FundsforNGOs. Resource Guide: Questions Answered on How to Write Proposals A Basic Guide on Proposal Writing for NGOs

Transcription

1 FundsforNGOs Resource Guide: Questions Answered on How to Write Proposals A Basic Guide on Proposal Writing for NGOs

2 Contents 1. Introduction What is a Proposal? How to start writing a Proposal? How to develop a Project Title for a Proposal? How to write a Project Rationale or Problem Statement in a Proposal? What is a Project Goal in a Proposal and How to write it? How to develop Project Objectives in a Proposal? How to write Strategies and Activities in a Project Proposal? What is a Gantt Chart in a Project Proposal? How to write Project Results in a Proposal? What are Outputs, Outcomes and Impact? What are Performance & Results Indicators and also Risks & Assumptions in a Project Proposal? Performance & Indicators Risks & Assumptions

3 1. Introduction P roposal writing is one of the most challenging tasks for NGOs as they look for funds to support their work. NGOs struggle, seek assistance and many times even fail to apply because they are unable to develop a proper proposal. Nevertheless, a proposal is an essential document for raising funds and all NGOs seeking grants are required to develop and submit it. Whether you are contacting a new donor agency with an idea to work for your community or you are renewing a partnership with your previous grantor for a similar kind of project or applying for an open funding opportunity, a proposal is still required. This is because a proposal is a plan or more specifically a planning document which outlines each and every component of your proposed idea or project. But developing a plan and writing that into a proposal can be a highly complicated work, especially for NGOs which day in and day out work to meet social challenges, analyze needs and make practical interventions at the community level. Proposal writing is entirely a theoretical job which NGOs find it difficult to understand and apply their knowledge for it. Besides, proposal requests and proposal formats change from time to time; furthermore, different donor agencies have different proposal formats and different ways of accepting proposals. In such a context, how can NGOs understand the right way of writing proposals? This guide will help NGOs to gain a basic understanding of what proposal writing is and how to write effective proposals. The guide has been presented in a Question & Answer format to help NGOs better understand the process involved in writing good proposals and how they can present their projects efficiently in various proposal formats. 2

4 2. What is a Proposal? A proposal is a written document developed by an NGO or any other grantee with the prospect of getting a grant from a donor agency or a grantor. It can be a small document running into a couple of pages (often referred to as a concept note ) or it can be a huge book with several pages of text explaining about the project and carrying annexes about the organization and/or any other related information. An important element of a proposal is its format. All proposals have formats, which have to be carefully followed while writing it down. There is no one single format for a proposal. In fact, there may be as many different proposal formats as they are different donor agencies. Various donor organizations have developed their own proposal formats as they seek out information about a project or an NGO in various ways. But it is also true that the basic framework of a proposal with its essential components remains the same. Here, in this guide, we will discuss at length about this basic framework and understand the essential components of a proposal. 3

5 3. How to start writing a Proposal? Before writing a proposal, there are lots of preparations to be made. Since we are going to make a plan to develop a project for the community as well as for the donor agency, it is important that we start properly planning to plan as our first step. The first step is to identify the stakeholders or the actors of the project. Since we are writing the proposal for a project, we should start looking out who will be involved in this project like there will always be someone implementing this project (the NGO); there will be someone benefiting from this project directly (i.e. the community); and there will be someone funding this project (i.e. the donor agency). In a typical community development project, we can have the following stakeholders: The Community The NGO The Donor Agency The Government Agency Other Partner NGOs 4

6 Start analyzing each of these stakeholders. Why? Because they will play a key role in the project and donor agencies want to make sure that you have enough knowledge about these stakeholders. It is like you are starting a partnership firm but before starting such a firm, you do make sure that you have performed full background check for each partner or at least you make sure you know your partners well. Similarly, before starting to write a proposal, it is important to know and understand your partners or the stakeholders carefully. After identifying these stakeholders, start researching about each of them. Like for example, you can know more about your organization through the SWOT (Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats) Analysis. Similarly, to know more about your community, you can carry out field research surveys, need assessment studies etc. To know about your donor agency, you can refer to its website, annual report or other related information. An in-depth knowledge about each of these stakeholders will aid you in writing effective proposals. 5

