Nonprofit grant proposal writer

What goes in and out

You give it

• The funder's guidelines or call for proposals, with page or word limits.
• Your program plan or logic model.
• Your approved budget and the amount you are asking for.
• Local data on the need, with sources (optional).
• Your approved indirect cost rate (optional).
• Document (optional)
• Spreadsheet (optional)

You get

• A draft in the funder's section order and exact headings.
• A budget narrative that shows the math for each line.
• A list of totals that do not match and attachments that are missing.
• A draft trimmed to the funder's limits without cutting the ask, outcomes or evaluation plan.
• A list of what program staff, finance and your director must check.

How the task works

• Read the funder rules. Extract required sections, length limits, attachments, deadlines, and submission details.
• Draft from verified facts. Write the need, program, intended changes, measurement plan, and budget story from the supplied materials.
• Reconcile and review. Check totals, section limits, and missing attachments. Route facts, costs, and promises to the right internal reviewers.

Full instructions

• Start a chat with the skill. Open it if you added it to your AI, or copy it and paste it in. No code or paid tool is needed.
• Paste the funder's guidelines first. Ask your AI to list the required sections, limits and attachments.
• Add your program plan, budget and local data. Mark anything you do not have, so your AI does not guess.
• Ask for the draft in the funder's section order. Then ask it to flag totals that do not reconcile.
• Have program staff check the facts and finance check the budget and rate. Confirm current federal rules with finance before you use them.
• Have your director sign off on every promise before you submit.
• If you need funders first, use the Nonprofit grant funder researcher. If you need a program plan first, use the Nonprofit program outcome planner.

Full instruction file

Grant Writing: LOIs, Proposals & Reports

Added by AI Blocks: skills named below by their old names are in this library under new names. nonprofit-grant-research is the Nonprofit grant funder researcher. nonprofit-program-design is the Nonprofit program outcome planner. nonprofit-outcomes-measurement is the Nonprofit program measurement planner. nonprofit-storytelling is the Nonprofit ethical impact story writer. nonprofit-cost-allocation is not in this library. Ask finance for the rate and base instead.

Before you start

Use the material below to do this job. If facts or tool access are missing, explain what you can finish and what must wait.

What you need (use your own material or the linked skill):

• Your question (yours): the decision or problem, and what a good outcome looks like.

Makes it better (optional):

• A document (yours): a finished document, such as a Word file, a PDF or a page of notes.
• A spreadsheet (yours): a spreadsheet with its data, formulas and charts.

How to start:

1. Look first. Use what they've already attached, pasted or put in their about-me note. In a coding assistant with file access, look in the project too for these by name.
2. Check what's missing. Look for your question, a document, a spreadsheet. They can attach files, paste the details, or share a file path your assistant can read. Ask only for missing facts that change the result. If they ask you to start with what they have, complete the parts you can and mark the gaps.
3. Do the job. Follow the skill below with the facts and tools you have. Mark each gap with MISSING: where it belongs and never invent a fact to fill it.

Tools that do this best:

• A chat AI that can read your files: The skill works from records and drafts you provide. Research tasks also need current, checked public sources.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill once a funder has been identified and you are producing the written application or report itself. For finding/vetting the funder, tracking deadlines, or scoring fit, use nonprofit-grant-research first. For building the logic model or theory of change this proposal will describe, use nonprofit-program-design first — this skill assumes that design work exists and focuses on translating it into funder-ready narrative and budget language. Typical triggers:

• "Write a letter of inquiry for [funder]"
• "Draft the program narrative for this RFP"
• "Write a budget narrative justifying these line items"
• "Turn our logic model into a proposal's outcomes section"
• "Write our year-end grant report to [funder]"
• "Edit this proposal down to the funder's word/page limit"

Standard Proposal Structure

Most funder applications map onto this sequence even when section names vary; use it as the default skeleton and then re-map to the funder's exact required headers:

1. Executive summary / cover letter — one paragraph each on: who you are, the problem, the ask amount, and the expected outcome. Written last, read first.
2. Statement of need — the problem, backed by data specific to your service area (not national statistics alone), told with urgency but without exploitative framing (dignity-preserving framing guidance lives in nonprofit-storytelling; apply it here).
3. Program description / methodology — what you will do, drawn directly from the program's logic model (activities and outputs); name the model type if funders expect it (e.g., evidence-based, evidence-informed, promising practice).
4. Goals, objectives, and outcomes — objectives should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound); outcomes map to the logic model's outcome tier, not just activities. Distinguish outputs (units of service delivered) from outcomes (change achieved).
5. Evaluation plan — how outcomes will be measured, what data collection tools, and reporting timeline; keep this consistent with whatever the org actually tracks (coordinate with nonprofit-outcomes-measurement rather than promising a measurement approach the org can't execute).
6. Organizational capacity — track record, key staff bios, relevant past grants delivered successfully.
7. Budget and budget narrative — see below.
8. Sustainability plan — how the program continues after this grant period (diversified funding, earned revenue, embedded costs).

Letters of Inquiry (LOI)

An LOI is a 1-2 page gate before a full proposal invitation. Include: brief org description, problem statement (2-3 sentences), proposed project and amount requested, alignment to the funder's stated priorities (cite their specific language), and one differentiator. Cut everything that would appear in the full proposal — an LOI's job is to earn the invitation, not tell the whole story.

