In General The following are the key headings – the order is somewhat flexible.
Executive Summary (ES) - If your proposal is more than a few pages long, you should have an ES which summarize the main ideas like rationale, action plan and outcomes. The ES can also act as a guide to the proposal like a table of contents letting the reader know what the logic of the proposal is. An easy executive summary might have a one or two sentence paragraph from each of the key headings below.
Objectives and Benefits - Outline what the proposal will accomplish, who it will benefit and how.
Why is Funding Needed - Justify your idea. Demonstrate that you have done your research literature review, talking to stakeholders, talking to people who have run similar projects, potential beneficiaries, the "community".
Action - show what you will do to respond
to the needs above, and provide the benefits promised. One possibility
is to start with an objectives/benefits chart - for example :
| Objective | Benefits | |
| 1 | Better understanding of
individual motivations for volunteering |
Better volunteers leading to cost reductions |
| 2 | Better understanding of how
low-income people can become involved in volunteering |
More community participation in agency affairs hence more appropriate programming and accountability |
Then show your actual work plan what you will do to meet the objectives probably a couple of steps per objective - good to have completion dates attached to each step
Your organization - Sell your organization as the only one that can deliver the proposed program use past experiences, staff qualifications, connections to other agencies, awards won.
Partner Organizations - describe the folks/organizations with whom you are collaborating. "Partnerships" is a big word these days so indicate how the groups relate (i.e. their interest in the issue), their experience in working on such projects, the partnership’s history. Get letters of support from the partners.
Project Evaluation - Evaluation is also a buzzword. Say something about how you will measure your success or failure with respect to each objective.
Project Budget - two main categories and some subcategories:
- Expenses Staff, Infrastructure, Evaluation
- Revenues committed, pending, in-kind
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