7 4. How to develop a Project Title for a Proposal? A title can speak a lot about what your proposal is about or what kind of project you are proposing to the donor agency. Therefore, you need to make some extra efforts in coming out with a creative title that is not only concise, but also gives an expression to your project. Basically, a project proposal title is: 1. Short and Concise 2. It should give some reference to the overall goal or vision of the project 3. It should be able to give a snapshot of what is inside the proposal. It is always better to use some action in the title like for example, Raising Human Rights Awareness sounds not only interesting, but it expresses some action that will happen through this proposal. However, a title like Human Rights Education is very vague and does not give a sense of any action. As a title is mentioned on the cover page of a proposal, it is the first thing a donor agency reads. Therefore, it should sound attractive and also generate interest for the reader to open and read it. 6

8 5. How to write a Project Rationale or Problem Statement in a Proposal? A project rationale is also known as Project Context, Context, Situational Analysis or Problem Statement. It is basically an in-depth explanation of why the project has been proposed by the NGO and why it is important for the NGO to implement it. The project rationale is one of the first chapters in any proposal. This is obvious because it not only gives an introduction to the project but also provides a thorough background story to the project. More importantly, it answers basic questions such as: 1. Why the project is needed? 2. What are the needs of the community for which the project has to be implemented? 3. Why is this project necessary to be implemented? In more technical terms, it is an argument you make by explaining the difficult situation existing in the area and how the situation can be tackled by implementing the proposed project. In order to present this argument, it is necessary to provide a number of facts to support it. Like a lawyer in the courtroom, you are required to present in your project rationale all the proof to justify that the situation exists and something has to be done for it. For example, in your community or area, you come across a situation where there are many children who are not going to school. You wish to do something to address this situation and you start planning a project for it and develop a proposal on it. In the project rationale, you provide evidence as to why you believe that children are not going to school. It may be because there are no schools nearby the area or families are unable to afford schooling for children. For this you need to give statistics or some reference to any research that has taken place showing why children are not going to school. The donor agency will get convinced only when it reads facts. If there is evidence or reference to such a situation, the donor agency will be interested to fund the project. Whatever research you have undertaken to know your stakeholders such as the community and your organization can be explained here. If your research has been carried out well, you will realize that you have so much to write under the project rationale heading. The last section of project rationale can have a brief about your organization. You can explain how your NGO has the capacity and expertise to implement this project and address this problem. 7

9 6. What is a Project Goal in a Proposal and How to write it? A project goal in a proposal is the overall objective of the project. But it is very different from the specific objectives you will develop in the proposal. A goal is a very general, high-level and long-term objective of the project. Interestingly, it cannot be achieved by the project alone, but still the project work will head towards it. It should also be considered that there will always be other entities or forces also working to achieve this goal. We can understand this by taking an example. Suppose your NGO proposes a project for improving the health conditions of a community or area. Your overall goal is to promote better health conditions in the community. But you are also aware that your project is not in a position to improve all the health conditions existing in the community, yet you will be moving in that direction to achieve it. Moreover, there will be other agencies in the area also working to promote better health conditions in the same community like the government health agency or any other NGO. Even they are also working for the same goal as your project is and this goal can be realized only by the joint efforts of all these agencies. 8

10 7. How to develop Project Objectives in a Proposal? Unlike a project goal, project objectives are more specific, direct and achievable. So when you are writing project objectives, you have to be very careful as these can be used to measure the progress of the project from time to time and evaluate the results after the end of the project period. Besides, project objectives should show a strong relation with other components of the proposal like activities and results to convince the donor agency that you are heading towards a proper direction. Many donor agencies and experts insist that the project objectives should be SMART, which means that they should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. They should be specific because they need to be related directly to the project and other components of the proposal. Measurable to monitor the progress of the project. Achievable because all project efforts are made to achieve them to address the overall situation or problem as outlined in the Project Context. They should be relevant to the overall concept or the project idea. And, of course, time-bound since this will be a project and objectives have to be achieved within the stipulated time. 9

