Funding Tools

Find tools and skills in getting funding for your projects

For Donors

Principles And Good Practice Of Humanitarian Donorship (pdf) published by the Canadian International Development Agency sets out principles that donors should have as good practice when engaging in the donation processes.

For Applicants/Recipients (Proposal writing)

This short course on proposal writing (pdf) provided by the Foundation Center is a basic guideline to help you get started;
http://fdncenter.org/learn/shortcourse/prop1.html (web)

The J.C. Downing Foundation's basic grant application principals (pdf)  provides some basic principles and guidance that can help grantseekers increase their chances for a successful application with any foundation; http://www.jcdowning.org/resources/generalguide.htm (web) 

Understand the proposal writing process (pdf);
www.professionalpractice.asme.org/communications/introproposals/2b.htm (web) 

Four sample grant proposals to provide you with some ideas, but you will need to develop your own style and approach in order to successfully obtain funds.
Writing Sample 1 - Fam Foundation Letter (pdf)
Writing Sample 2 - Fam Foundation Proposal (pdf)
Writing Sample 3 - Foundation Proposal (pdf)
Writing Sample 4 - Government Proposal (pdf)

Another sample proposal (pdf) be used as an idea generator;
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/ncn/grants/app/app.pdf (web)

The Chronicle of Philanthropy website (web) is a newspaper for the non-profit world. It is a great resource for finding everything from available grants, consultants, trends, research information and more. Subscription is US$72 per year.

The Roots Manual on Fundraising (pdf) produced by Tearfund Footsteps team shows how to develop a fundraising strategy and contains ideas to help organisations diversify their funding base. For details: write to roots@tearfund (email); http://tilz.tearfund.org/Publications/ROOTS/Fundraising.htm (web).

The Catalogue of Federal Domestic Assistance (CDFA) has a comprehensive guide (pdf) to developing and writing grant proposals.

The Common Grant Application (CGA) (pdf) is a labor-saving device/form for groups seeking grants for social and economic justice work. First created in 1995 by the National Network of Grantmakers's Philanthropic Reform Committee, the CGA is now accepted by over 40 grantmaking programs. For details, see http://www.nng.org (web).

Corporation for Public Broadcasting, http://www.cpb.org (web) provides additional Grant Proposal Writing Tips (pdf).

The Grantmanship Centre tells you how to write a Mission Statement (pdf).

Websites

http://www.npguides.org (web) has links to more non-profit guides. Non-profit guides are free web-based grant-writing tools for non-profit organizations, charitable, educational, public organizations, and other community-minded groups. These guides are designed to assist established non-profits through the grant-writing process.

http://www.proposalwriter.com/grants.html (web) provides answers for questions you may have on grant writing.

Here is a list of online resources (html) for proposal writing.