How to assess grant fit before writing
Check eligibility, priorities, award size, and application effort before committing your team.
Separate eligibility from competitiveness
Begin with the funder's current notice, not a directory description. Record the opportunity identifier, publication date, deadline, time zone, and official source URL. A funder's homepage is not proof that a specific competition is open. Check amendments and confirm which version controls your application.
List every mandatory condition: legal status, geography, organization size, project type, required partners, and exclusions. Mark each as met, not met, or unknown, and attach the evidence that supports your answer. An unknown is a question for the funder, not a reason to assume eligibility. Stop if a mandatory condition cannot be met.
Map your project to the scoring criteria
Copy the actual review criteria into a planning document. Beside each criterion, identify one specific project activity and one piece of evidence. For a workforce project, participant demand data and an employer commitment may support relevance; an unrelated success story does not. If a criterion has a published weight, give it proportionate attention.
Distinguish project outcomes from activities. Running six workshops is an activity. A measured improvement in participants' skills is an outcome. State the baseline, target, measurement method, and owner. Avoid promising a causal impact that your evaluation cannot establish.
Check financial and operational feasibility
Compare the award range with a costed project, not a desired round number. Check matching funds, indirect-cost rules, reimbursement timing, and restricted expenses. A reimbursable award may require cash reserves before payment. Confirm who will authorize the budget and whether partners can deliver on the proposed schedule.
Estimate writing time, partner coordination, review time, and submission tasks. Set an internal deadline earlier than the official one. Record a go, hold, or no-go decision in the worksheet, including unresolved questions and their owners. Revisit a hold only when new evidence changes it; do not continue drafting to avoid acknowledging a poor fit.