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No matter whether you are approaching public or private sponsors, this thorough and detailed step-by-step guide will enable you to plan and write winning proposals. Grantseeking is always a competitive process. As organizational needs outstrip resources, groups turn to grants as a means of strengthening their financial footing while pursuing their missions. This book draws on the authors' three decades of grantseeking experiences in writing successful proposals, conducting grant workshops nationwide, reviewing government and foundation proposals, and critiquing application guidelines for grantmakers to lead readers through the process of planning and writing successful proposals. The authors first provide practical strategies for project planning, including identifying sponsors, matching grantseeker needs to sponsor priorities, and qualifying prospects through pre-proposal contacts. The authors then guide users systematically through proposal writing, including introducing a template for letter proposals to private foundations and corporations, describing the primary elements of government proposals, and providing tips for constructing a realistic budget. This advice as well as the key questions to answer before you begin writing; actual proposals that were declined, with rejection reasons; and complete sample letter proposals comprised in this volume will help both beginning and experienced grantseekers to better plan and develop fundable projects. Discusses resources to identify the tens of thousands of grantmakers that award more than $350 billion in philanthropic funds annually Provides a time-tested template to write proposals for private foundations and corporations, with samples to illustrate how the template can be used in different grant writing situations Features new examples of and strategies for increasing the overall quality and competitiveness of grant applications Addresses sponsors' increased attention to evaluation and their desire to move beyond counting participants and activities to measuring a project's impact Looks at different types of sustainability and interrelationships among grant proposal narratives, logic models, and budgets Offers new strategies for engineering and reverse engineering budgets to help maintain alignment between costs and activities and insulate against potential requests for budget reductions