Nofovo answers

Every answer below is aimed at a question people measurably search for, is written from named sources, and links to the page that handles the job itself. None of them is a landing page in disguise.

These guides are written for the person who runs grants at a US nonprofit. They set out the documents an application carries and how far ahead each one has to be asked for, what a letter of inquiry is deciding, what to take from a funded proposal and what will mislead you, the four kinds of foundation and how each one decides, the grant types worth knowing before you apply, and what the finance team needs from every award. Each cites the rule or the guidance it rests on, and each points at the free sheet that costs the work.

• Letter of support: what it has to say, and how to get one signed in time

  What a letter of support is, what a funder reads it for, how to write one a partner will sign unchanged, and when to ask so it arrives in time.

• Letter of inquiry: what it must establish, and how it gets you invited to apply

  What a letter of inquiry is, what a foundation is deciding when it reads one, and how to write two pages that earn an invitation to apply.

• Grant proposal sample: what is worth copying, and what will mislead you

  What to take from a grant proposal sample and what to ignore, section by section, and why a funded proposal from another funder can mislead you.

• Grant proposal cover letter: what belongs in it, and when to send one

  What belongs in a grant proposal cover letter and on the cover page, how they differ, and the four sentences the letter has to contain.

• Grant writing examples: what separates the funded applications

  What separates a funded grant application from a plausible one, with the four patterns that show up in successful grant application examples.

• The different types of grants a nonprofit actually applies for

  The grant types a nonprofit office actually meets, what each is for, and why unrestricted and operational money is the hardest to find and the most useful.

• Local community foundation grants, and how each kind of foundation decides

  The four kinds of foundation a nonprofit meets, how each one decides, and what an application to each has to look like.

• How to find grants for nonprofits: grant prospecting as an office actually does it, and how to build a funder list worth applying to

  How to prospect for grants: where to look, what to read on a funder before applying, and how to build a list you can work through a year.

• Grant tracking and the grant management template most offices start with: what has to be tracked, and the point at which a spreadsheet stops being enough

  What a grant office has to track, what a grant management template holds, and the point at which a spreadsheet starts losing deadlines.

• Nonprofit grant accounting and who is the grantee: what the grant office owes the finance team, and the words both sides have to use the same way

  What the grant office owes the finance team on every award, the restricted-fund vocabulary both sides need, and how long records have to survive.