A 5-Part Series – Installment #5/5 – Describing the Program This Program + Grant series aims to smooth the discussion between the Program staff and the Grants staff, relieve some of the misunderstandings so Grants gets what they need from Program, and Program understands what is needed from them. So far, we’ve talked about 1) the Need for a Program for the Grants’ Need Statement, 2) the Program’s Budget so we can make sure we’re including all the costs a program will incur, and 3) several items that the Grants person will come across in their grant applications. It’s good to get ahead of it all so meeting a funder’s deadline is not such a burden — to all concerned!
This series’ section is a bear, but it’s key to a strong grant proposal. We’ve nibbled around the edges with the Need Statement; program budget; program planning and staffing; and program challenges, sustainability, and partners. Now we hit bone, with the program description. Obvs the Program staff is integral to getting this right for your grant proposals!
DESCRIBING THE PROGRAM
Although there’s no need for minute details in a grant application — my “word to the wise” is, devote far less real estate to the “How” than to the “Why” in a grant app — it is critical for an agency’s Grant pro to understand completely the program they are writing to. Why? It’s so that THEY can decide what to cut and what to leave in in a grant app, depending on the interests of the particular funder.
What follows is a laundry list of what the Grants person will need to know to effectively write a grant proposal for a program.
Pro Tip: This list of questions starts looking an awful lot like a Logic Model, so plan to go through that process, and it will answer most of these.
The questions below, bundled with what we’ve already covered in this series:
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- How much will this program cost?
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- What are the qualifications of the staff involved?
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- What challenges do you foresee in putting this program into action or realizing its goal, and how do you propose to head off those challenges?
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- How do you plan to sustain the program once the grant runs out?
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- Who are your partners, and what are their roles and responsibilities?
…can essentially be the heart of a grant application, so make this meeting between Program and Grants a priority. Here’s the Program Description questions the Grants staff needs to know:
- Who are the intended Program participants?
- What is their age, race, ethnicity, education level, income or poverty level?
- Do they own cars, drive, walk, take the bus?
- Do they have physical, mental, or emotional handicaps or limitations?
- What is their employment status, what is their immigration status?
- What is the size of the population affected by the problem or need, and how many will the program hope to serve?
- Where do the intended program participants live?
- What is the size and density of the neighborhood or geographic area?
- Is it urban or rural?
- Is it a food desert, is it cut off from public transportation? Some other deficiency?
- What is the baseline data for your intended program participants?
- What is the starting level of their [fill in the blank: poverty level, education level, etc.]?
- Is that data captured by the Census?
- If you don’t have that data, is there a similar population elsewhere that does?
- Is this an existing program or a new program?
- If a new program, has it been piloted? What is the data from the pilot?
- If it’s an existing program, what has been its track record of success?
- What activities will your program engage the program participants in?
- How often and for how long (days, weeks, month, years)? How many hours per day/week/etc.?
- Where do you propose to hold the program? Will transportation be required for the program participants to and from the program?
- Will food or any type of incentive be provided to program participants?
- Why were the methodology and steps of the proposed program chosen?
- Is there documented evidence that your proposed program’s methodology will be successful in meeting its goal?
- Is there a similar program that had a track record of success with the intended program participants?
- Or is there some example that you can extrapolate from that used similar methodology?
- What are the staff needs for your program and who will fill those roles?
- How many staff will be needed? Current staff or new-hires? What positions will be needed to make the program successful?
- Will training be needed for the program’s staff?
- Will the program staff be given access to sensitive organization data, or underage minors? Will background checks be needed?
- What is the timetable for the program to meet its goal?
- Is this a current program at your agency? If not, what is the start date of the program?
- Is this an ongoing program? If not, what is the program’s end date?
- What are the key points in the program’s schedule (including when benchmarks are reached)?
AND THE QUINTESSENTIAL QUESTION FOR ANY AND ALL GRANT APPS:
- What difference do you hope to make with the proposed program?
- What are the expected outcomes?
- How will you measure them? In other words, how will you know you’ve met your goal, or how close you’ve come to meeting it?
None of these questions are stand-alones. Program needs to explain ALL this to the Grants person so they can get a full picture of the program in question, and then Grants can explain it to someone completely unfamiliar with you, your agency, your work, and your staff. And completely unfamiliar with your program idea! In other words: the FUNDER! 
We are both guilty — the Program side and the Grants side — of complicating our interchanges with $5 words. With the info in this series, Grants is armed with not only the questions it needs to ask Program, but the questions are expressed in plain English and not obfuscated with “Grant-Speak.” Getting Program to understand Grants, and what points we as the Grants staff need to get across to cut through with a funder, will make the entire grants process smoother and more efficient. More efficiency means more output, and more output means more applications. More applications submitted means a MUCH better chance at well-funded programs!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog series on Program + Grants. I felt the topic was really worth exploring and expanding on.
And thanks to Jane Van Dae, MBA of Phenix Children’s Hospital Foundation for helping me start down the rabbit hole of Program + Grants!
For those of you frustrated by your relationship and communication with the Program staff at your agency, I promise you, you’re not alone. One way to untangle that “communication complication” is to ask the Program staff to read this blog series. Another way is to have them take the Unlock-Grants course! There they will learn, from beginning to end, what the Grants staff needs for their grant applications.
