Design Standards

We appreciate your interest in exploring grant opportunities through the Community Foundation and offer some grant writing tips with examples of why funding requests are most commonly declined:

• Failure to research the grant: a Rutherford County nonprofit applies for a $7,500 grant to a program awarding grants up to $5,000 for organizations in Henderson County.
• Lack of evidence for the program's need: a request for funding to strengthen the self-esteem of 150 teens in a particular neighborhood by offering cultural programs and art events to socialize, with no indication that any teens will actually come if the programs are offered.
• Lack of evidence of need for the funder's money: Including a line item on a budget for a speaker to address youth issues, when there are many local experts who volunteer to speak on youth-related subjects.
• Program's long-term effectiveness is unclear: Funding request to hire a consultant to develop a long-range plan without mention of how it will be implemented upon completion.
• Organizationally under-resourced to accomplish stated goals: Requesting support for a program managed by just one individual that would likely cease if that person moved or took on a different cause.
• Nothing unique about the program: Grant request for an after-school program for latchkey children in a neighborhood that already has an established in-school, after-school program.
• Lack of collaboration: Grant request for an environmental awareness program in a public school without inviting the school's science department to integrate its curriculum into the program.
• Nonprofit has poor reputation: Applicant is known to have accepted funding in the past but failed to fully complete the end-of-grant questions provided by the funder.
• Incomplete appplications: Misspellings, too brief when more length was allowed, erroneous claims, answers overlooked, esoteric abbreviations or jargon used without explanation.