10 Things to Look for When Evaluating a Grant Proposal

The application process is an organization’s first real look at how your grantmaking organization works with grantees. It’s also your chance as a foundation to see if this organization is a good fit for your program.

A 30-page application doesn’t make sense—for the applicant or the reviewer—but you need enough information to know if you are making a good decision. There is a lot riding on this delicate dance, but with the right due diligence, you can feel confident in your selection.

Ensuring that your foundation makes impactful grants to the right nonprofit partners starts with a thorough proposal evaluation. You’ve done the hard work of making sure you’re asking for only the information you need to make a sound decision, but that can still be a lot to review.

To help you better review submissions so that you are set up for success, here are 10 items you should look for as you evaluate your grant applications.

0. Complete Application

Before you get too far into your review, check to see whether the application matches what you asked for and includes all required information. This doesn’t have to be a disqualifier—it may have been an oversight or misunderstanding—but there is no use spending your reviewer’s time on the proposal if they aren’t getting the full picture. Most grant management systems will have validation alerts, letting your grantee know if the application isn’t complete.

1. Organization Background and Experience

Has this organization run similar programs in the past, with similar budgets, focus area, and geography? Does their previous experience set them up for success with this new program?

2. Financial Health of the Nonprofit Organization

Make sure you look at the nonprofit’s financial records and ensure that there are no red flags that could indicate this may be an unwise investment. Due diligence best practices include reviewing the organization’s 990 and audited financial statements, among other documentation.

Blackbaud Grantmaking allows us to be flexible when executing due diligence and compliance with regard to organizations submitting applications. We can also reduce the burden on our grantee partners by uploading any required ‘about the organization’ information we find into the system. This saves our partners time and improves the grantee experience.

Audrey Kidwell
Center for Disaster Philanthropy

3. Program Partners

If the nonprofit will be collaborating with other partners, such as another nonprofit, an academic institution, a government entity, or even other grantmakers, are these partners experienced in this type of program? Are they subject matter experts or invested in the target community? Does the application outline their specific roles and how their activities will be tracked? If there aren’t any other partners, are you comfortable that the individual organization can fully implement the program on its own?

4. Program Description

This should be more than a few sentences of high-level goals. The proposal should include a detailed description of how the program will be executed, how exactly the pieces fit together to achieve the desired outcome, and the different phases involved in implementing and running the program. You may provide a little flexibility if this is a new program. The organization may still be figuring out the logistics, but they should still have a well-thought-out description for what they want this program to accomplish.

5. Program Timeline

Even the best laid plans are subject to change, but the proposal should include a general timeline of when the various parts of the program will be executed and how the program will ultimately come together. This timeline should serve to help you, as the grantmaker, to monitor the progress of the grant and ensure it’s on track to hit various milestones.

6. Measurement Plan

Has an appropriate plan been laid out to monitor and measure the program outcomes? If appropriate for the grant size, is an experienced independent evaluator involved in administering the outcomes measurement plan? Or if the measurement plan is being implemented internally, do the staff tasked with tracking results have the appropriate knowledge and experience to accurately do so? If you are expecting measurement reports, plan to fund any costs associated with gathering and analyzing that data as part of the overall grant.

7. Sustainability Plan

Has the organization specified a plan to obtain continued funding and/or an ability to self-sustain the program after the grant period has ended? In other words, is the nonprofit already thinking about what will happen after this grant cycle?

8. Communications Plan

Does the proposal outline an appropriate communications plan as part of the overall program, to promote awareness and gain buy-in from the target population? And separately, does the proposal outline how the organization will publicize the program, such as sharing what they learned at conferences and in publications? This might also be a place where you as a foundation can provide suggestions, by having the grantee write a blog post for your website or introducing your grantee contacts to connections you have at publications or conferences.

9. Detailed Budget

Does the proposal include a detailed line-item budget? Does the line-item budget include reasonable costs (meaning neither inflated nor underestimated) for personnel and program-related expenses? If you have a cap on admin expenses, make sure that is communicated in the application resources. A detailed budget enables you to be a good steward of your foundation’s grant funds.

10. Alignment to Key Initiatives

If you have focus areas or initiatives that are core to your grantmaking organization, such as environmental impact or equity and inclusion, how well does the proposal showcase the potential grantee’s work in that area? Do they meet the requirements for board diversity, for example, or have internal controls in place to make sure they reach the marginalized community they want to serve?

Creating a Successful Grant Proposal Evaluation Process

In my experience as a former corporate grantmaker, if an application includes satisfactory responses to these grant proposal evaluation criteria, that’s a good indicator that the organization has carefully thought the project through and will be a great grantee partner.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions and have a two-way conversation about the application responses—some of my most successful grants resulted from working together to refine the proposal by sharing our experiences based on past learnings. And make sure that you have the right technology in place that allows you to easily ask for and collect this information in applications. A clear, easy-to-use application form will help set you and your partners up for success from the very beginning.

(Blackbaud Grantmaking) helps me to build that whole picture of the applicant, which is so important for both grantmaking and the whole organization.

Margaret Hume
Grants Manager at Battersea Dogs Cats and Home

Looking to create or update a process for reviewing your grant applications? Check out the guide, Best Practices for Fair and Transparent Grant Reviews.