10 Details To Share When Seeking Grants

Foundations and other funders not only require a detailed description of the program for which you are seeking a grant but, as Alan Silver explained in "How to Win Grants," also other details of how your organization is run.

Silver refers to these details as "boilerplate items," and he recommended all nonprofits develop hard-copy and electronic versions of them so they can be easily inserted into your grant proposal. There are a number of things that can be on your boilerplate list, but Silver narrowed it down to 10 items he deemed most important:

• Documentation of agency legal status;
• Agency mission, vision, and values;
• Description of services, programs, staffing, fees, eligibility, or admissions criteria;
• Descriptive information on your geographic service area and target population (including state, regional, and national comparisons);
• What makes your agency special (examples include unique mission, quality, and cost metrics);
• Volunteers: Numbers, roles, hours, and the aggregate annual economic value of the time they contribute;
• Key management and staff;
• Summary statistics/utilization data; and,
• Key performance indicators and trends (cost per client or per encounter, number of clients served per year, comparison to industry standards).