Sample Grant Proposals

Each document linked below is an example of a successful grant proposal that I prepared. There’s a school of thought that, because every project is unique, there’s not much to be gained from reading old proposals.

I disagree.

If you want to master the art of chair-making, study well-made chairs. Similarly, to cultivate the art of successful grant writing, study successful grants.

That’s not sufficient, of course. I don’t offer these proposals as platonic templates to be copied. In fact, as I was prepping the HIV Prevention sample proposal for upload, I noticed several errors. I considered editing the piece then decided against it. These are complicated artifacts, written under deadline pressure.

That holds an important lesson for beginning grant writers (and a useful reminder for veterans): Your grant proposal is never going to be perfect. And it doesn’t need to be. Observe the Pareto Principle. (Commonly stated as: 80% of the return comes from 20% of the effort. My corollary: To achieve perfection requires infinite effort. Leave it to the angels.)

Welcome to the library!

Government Grants:

• Low-Income Wind Project (PDF) (HTML)(Community Services)
• AIDS HIV Prevention (Office of Minority Health)

Foundation Grants:

• Breast Cancer Awareness (Marin Community Foundation)