Your proposal will probably be read by someone who has already read several others that week, often on a screen, often with a scoring form open beside it. They aren't hostile. They are busy, and they are looking for specific answers.
Writing for that person means making the answers easy to find and easy to score. This article covers who your reviewer is, how to structure each section, how to write in plain language and how to use tables and white space without breaking the funder's formatting rules.
Picture the reviewer
Start with the reader's situation. A reviewer is typically doing three things at once: reading your narrative, checking it against the published criteria and deciding how many points each part earns. They are not reading for pleasure and they won't give you the benefit of the doubt on a missing answer.
That has a practical consequence. Every paragraph you write should either answer a criterion or support an answer. Anything that does neither costs the reviewer time and earns you nothing.
Funding notices tell you what reviewers will do. In federal notices, the Application Review Information section must describe each review criterion and sub-criterion and, where criteria differ in importance, their relative weights (2 CFR 200 Appendix I). Read it first, and write to it. If you want to go deeper, see decoding the scoring criteria and inside the review process.
Structure so the answer comes first
A tired reviewer scans before they read. Give them something to scan.
- Match your headings to the criteria. If the criterion is "Capacity to carry out the project", your heading is "Capacity to carry out the project", not "Our Story". Use the funder's words and the funder's order.
- Put the answer in the first sentence. Federal plain language guidance says to open with a topic sentence, since good opening sentences help organize the writing. A section on staffing might open: "A full-time program director, a half-time coach and a part-time data coordinator will carry out this project."
- Keep paragraphs short. Three or four sentences. One idea each.
- Use lists for lists. Steps, requirements and deliverables are easier to take in as bullets.
Here is a hypothetical before and after. Say a rural food bank is answering a criterion on community partnerships.
Before: For over thirty years our organization has been a pillar of the community, and over that time we have built relationships with many entities. Among these are local churches, schools, and, now, the county health department, with whom we are in discussions about various initiatives.
After: We work with eleven partners to reach families we don't see at the pantry. Three matter most for this project: the county health department refers patients who screen as food insecure, two elementary schools identify families for weekend meal bags, and a regional hospital funds delivery to homebound seniors.
The second version gives the reviewer a number, names the partners' roles and ends on what's relevant. Check any figure like this against your own records before it goes in.
Use plain language
The federal government's own plain language guidance is useful for grant writers too. It says to write for your audience, and that plain language does not mean dumbing content down: it means using language your audience understands and is comfortable with.
A few habits do most of the work:
- Use active voice. The federal guidance says active voice makes it clear who should do what. "Our coach will meet each participant weekly" beats "Weekly meetings will be held with each participant."
- