Writing Effective Grant Proposals

Learn to prepare grant proposals that get solid results for your favorite organization or charity. Over $200 billion annually is available for worthy causes and most people don't know how to prepare the application that will deliver needed funding. Avoid the mistakes that get applications for wonderful projects tossed into the wastebasket. Learn how to write professional proposals that actually succeed.

6 Weeks / 24 Course Hrs

Starting May 14, 2025

Offered in partnership with your preferred school

University of Central Florida

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Learning method

Self-Guided

$135

No instructor. Study on your own schedule

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Instructor-Moderated

$135

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Starting May 14 | June 11

Details + Objectives

Course code: wgp

Preparing successful grant proposals to receive funding from corporations or foundations requires careful research, meticulous preparation, and graceful writing. Grant administrators will often say that many grant requesters have a limited understanding of the proposal writing process, and as a result their worthy causes lose out.

If you learn how to avoid the errors that lead to the rejection of your proposal, you will be better prepared to help the causes you most admire. This course will walk you through all of the essential steps, including an important discussion of what you must do when the grant arrives.

In this course, you will learn how to become fully familiar with the institution or project for which you are requesting support. You will get valuable guidance in preparing a background statement and a brief financial statement to support your request. You will also research some charitable foundation and corporate giving sources.

Then, you will learn how to put everything together, so you can assemble, write, and submit complete grant proposals to foundations, corporations, and wealthy individuals for any number of your pet projects.

What you will learn

Learn how to write for all sorts of writing projects as well as grant proposals
Learn effective ways to describe your own cause that will stand out to grantors
Discover what information and documents you will need to supply with a grant request
Learn how to find funding sources using the web
Create a complete proposal ready to present

How you will benefit

Gain confidence in writing grant proposals
Discover funding sources that are appropriate to your cause
Create a proposal that will give you the best chance for finding the funding you need

How the course is taught

Instructor-Moderated or Self-Guided online course
6 Weeks or 3 Months access
24 course hours

Outline

There's nothing magical about preparing a grant request, but in this lesson, you will learn some easy and fun tricks of trade that will help you with all sorts of writing projects, even those beyond grant proposals. Additionally, you will learn some special ways to practice these tricks.

People who work for causes that they believe in will often care about those causes in a very special and personal way. But grantors, who deal with literally thousands of institutions and causes, have a rather different way of thinking about them. In this lesson, you will put yourself in their shoes and learn how to effectively describe your own cause to anyone.

Now that you have tried on your grantor's shoes, it's time to talk about why those grantors look for certain kinds of information and documents. You will learn what these documents are, so you can dig them out and be ready to supply them when you prepare a grant request.

There are lots of interesting things to know about each individual nonprofit organization, but all nonprofits share one thing: They're not in it to for the money. Generally, you can measure a good business by its bottom line—whether it makes money or not. But how do you measure the effectiveness of a nonprofit that needs money? In this lesson, you will start to look into it.

The hunt for funding sources is the eternal game of hide and seek that grant writers have to consider. How do you find sources that might be appropriate for you? This lesson will point you toward the most effective research tools available.

Once you find some foundations that you think might be a good fit for your cause, how do you choose among a field that might include hundreds? In this lesson, you will learn different ways to sift through these foundations, and in the course of this process, you may unearth sources you haven't even considered.

You have looked at all the possible charitable foundations that fit your cause, but don't stop there. What about the corporate world? Corporations have foundations, but they also have other ways of giving. This lesson focuses on packaging your projects for corporations.

Even if you're a word person, you'll need to learn another way to tell your story—by letting the numbers do the talking. The people who review your proposals will attach great importance to numbers, so you can't get away with only describing a project with words. In this lesson, you will learn about preparing numbers effectively. It's not hard to do, but it's essential to the success of your proposal.

By the time you reach this lesson, you will have all the pieces you need for your proposal. Now it's time to put them all together and add the finishing touches so you can finally put a complete proposal in the mail.

In the grant writing industry, you won't win them all. But when you do get a turndown, there are positive alternatives to doom and gloom. The suggestions in this lesson will help you deal with those inevitable turndowns.

Okay, just as you hoped—you did get a gift. There's an old saying in this business: Every gift paves the way to the next. This lesson will ensure you know just how to pave that road.

Now that you have all the elements you need for your proposal; can you also send it to an individual? Partially, yes. But you need to think about what would interest an individual and how you can best present your proposal to them; that's what this final lesson covers.

