By Heather Cotter
Winning a federal, state, local or private grant is tough. As a former peer reviewer for the United States Department of Justice, I can tell you firsthand that the quality of proposals received for funding consideration often exceed peer reviewers’ expectations. Here are five actions you can take to make sure your proposal stands out from the others.
1. CLEAR, CONCISE WRITING
Every sentence in your proposal must be clear and concise. Sentences should be constructed in such a way that any lay person or subject matter expert can understand the message you’re seeking to convey. Writers should avoid using jargon and acronyms as much as possible. Also, it is important to avoid complex sentence structures — in other words, do your best to minimize the number of words and compound sentences in your proposal.
Once the proposal is drafted, it is a good practice for a lay reader and an expert reader to review it to make sure everything makes sense and is easy to read. No grant writer should ever assume that every individual reviewing a proposal is a technical or subject matter expert.
Read the full article on EMSGrantsHelp.com