Proposal development and grant writing can be an intimidating and time-consuming task. We often get caught up in the proposal writing and submission process, but an important part of the fund development cycle is continuing to improve proposal quality.

Some grantors provide organizations the review score and/or the reviewers’ (and maybe even grantor’s) comments about the proposal. Regardless of whether the grantor awarded or did not award a grant or cooperative agreement to you, the score and/or comments provide a source of feedback that the organization should utilize to contribute to quality improvement of its future proposals and development procedures.

Steps to Improving Proposal Quality: 

• Convene a post-submission briefing with proposal development team members to surface the strengths and challenges of this particular proposal development experience. 
• Document lessons learned through post-submission briefing. 
• Convene a briefing with proposal development team members after proposal comments are received. 
• Document lessons learned through the briefing on proposal comments. 

A proposal development briefing immediately following proposal submission will be constructive for releasing any tension that may have developed among team members.

Record lessons learned from post-submission briefings and reviewer comment briefings into a central document on “proposal development lessons learned.” Future proposal development team members can then review this document at the outset of each subsequent proposal development, in the hope of avoiding past weaknesses and capitalizing on past successes.

These steps and tips are just an excerpt from Show Me the Money: Healthy Teen Network’s Guide to Developing a Winning Grant Proposal. We designed this resource to help you understand the ins and out of proposal development and give you the tools you need to successfully guide your team through the process.