Government Grant Programs: Why You Need an Awesome Proposal

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Copyright © 2009 Brendon Turner


Government funded grants might sound too good to be true, but the fact of the matter is that there are vast numbers of government grant programs out there. There are also a lot of people looking for that grant money, so if you are going to be successful in your application, you need to know what you're doing.

Consider that there are a number of people applying for the exact same grant as you, possibly even thousands. While grant funding is available, often to more than just one startup or non-profit, you will still need to beat out a lot of other people. That means you need a really awesome proposal in order to get that money for your organization or business.

Writing a proposal for government funded grants might sound difficult, but if you know what you're doing, it doesn't have to be. There are a lot of factors to consider when writing the proposal, simply stating that you need the money isn't going to cut it. You'll need to include a project summary, mission and objectives, plans for managing the project, documenting it, timelines, and a number of other things that the government will want to know about before even considering giving you grant money.

You'll also be required to provide a budget and justify the items on it. If you don't know how to do this, it's very important to learn. Each section of the grant proposal is vital if you want to ensure a fighting chance at that money. Many people don't understand all the requirements or how to properly prepare a grant proposal and will miss out on a number of areas. That's actually to your advantage, if you are doing it all the right way! The more people mess up, the better your chances of being selected. You just need to ensure that everything is in order and that you can have presented your case clearly.

The best way to be sure that you have everything correctly prepared is to look at samples of successful grant proposals. Unfortunately, most people aren't willing to share much about how they got their grant funding, so you'll need to go to those who provide not only the samples, but information on how to apply for those government grants.

The last thing you want to do is give the decision makers who handle the grant funding a reason to turn you down. If you have a great business plan and prepare your proposal carefully, you eliminate those reasons and it is down to simply being better than the others who are also applying for the government grant programs.


About the Author:
Still confused about how to apply for government funded grants? Government Grants Source offers sample proposals, grant application tutorials and a database of government grants. Written by Brendon Turner for http://www.governmentgrantsource.net/


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