GRANT PROPOSAL

ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS

GETTING STARTED: Using the background information provided below, write a 3-4 page (single-spaced with appropriate spacing and headings) grant proposal asking for grant/donation for Engineers Without Borders (EWB) from prospective donors.

SCENARIO:

INSTRUCTIONS: You will format your proposal as a business letter. Your proposal will have the following six sections:

1. Introduction 2. Background 3. Problem/Purpose 4. Proposal/Plan/Schedule 5. Staffing 6. Budget 7. Conclusion

While proposals take several different forms, yours should be in letter form. You do not need a letter of transmittal, table of contents, or abstract. You DO need to separate your proposal into sections and label each section accordingly (with side headings). You DO need to get letter formatting RIGHT.

Additionally, your proposal should include a research component, including material from at least three outside sources to support your argument. Sources should be incorporated into the letter but internally cited according to APA formatting rules and a reference page at the end.

BACKGROUND:

Since Gonzales and Sons Printing Company insists on charging the full amount<--- In order to understand this part, I put it in the parenthesis. à (PREVIOUS ASSIGNMENT: You are still working with the brochures that you produced in the previous assignment. You must take them to a printer. In the past, the printing company, Gonzales and Sons, Inc., 8852 Westheimer, Houston, TX, has printed brochures for you in the past and has produced excellent work. Because EWB is a not-for-profit organization, this printing company has for the past seven years offered to print to 1,000 brochures at a 50% reduction of normal costs as a “donation” to EWB. However, this has been a bad economic year for Gonzales and Sons, and they feel they cannot offer you the 50% discount anymore. The printing company needs to write a bad news letter to EWB telling them the organization telling them.)

EWB has to find another source of revenue to make up the difference or another company that will charge comparably to what Gonzales and Sons was charging. EWB was planning to install six water purification systems OR 12 low-tech solar energy panels for small amounts of community electricity in five towns (in the countries you prepared your brochures for)à (Macedonia), but with this additional expense, only enough money for half these goals available. EWB still needs to reach potential donors for more purification systems and solar panels but would really like to push for the planned five because the engineers know how much these services are needed.

YOUR TASK: Make a decision to go with the water purification system OR the solar panels, depending upon which country you chose for your brochure(Macedonia). Your task is to locate at least five potential donors and essentially beg. Your proposal comes in when you must explain the benefits of clean water by means of purification systems or small amounts of readily available electricity and why your organization can perform the work efficiently and cheaply because of donated labor by the member engineers. You will need to research some purification systems or solar panels to determine what you will need. You may ask for donations in the form of money or in the

form of equipment. You may contact venture capitalists or companies that manufacture the purification systems or solar panels; you be the judge. You’ll have to address and solve those problems in your project design. You will have a pretty free rein on this project. REMEMBER: CHOOSE EITHER THE WATER PURIFICATION SYSTEMS OR THE SOLAR PANELS, NOT BOTH.

GRADING CRITERIA: Your proposal will be graded according to the criteria by which proposals are typically accepted or rejected. A successful grant proposal will:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the EWB’s needs.

• Use support research, including at least three relevant outside sources. This will likely be either the

conditions of the country (and I don’t mean www.tripadvisor.com) and the type equipment you are asking money for.

• Use correct letter format, including proper APA in-text citation and reference list.

• Be organized into six clear, well thought out sections (Introduction; Background/Problem/Purpose;

Proposal/Plan/Schedule; Staffing (meaning if EWB is going to need additional staffing for this particular

project); Budget; and Conclusion. You be the judge of what the project should budget for.

• Illustrate the soundness of the plan being offered.

• Illustrate the quality of the project’s organization and management.

• Demonstrate an ability to complete the job by the deadline (assume a two-month period to gather your

sources and money together, then two more months for the site installation of the water systems or solar

panels.)

• Demonstrate an ability to control costs.

• Illustrate the firm’s experience and record on similar projects.

• Demonstrate the qualifications of the staff to be assigned to the project.

• Use persuasive techniques (including a clear focus on audience needs and benefits, honest and supportable

claims, appropriate detail, readability, convincing language, accessible and attractive page design, proper citations of any sources or contributors, and so forth). Use tables, graphs, pictures, or other visual aids where necessary and ONLY if they enhance or explain points in the proposal.

• Display correct grammar and mechanics.

• Demonstrate concision, clarity, and fluency.

TIPS FOR WRITING YOUR PROPOSAL

Overall: You will be graded on how well you tailor your arguments to the EWB’s purpose. Have you emphasized the benefits to the EWB if prospective donors fund your proposal? You must have a clear understanding of your audience’s needs.

Intro:

• Address your proposal to five different companies or organizations you intend to contact. To save paper,

you can just list each one underneath the other one in the inside address of the letter, knowing that in the “real world,” you would address each letter separately.

• Some questions you might consider: Why is EWB uniquely qualified to do this plan? What successful initiatives have they implemented before? Why is it America’s problem that countries around the world do not have clean, safe water or a reliable source of inexpensive electricity? Try to think of what would get you interested, and that would probably spark somebody else’s interest.

Proposal/Plan/Schedule:

• You’ll be asking for money to continually support the work of EWB; your organization “supports

community-driven development programs worldwide by collaborating with local partners to design and implement sustainable engineering projects, while creating transformative experiences and responsible leaders.”

• Make sure the proposal tells the reader clearly where and who these projects are for.

• Tell the prospective donors exactly what you plan to do for the water or electricity projects. Be creative.

You’re free to come up with any idea you can that would speak to EWB’s goals and the goals of the cities affected. You’ll be graded on how specific you are and how convincing your plan seems, not on whether it’s what EWB actually does.

Staffing:

• Choose appropriate staff members to discuss. Use EWB’s staff website (if available) for info. The main

website is http://www.ewb-usa.org/.

• Don’t list all the staff; pick and choose for rhetorical effect.

Budget:

• Make up the numbers, but make them believable. Research if you have to.

• You’ll have to decide how specific to be. Is this the kind of project that needs line-by-line budgetary

information, or can you group tasks into categories and discuss how much each category will cost?

Conclusion:

• Unlike some business proposals, grant proposals should not include a deadline date for a business offer.

Rather, you should remind the reader of the key benefits of your plan and try to motivate action. However, you can nudge them into a bit of urgency. In the case of a grant, motivating action means that you hope you receive the needed donations.

Grading Criteria:

GRADING CRITERIA: GRANT PROPOSAL Possible Earned Demonstrates an understanding of the EWB’s needs 10 Uses support research, including at least five relevant outside sources 10 Uses correct letter format with APA formatting for in-text citation and reference list 5 Is organized into six clear, well thought out sections (Introduction; Background/Problem/Purpose; Proposal/Plan/Schedule; Staffing; Budget; and Conclusion) 10 Illustrates the soundness of the plan being offered 10 Illustrates the quality of the project’s organization and management 5 Demonstrates an ability to complete the job by the deadline 5 Demonstrates an ability to control costs 5 Illustrates the firm’s experience and record on similar projects 5 Demonstrates the qualifications of the staff to be assigned to the project 5 Uses persuasive techniques (including a clear focus on audience needs and benefits, honest and supportable claims, appropriate detail, readability, convincing language, accessible and attractive page design, proper citations of any sources or contributors, etc.)

10

Displays correct grammar and mechanics (one point off for each error) 10 Demonstrates concision, clarity, and fluency 10 TOTAL 100