How to Use GrantCraft's Tips Section to Strengthen Every Section

Expert Guidance at Every Step

Even experienced grant writers benefit from a second perspective when drafting a proposal. The challenge is that most organizations cannot afford to hire a consultant for every application, and informal feedback from colleagues, while valuable, may not reflect the depth of knowledge that professional grant reviewers bring. The GrantCraft Tips section fills this gap by providing section-by-section advice drawn from professional grant writing best practices and common reviewer feedback patterns.

The Tips section is designed to complement the Proposal Builder. While the builder provides structure and prompts, the Tips section provides the strategic insight that transforms a complete proposal into a competitive one. Think of the builder as the framework and the tips as the refinement layer that makes each section stronger.

How to Use the Tips Section Effectively

There are two optimal times to consult the Tips section during your grant writing process. The first is before you write each section, when the tips prime your thinking and help you approach the section with the right mindset. The second is after you have written a draft, when the tips serve as a self-review checklist to identify weaknesses and areas for improvement.

Before Writing: Set Yourself Up for Success

Before starting a section, read the corresponding tips to understand what makes that section strong in the eyes of reviewers. For example, before writing your need statement, the tips might remind you to use multi-level data, incorporate community voice, cite recent sources, and connect the need to the funder's priorities. With these elements in mind, you are more likely to produce a strong first draft.

After Writing: Self-Review and Improvement

After completing a section, return to the tips and compare your draft against the advice. Did you include all the recommended elements? Are there common weaknesses described in the tips that appear in your draft? This self-review process catches issues before they reach a funder's reviewer, giving you the opportunity to strengthen your proposal while there is still time.

Tips for Each Proposal Section

Organization Information Tips

The tips for your organizational profile emphasize clarity, accuracy, and credibility. Common advice includes writing a mission statement that is specific rather than generic, ensuring all contact information is current, and presenting your organization's qualifications in a way that builds reviewer confidence from the first page. A strong organizational profile sets the tone for the entire proposal.

Need Statement Tips

Need statement tips focus on the most impactful section of your proposal. Key advice includes using a three-tier data approach with national, state, and local evidence; avoiding deficit-based language that describes communities only by their problems; citing sources from the last five years whenever possible; and clearly articulating why the problem requires intervention now rather than later.

The tips also address a common mistake: describing your organization's need for funding rather than the community's need for services. Funders invest in solving problems, not in sustaining organizations. Frame your need statement around the people and communities affected, not around your budget shortfall. For more detailed need statement guidance, see our resource on defining the grant problem and need statement.

Goals and Objectives Tips

The objectives tips emphasize the SMART framework and common pitfalls. Key advice includes distinguishing between activities and outcomes, setting targets that are ambitious but evidence-based, including baseline data for every measurable objective, and ensuring that each objective can be evaluated with data you can realistically collect. The tips also warn against setting too many objectives, which dilutes focus and overwhelms your evaluation plan.

Project Design Tips

Project design tips focus on clarity, evidence, and logical coherence. Advice includes describing activities in enough detail that someone could implement the program from your description alone, citing the evidence base for your approach, connecting every activity to a specific objective, and including a realistic timeline with clear milestones.

The tips also emphasize the importance of describing what makes your approach effective. Funders do not just want to know what you will do. They want to know why your approach works and what distinguishes it from less effective alternatives. For strategic advice on persuasive writing, see our guide on narrative strategy and reviewer psychology.

Budget Tips

Budget tips address the most common financial errors in grant proposals. Key advice includes ensuring mathematical accuracy, providing detailed justifications for every line item, aligning the budget with the narrative so that every activity has corresponding costs, and avoiding both over-budgeting and under-budgeting. The tips also remind you to include indirect costs, which many organizations leave out, shortchanging themselves and making direct costs appear inflated.

Evaluation Plan Tips

Evaluation tips focus on creating a plan that is both rigorous and realistic. Advice includes specifying data collection methods for each objective, describing who will conduct the evaluation and their qualifications, planning for both process and outcome evaluation, and building evaluation costs into the budget. The tips warn against evaluation plans that describe what will be measured without explaining how, which is one of the most common weaknesses reviewers identify.

Organizational Capacity Tips

Capacity tips emphasize demonstrating that your organization can deliver what the proposal promises. Key advice includes highlighting key personnel qualifications with specific credentials and experience, describing your financial management systems, presenting partnership agreements with specificity, and addressing any capacity gaps honestly by describing how you plan to fill them.

Combining Tips with Other GrantCraft Tools

The Tips section works best as part of the full GrantCraft toolkit. Use the tips alongside the Proposal Builder for guided writing, the Templates for structural reference, and the Readiness Checklist for organizational verification. The tips provide the qualitative guidance that transforms a structurally complete proposal into a genuinely competitive one.

Tips Section Workflow

• Read the tips for each section before you begin writing to understand what reviewers value.
• Write your draft in the Proposal Builder using the structure and prompts provided.
• Return to the tips after drafting each section and compare your content against the advice.
• Revise based on the tips to address any weaknesses or missing elements.
• Use the tips as a final review checklist before exporting your proposal for submission.
• Share the tips with collaborators so everyone is working toward the same quality standards.

Learn more about grant writing strategies at Subthesis.

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