Grant Readiness Challenge: Day 20: Review Budget and Narrative for Consistency

Does this sound familiar? 

The grant team (check out Day 5: Assess and Engage Your Grant Team) are working away on a grant application. Multiple people are contributing ideas and plans and budget numbers. The grant professional (likely you!) is working hard to keep track of all the information and make a cohesive plan. But at the end when you are rushing to submit, do you or anyone on the grant team know for sure if your whole grant application told a consistent story?

When a funder reads that budget, will they see and understand the same story as your narrative? Does that logic model tell the same story as the budget? Does your project description tell the same story as your work plan or timeline?  

Your organization’s grant application is the vehicle for you to tell the funder the story of your organization and the need you fulfill. Consistency throughout the entire grant application is vital for a successful application. Someone, generally the grant professional, must be responsible for checking to make sure an application is consistent especially if multiple people are involved in the grant development process.

  1. Assign someone (generally the grant professional) the task of checking for consistency
  2. Review the entire application focusing only on consistency
  3. Read the project budget, project narrative, and project work plan/timeline/logic model side by side making note of any inconsistencies you find
  4. Fix any inconsistencies

Once you have reviewed that recent submission for consistency, add in the consistency review process into your timeline for future grant submissions.

A confused reviewer generally equals a rejection letter, not a grant award. Your application is just one of many they are reviewing. Do not make the reviewer work too hard to figure out your organization’s story.  

 

Don’t forget to share your journey on the 30-Day Grant Readiness Challenge by using the hashtag #grantreadiness on your posts and updates on social media.

Did you miss the launch of the 30-Day Grant Readiness Challenge? It isn’t too late for you to start! You can sign up at any point and it will start you back on Day 1!

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