The 4 Steps To Funding Bid Success

Ian McLintock

Founder at Charity Excellence Framework

Member for more than two years • 257 Threads. 233 Comments.

CharityConnect: The 4 Steps To Funding Bid Success

Writing really good funding bids may appear to be a black art, but you don’t have to be a fundraising guru to be successful.

Here’s an easy to use checklist from the free Charity Excellence Framework online toolkit that you can use to help you make sure your bids are as good as they can be. Do you have any tips of your own to add to mine?

If you wish to search for funders, you’ll find links to a significant number of free funding finders on the Charity Excellence Resource Hub.

Step 1 – Remember who this is about and for

It’s not about what we want, but what our beneficiaries need and the funder wants. We are meeting a real need, not just chasing funding. We’ve looked at the funder’s website/annual reports to see if they’ve funded projects like ours before.

If possible, we have engaged the funder to help maximise our chance of success. There’s no magic fundraising ratio, but very roughly 10% of bids to ‘cold’ funders are successful, whereas it’s more like 30% for engaged funders.

Step 2 – We meet the funder’s requirements

Our bid meets the funder's criteria;

Including how much we can ask for and;

We’ve complied with any instructions on how the bid is to be submitted, such as online/mail applications, deadline dates, word count/length, attachments.

Step 3 – We’ve made the case well

It includes the information, facts and/or figures to, make the case for funding, explain why we are best placed to deliver the project and convey the urgency of the need.

All costs have been identified and accurately estimated. Some funders will accept all overheads, but not many, for most it’s 10% to 15% and some won’t accept any.

Step 4 – It will engage the funder

The bid is succinct and will be understood by those reading it. It’s jargon free and any acronyms are either in common use or have been explained.

It’s emotionally engaging – people give to people and want to know that their money will make a difference to an issue that matters to them.

My thanks to Lisa Gagliani whose input improved my original draft.