11 8. How to write Strategies and Activities in a Project Proposal? Once you complete developing your project goal and project objectives, the donor agency would like to know how you will achieve them. This is where you need to come up with your strategies and activities. Strategies and activities are ways, means and approaches for achieving the set goal and objectives. Although it is easy to list down strategies and activities, many NGOs get confused when they have to differentiate between them. Strategies and activities are different terms and they need to be mentioned separately in a proposal. Strategies are broad headings or concepts under which specific activities are listed. Strategies cannot be implemented directly in the field since they are just ideas in the mind. However, activities are direct actions and they can be performed in the field. The following table gives a better idea as to how strategies and activities are differentiated: Activities Training workshops, street shows, rallies Staff selection, staff training Baseline, PRA, FGD Conferences, meetings, articles, publications Establishing shelter homes, counseling, legal support Forming SHGs and cooperatives Building irrigation tanks, demo plots etc Strategies Capacity-building/ awareness raising Organizational development Research & Development Advocacy Victim Support Strategy Micro-finance and CBO development Strategy Participatory Infrastructure Development Strategy 10

12 9. What is a Gantt Chart in a Project Proposal? A Gantt chart is a chart that displays the schedule of project activities. Originally developed by Henry Gantt, it is now being increasingly adopted and used by major donor agencies like the European Commission and the USAID. Almost all the proposal formats of the European Commission have this requirement of Gantt chart which has to be filled by the applicants. In a typical Gantt chart, the project activities are required to be listed out and each of these project activities has to be scheduled for a particular month or quarter for implementing it. The last column of the chart has the name of the agency or person responsible for implementing the project activity. A Gantt chart is easier to develop once you have the activities listed out. A Gantt chart used in a proposal format of the European Commission: 11

13 10. How to write Project Results in a Proposal? What are Outputs, Outcomes and Impact? Project results can be defined as products and/or services offered to the project beneficiaries or the community. They can also be explained as the desired change to be brought about by the project intervention. Most proposal formats seek details on results that NGOs need to list out in relation to the project goal, objectives, activities and strategies. Project results can be divided into three types: 1. Outputs 2. Outcomes 3. Impact 1. Outputs: Outputs are immediate results that are achieved almost instantly after a project activity has been implemented or completed. For example, a women empowerment project can have a project activity such as conducting a workshop for village women on human rights. If so many number of village women participated in this workshop, it means that we have achieved a result. This result is the output because it was achieved soon after conducting the workshop. 2. Outcomes: Outcomes are mid-term results where results are achieved after a period of time since the project activity or the project itself has been completed. Many times, some results do not appear immediately. They take time to mature. Such results are referred to as outcomes. In the above example of conducting the workshop for village women on human rights, if women have gained a clear understanding of human rights and they are actually lobbying with the Government to attain those human rights, then this is an outcome, though it does not happen immediately after the workshop was conducted. 3. Impact: Impact is more a long-term result. It is immediately not clear, but usually gets achieved after a long time has passed since the completion of the project or an activity. In our example of conducting the workshop for village women on human rights, if the Government approves a policy in favor of women s human rights responding to their lobbying efforts, then it is an impact which was created after a certain period of time. 12

14 11. What are Performance & Results Indicators and also Risks & Assumptions in a Project Proposal? Performance & Indicators When results are to be achieved in a project, there have to be some indicators to indicate those results. These indicators are the measure of the results. Many proposal formats ask applicants to come up with these indicators. There can be two types of indicators: Performance Indicators Results Indicators Performance indicators are indicators that indicate a process. Like for example, the number of women participating in an awareness workshop is an indicator that the workshop has taken place. However, when a certain number of women have become aware after participating in the workshop, then it is a results indicator because it indicates a result arising out of the activity. When we define our project results in form of outputs, outcomes and impact, some proposal formats seek information only about results indicators and some others request information both on performance as well as results indicators. Risks & Assumptions Donor agencies are also interested to know what types of risks and assumptions exist while implementing the proposed project. These can be defined as those conditions, which are not under the control of the implementing agency or any other stakeholder. For example, if your project is proposed to be implemented in a conflict-prone area, then there is always a risk of violence and anarchy, which can cause hindrance to project activities. Such types of risks have to be calculated while writing proposals and mentioned them. Similarly, assumptions refer to those conditions that we believe will continue to exist. For example, if a project has been proposed to lobby for human rights policies, then you are assuming that the Government is responsive and it would definitely take interest in formulating such policies. Such types of assumptions can be listed out in the proposal. *** 13