Greater Good South Africa

We’ve read – and written – our fair share of funding proposals at GreaterGood SA. And some things have no place in a document that is meant to get people to part with considerable lumps of cash. So here is the GreaterGood Top 10 things NOT to put in a funding proposal. Next month: how to write a winning funding proposal.

GreaterGood Top 10 things NOT to put in a funding proposal:

1. Poverty porn
Photographs of baleful, snot-covered children with flies buzzing round their eyes don’t make people feel positive about giving. It makes them feel guilty and guilt rarely works. It could also be seen as exploitative so our advice is: steer clear.

2. Industry buzzwords and jargon 
We’ve all been guilty of this – PPPs, stakeholders, scaling-up, capacitate, psycho-social, ECD, OVCs  – unless your potential funder is an expert in your field and you are 100 per cent sure they will understand these terms, it is always better to communicate in plain English.

3. Sweeping claims about your impact and reach
Your organisation, no matter how effective it is, is not single-handedly responsible for ending poverty. Only claim impact that you can prove.

4. Long descriptions about your history, vision and mission
Be specific, brief and accurate. Funders read so many proposals, you need to grab their attention and keep it.

5. Emotional blackmail
“If you don’t fund us, we’ll have to close our doors by the end of the week and everyone will be out of work.” See poverty porn, above. Guilt doesn’t work.

6. Irrelevant details about your work
The funder does not need to know every detail of your work so keep proposals relevant to the funder’s specific interest area or the call you are responding to.

7. Spelling mistakes
This may seem trivial but spelling mistakes – especially in the age of spell check – just look sloppy. Read through your proposal and get someone else to read through it with a critical eye, before you send it.

8. Huge photographs 
Use photographs to illustrate your work but keep them relevant, a reasonable size (under 1 MB) and captioned so the reader knows what they are looking at.

9. Obvious and strident political affiliations or beliefs
There’s nothing wrong with strong views but you risk alienating some funders if you put personal beliefs in your proposal. US funders are particularly wary of the words ‘advocacy’ and ‘lobbying’ because of the provisions in the Patriot Act.

10. Sketchy budgets
Most funders are on the lookout for ‘budget fluffing’, where a thin budget tries to mask what the real expenses are. A fully itemised and realistic budget will give your proposal a much better chance of success.

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