the most out of this support.

In other words, a project-based approach is a win-win for your organization no matter which path you ultimately choose to fund your activities.

For further information on completing successful grant proposals and applications, check out our webcasts.

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