Introduction to getting ‘grant application’ ready

Now that you have had an opportunity to think about the processes involved in project planning, you can move onto how to use what you have learned towards funding. As mentioned in Part A, while no two grant applications are the same, many of them require you to provide information about key elements. These elements correspond to the Why, What, When and Who questions that we have already covered (Topic 3 of Part A is particularly important to Part B). For example, the answers to the following questions:

• What difference do we want to make?
• Why do we want to make a difference?
• Who will we make a difference to?
• How will we make the difference?

are often included in grant application sections that address the below:

1. About the organisation
2. About the project and how it aligns to project deliverables
3. Project Activities, Responsibilities and Outcomes
4. Beneficiaries & their engagement
5. Partners or Collaborators
6. Resourcing, Review and Approval Processes

Other information can be captured under risk assessment or Evaluation method focussed questions. These are however typically not relevant to community projects owing to the scale of the activities.

Now let us get started with taking all the project planning work and applying it to grant applications.

Eligibility

The first step is to ensure that your organisation is eligible to apply for funding. Next you should check that your proposed project will address the funding priorities. You can usually find this information in the Funding Guidelines.

Key Documents (often required as Attachments)

Funding applications often require basic information such as ABN details. Certificate of Incorporation, Insurance and past financial statements. Keep these in an easily accessible folder to save you time. Other documents can include Support letters (among others) and you should keep a buffer of a few days to source these. Do not leave things to the last day!

Let’s practice!

Next, as mentioned previously, not all grant applications are the same but sections within them are. These sections along with what they are asking about and what question (in a grant application) they might link to are presented next as a template. Note that Part B includes hands-on exercises so go through them but also remember to attend the associated online sessions or contact the ECCQ project officer for feedback on your responses.