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Grant Writing: Telling Your Project's Story – March 24, 2023

You've read grant program materials and done your research, now, how do you begin writing responses to the grant application narrative questions (narratives) relative to the purpose of the funding source – how do you tell your project’s “story”? A good place to start is to pencil in one strong, concise bullet point answer for every narrative question. Bullet points keep the narrative focused on the main story for your project. They make it easier to confirm you've answered the question asked, and they daylight when duplicative information is used for multiple answers. In some ways, grant writing is like developing a comic strip. The grant application’s narrative questions are the number of panels you have for telling your story. Your bullet points represent your storyboard outline, the main idea each panel must convey. The remainder of each question’s text then can be honed to provide only necessary context (the scenery) to support that main point. Following a comic strip approach when writing grants showcases your project’s story, focuses your application, and saves you time.