|
Building a Credibility File
Without credibility, your agency gets nowhere with anyone, especially if you are asking them for money. The credibility file is used as the basis for introductions in all of your grant proposals. Include statements made by important figures in your field, community leaders or elected officials that endorse your kind of program even if they do not mention your agency. Then collect anything favorable that’s ever been said, written or broadcast about your agency including newspaper clippings, audio tapes from radio, video tapes from TV, letters of support, letters of thanks, etc.
Once you’ve assembled your file, categorize all of your quotes and rank them. You will use this file in the statement of introduction portion of your grant proposal. Make sure you strategically choose quotes based on the targeted funder’s profile.
If you need help getting started, here is a form that can help you organize your credibility file.
Project Planning and Design (Logic Models)
Many grant writers use logic models as a method of planning and organizing projects. Logic models are meant to easily help you think about your project in an orderly, step-by-step fashion. Using a logic model can help you identify what changed as a result of your project. Most grant funders are looking for evidence of real change, not just a count of how many people participated. For this reason, using a logic model can help you produce a project plan that funders are more likely to award grants to.
A logic model is a series of orderly step-by-step statements that link the problem that your program is attempting to solve, to how it will seek to find solutions, and what are the expected results in both the short term and long term. It will help you to identify the change that you expect.
A logic model will first give a statement of the problem. This statement will include the who, when, where, and why as well as the how and how much of the problem. Please use these worksheets to help with your project planning:
|
Main
Credibility File