Here is a key difference between novice and experienced grant writers:
-The novice grant writer determines the length of each section of narrative by how much he or she has to say.
-The experienced grant writer determines the length of each section by the number of points it is worth in the grant competition.
Effective grant writing keeps the page length of each section in proportion with its maximum point value and the overall page limit. This means if a section of your grant proposal is worth 25% of the maximum points possible, you would use 25% of the space allowed to write it. If another section of your grant proposal is worth only 10% of the maximum points, you would fit it into 10% of the total page limitation.
Rejected proposals are not usually written to scale this way, meaning the writer does not use space in proportion to the scoring rubric. For example, a novice grant writer might use too much space in the first section or two — then make each of the following sections increasingly shorter. I have actually seen grant proposals where the writer used 75% of the space allowed to score 25% of the points. And guess what? Their proposal scored very poorly on the sections that were too short — which accounted for the other 75% of the points!
Let me share my secret for avoiding this mistake, and for writing a grant proposal to scale. By using the system I am about to share, you will ensure that the page length of each section proportionate to the percentage of points awarded for that section.
The “scoring criteria,” “selection criteria” or questions to be answered in your grant narrative are usually divided into sections (ie. needs statement, project design, evaluation plan). Each section is assigned a maximum point value. Most RFPs also state an overall page limit for your grant narrative.
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