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How to Use the SMART Acronym to Create Winning Objectives

Too often, I think potential grant recipients are frightened off from writing a grant simply because they do not know how to create objectives for their grant application. Please...do not let this slow you down. Objectives are easy to create if you apply a simple system to organize your efforts.

One of the most critical pieces of information I like to share in grant writing workshops is the value of using the acronym SMART to create objectives for your grant proposal. The S stands for specific. The M stands for measurable. The A stands for achievable. The R stands for realistic. The T stands for time-bound. Here, you cannot skip a step. Review your objectives to make sure that each one stands up according to this criteria.

The Standard Elements of a Grant Proposal: You Only Get One Chance to Make a Great First Impression

We did not spend too much time underground during our recent workshop in Egypt. In this photo, I think you will see we are happy to get back to the fresh air. Likewise, the "standard" elements of a grant proposal take on a whole new importance if you appreciate how little time your application will actually get from the funder. Earlier, I covered the cover letter, introduction, and background. Here's what's next:



Organizational History. In a short statement, describe your organization, its background, its mission statement and, if appropriate, your organizational status as a nonprofit charity. I think it is a good idea to discuss all the different awards your agency has won. I like to sell and market here by stressing your central theme.



Objectives. This section of your proposal should explain what you plan to achieve through your project. Describe a broad general goal and then four to six specific objectives. The general goal should describe what impact you believe the proposed project will have on clients in the community. Objectives need to have a quantifiable deliverable and a due date. Goals, on the other hand, are more general ideals that may or may not be fully realized.



Plan of Operation. The plan of operation, or project description, should detail the specific steps the organization will take in developing and implementing the project. Be sure to include a timeline that indicates when you expect to accomplish each of the objectives you described in the plan. This is also a good place to describe the skills and qualifications of key staff members who will be working on the project, and to describe how you will work with other organizations in the community.


By the way, a "project" is a short-term activity that will come to an end in a number of years, a "program" is an enduring feature of your agency which should go on forever - in a sense.

Grant Writing is a Sport, Not a Scholarly Pursuit

As I like to point out in my workshops, grant writing is more of a sport than an academic activity. It's a sport because you are usually challenged to produce a complex, complying document under strict time limits.

Accordingly, the big cash prizes in grant writing don't always go to the organizations with the greatest intellectual merit or the most skillfully argued presentation.

Instead, substantial resources go to those who plan ahead, move decisively to put their ideas on paper, and pull together their full grant application well ahead of the announced deadline.

How to Save Space (and Time) with Charts and Tables

While we were in Las Vegas, we had a chance to visit the new Trump Tower. It looked to me like a stack of extremely large gold bricks. In a somewhat similar manner, I think adding charts and tables to your grant application creates a professional "golden" look for your school or non-profit organization.


What you may not fully appreciate, however, is how the skillful use of charts and tables can allow you to stretch the standard page requirement, font size, and line spacing limitations in the funder's guidelines. This is because you are allowed - in most competitions - to use smaller type and single-spacing in your charts and tables.


If you are clever (and creative) about the information that you place into the charts and tables you can create an advantage for your agency. For example, you can save time and money by reusing existing charts and tables, packing a greater number of words into your application, and creating a feeling of expertise through densely packed bibliographic material.


The amazing advantage of this procedure is that you can jam into your charts and tables things that you would not necessarily consider chart and table material. This includes biographies on the staff, useful text that you want to highlight for the reader, and excerpts from peer-reviewed articles.

Do Your Budget First, Not at the Very Last Second

When Tricia and I got married at Treasure Island hotel, we were on a very tight budget. Planning ahead allowed us to make our dreams come true.

In a similar manner, one of my favorite secrets for winning grants is to encourage the client to develop the budget first. Otherwise, it is difficult for me - serving as the grant writer - to visualize the scale of their project, the number of people to be hired or involved, and to create a program design that lines up with the budget details.

A quick and early draft of the overall budget may be more critical than most of us think. This is because some grant readers may not pay much attention to what you write in the narrative of the grant at all. In an effort to save their own time, they may scan this material and then flip to your budget page and evaluate your entire proposal using the quality of the budget.

Also, if there is limited consensus within your institution concerning the necessity of the project itself, early attention to the budget will quickly surface these wrinkles and allow your staff to iron them out prior to drafting the grant proposal.

Best of all, if you have a sharp looking budget from another grant proposal, you can save time and money by recycling it. Depending on how you structure the new grant project...a lot of the material may be the same.

Why do agencies sometimes complete the budget at the last minute? In my experience, it is often because they are shy about letting the grant writer know how much everyone at the agency actually earns. At other times, there is a political struggle going on behind the scenes for control of the project. Often the problem is that the grant writer is intimidated about generating a budget and delegates this task to the accounting department. Since the grant is not a major priority for the accounting department, the whole process of drafting the budget can screech to a halt...until the pressure of the deadline wakes everyone up.