Instructors & Support

Dr. Beverly A. Browning

Dr. Beverly A. Browning is a grant writing consultant and visionary who uses thought leadership to work with nonprofit organizations struggling with the woes of revenue stream imbalances. She has been researching grant funding, grantmaking trends, and board-related barriers to nonprofit capacity building for over 40 years. Together she and her team have helped her clients win over $750 million in grant awards.

Dr. Browning is the founder and director of the Grant Writing Training Foundation and Bev Browning, LLC. She is the author of 44 grant writing publications, including six editions of Grant Writing for Dummies and the 6th edition of Nonprofit Kit for Dummies (to be published in 2021).

Dr. Browning holds graduate and post-graduate degrees in organizational development, public administration, and business administration. She is also a Certified Strategic Planning Facilitator (CSPF), has a McNellis Compression Planning Institute Facilitation Training distinction, and is an Approved Trainer for the Grant Professionals Association (GPA), the Certified Fund Raising Executive International (CFRE, and the Grant Professionals Certification Institute (GPCI).

Instructor Interaction: The instructor looks forward to interacting with learners in the online moderated discussion area to share their expertise and answer any questions you may have on the course content.

Requirements

Prerequisites:

There are no prerequisites to take this course.

Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

This course can be taken on either a PC, Mac, or Chromebook.

Software Requirements:

PC: Windows 8 or later.
Mac: macOS 10.6 or later.
Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are preferred. Microsoft Edge and Safari are also compatible.
Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.

Instructional Material Requirements:

The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.

FAQ

Instructor-Moderated: A new session of each course begins each month. Please refer to the session start dates for scheduling.

Self-Guided: Your course begins immediately after you enroll.

Instructor-Moderated: Once a course session starts, two lessons will be released each week for the 6 week duration of your course. You will have access to all previously released lessons until the course ends. You will interact with the instructor through the online discussion area. There are no live sessions or online meetings with the instructor.

Self-Guided: You have 3 months of access to the course. After enrolling, you can learn and complete the course at your own pace, within the allotted access period. You will have the opportunity to interact with other students in the online discussion area.

Instructor-Moderated: The interactive discussion area for each lesson automatically closes two weeks after each lesson is released, so you're encouraged to complete each lesson within two weeks of its release. However, you will have access to all lessons from the time they are released until the course ends.

Self-Guided: There is no time limit to complete each lesson, other than completing all lessons within the allotted access period. Discussion areas for each lesson are open for the entire duration of the course.

Instructor-Moderated: Students enrolled in a six-week online class benefit from a one-time, 10-day extension for each course. No further extensions can be provided beyond these 10 days.

Self-Guided: Because this course is self-guided, no extensions will be granted after the start of your enrollment.

Reviews

As a person that started a non-profit about a year and a half ago, this course was an amazing tool. I have to say that especially the supplemental materials were amazingly helpful. Thank you for all the time you put in doing this. It has been a great resource for me.

I came into this class having submitted many grant proposals that had been turned down. I wanted to learn why that had happened. I also wanted to learn a better way to write them. Jillian's class fulfilled my need very completly. Her writing style was very reader friendly. The information she communicated was easily understood. I was able to do her classroom assignments in a way that showed me the errors I had made in my grant applications. I submitted several questions to her during Lesson Discussion sessions. Her replies were prompt and meaningful, and very encouraging upon behalf of my efforts.

I enjoyed this class and felt it was useful to my career. I appreciate the instructor's wealth of knowledge and attentiveness.

I just wanted to say what a great tool this course has been. About a year and half ago I started my own non profit organization and this course has shown me some improvements I can make. It also has amazing resources that will really help us get the funding we need. Thank you for working so hard and doing such a great job.

I really enjoyed this class. The information learned during this class will be invaluable to our non-profit animal shelter. Thanks!

I thoroughly enjoyed this course and found it beneficial to my grant writing career. During upcoming grant proposals, I will refer to the material and references I gained from the course lessons. I want to thank you for sharing you knowledge, skills and experience as a grant writer with us throughout this course. I will pass the word onto my friends about this course!

I thought the class was exactly what I needed to get my start in Grant Writing. It was informative and complete, and I would highly recommend both this class and Jillian to anyone interested in taking a beginning Grant Writing Class. Thank you Jillian, you were terrific!

Jillian did a good job of sharing her experiences as a grant writer. I found the information given here VERY useful for an introductory course.

Jillian Poole gives very interesting and informative lessons with plenty of resources to help with individual research. In addition, she is a responsive instructor who writes in a friendly writer. I would recommend this course to those looking for a strong beginning, or those in need of some encouragement and confidence as a grant writer.