Verify with finance before use: the federal cost rules below were written at a set date and they change. Finance must confirm the rules that apply to your own award before any rate or base goes in a budget. Treat everything here as a starting point for that check, not as current advice.

Budget Narrative

A budget narrative justifies every line item in the budget spreadsheet in prose, tied to the program description:

• State the basis for each figure (e.g., "[FTE] Program Coordinator at [ANNUAL SALARY] annual salary + [FRINGE %] fringe = [TOTAL]") rather than a bare number.
• Separate direct and indirect costs; do not assume every administrative cost is indirect. Ask finance for the indirect rate, the base it applies to, the period and the authority for it, and state them as finance gave them. Never choose a rate yourself and never assume one is allowed. For Federal funding, the rules on rates, bases and exclusions are detailed and change, and a recent subaward date alone does not change an older award's terms. Mark every unresolved rate question for finance to settle before submission. Rules change, so finance must confirm them against the current award terms and the source rule text (2 CFR 200.414 and 200.1).
• Show the arithmetic for each line, not just a percentage of the whole project budget.
• Flag restricted expense categories and distinguish private-funder caps from Federal requirements. For Federal funds, ask finance to verify the legal authority for a conflicting cap; a pass-through's preference alone does not override the protections for negotiated or elected rates in 200.414(c)–(f).
• Reconcile the requested amount against the total project budget — clearly show what other revenue sources cover the balance if this grant is partial funding.

Concrete Steps

1. Read the RFP/NOFO or funder guidelines in full before drafting; extract every required section header, word/page/character limit, required attachments, and submission mechanics (portal, email, hard deadline time zone).
2. Confirm the program design/logic model source material exists and is current; if not, route to the Nonprofit program outcome planner before drafting outcomes language.
3. Draft in the funder's required order and exact section names, even if it differs from the skeleton above — reviewers score against their own rubric, not general best practice.
4. Write the statement of need with locally specific data and named sources.
5. Draft goals/objectives as SMART statements distinct from activities.
6. Build the budget narrative line-by-line against the numeric budget; reconcile totals and match the indirect rate, base, and cost period to finance's approved calculation. Keep unresolved rate assumptions visibly marked for review rather than presenting them as approved.
7. Trim to the funder's word/page/character limit — cutting adjectives and repeated context first, never cutting the ask amount, outcomes, or evaluation plan.
8. Route for internal review: program staff check factual/programmatic accuracy, finance checks the budget, ED or board chair signs off on institutional commitments before submission. Escalate unresolved Federal rate, base, or applicability questions to finance or a qualified grants accountant; ordinary proposal drafting remains staff-reviewed.
9. Submit ahead of the deadline accounting for portal upload time and required attachments (W-9, 501(c)(3) determination letter, board list, audited financials, org chart).
10. On award, calendar the reporting schedule and build the report from the same outcomes/evaluation language promised in the proposal — do not let the report drift from what was funded.

Grant Reports

Structure interim/final reports around the original proposal's stated objectives: report progress against each SMART objective, actual spend against the approved budget (flag and explain material variances), a challenges/lessons-learned section (funders read this for candor, not just success stories), and specific plans for the next period if renewal is possible.

Common Failure Modes

• Recycled boilerplate: submitting the same narrative to every funder without mapping to their specific stated priorities and section names — lowers scoring even when the program itself is strong.
• Outputs mislabeled as outcomes: "served 200 clients" is an output; "72% of clients improved reading level by one grade" is an outcome — funders increasingly require the latter.
• Budget-narrative mismatch: numbers in the narrative don't foot to the attached budget spreadsheet — always reconcile before submission.
• Mishandling restrictions: ignoring a valid expense restriction, or accepting a conflicting Federal indirect-cost cap without checking its authority; resolve with finance before submission.
• Missing attachments: technically compliant narrative but incomplete required-attachments checklist, causing an administrative rejection regardless of narrative quality.

For Advisors

When brought in to strengthen a client's win rate, first audit 3-5 recent declined proposals for pattern failures (funder-fit misses vs. narrative weakness vs. missing evaluation rigor) rather than rewriting prose on instinct — that diagnostic belongs partly to the Nonprofit grant funder researcher if the pattern is fit, and to this skill if the pattern is narrative/outcomes clarity. Coach staff to separate program description from evaluation language, since conflating the two is the most common weakness advisors see in client-drafted narratives. Recommend a standing "boilerplate library" (mission, org history, capacity statements) maintained centrally so writers spend their drafting time on the funder-specific need/outcomes sections that actually move scores.

Federal indirect-cost rules change. Finance must confirm the current agency and award terms before any rate is used; nothing here certifies the proposal or authorizes submission.

After this

When you've handed it back, suggest what they could do next in one short question. It's a suggestion: if they're done, that's fine. Offer these, and say they can type their own:

• The Nonprofit program measurement planner. It takes the document.
• The Nonprofit grant funder researcher. It takes the document. If they pick one and that skill is added here, carry straight on with what you just made. If not, give the link and say what to bring.