Features & Guidelines
Proposal Content
The application should provide the critical information for the particular project for which you are requesting funding. If you are requesting funding for unrestricted funding, please provide information on the organization as a whole. Be as specific as possible.
Description of the Request
Organizational Objectives and Goals: What are the annual goals your organization has identified for the year funding is requested?
- Strategic – How does the request help fulfill your organization’s strategic plan? How does this request help to advance Stewardship Foundation’s mission?
Annual Operating Plan: What are the specific activities you will undertake to achieve your organizational goals and objectives?
- Target Population – Describe the target population you intend to impact through this project. How do you decide with whom to work?
- Need – What need is being addressed by the request? Can you document that it is a perceived need within the targeted group? Given the need, why should your group be the one to meet it?
- Collaboration – What other organizations are working in this field of ministry and with this targeted population? What are they doing? How will your work complement what is already being done? How will it be different? Do you plan to partner with others and, if so, how?
- Methodology – What is your plan to address the specific needs of your target population through this grant request? Are your methods culturally sensitive (contextual) to the people being served? Is the work scalable – a model capable of being reproduced? What is the timeline in which all of this will take place, with specific start and end dates?
- Leadership – Who will be responsible for the work? What are their qualifications?
Evaluation of the Project
What are the specific organizational outcomes against which you will measure your success during the funding period? This section will supply the primary terms by which the Foundation will evaluate the success of your efforts, should they be funded. Please be as specific as possible; we are looking for quantifiable, measureable targets.
- Success – How will you measure success? What are the inputs, outputs, outcomes and desired life changes you hope to achieve at the conclusion of the grant period? For instance, in a microfinance program, the inputs might include the loan capital; the outputs might include group lending and small business start-ups; the outcomes might include increased income, savings, and jobs; and the life changes might include improved health, education and spiritual growth.
- Factors – What are the critical success factors that must be in place for this project?
Fundraising Strategy
- Finances – What other sources of funding are available for this project? What is your specific strategy to obtain them? Will this project leverage additional resources beyond our Foundation’s funding? If so, what are those resources and how will they be secured?
- Sustaining Support – How will you sustain the support of this work after the period of this grant, apart from our Foundation? Is there a specific, multi-year fundraising plan in place that addresses the need for predictable, stable support? If so, please provide a copy of that plan. Does your organization currently have an operating reserve or an endowment?
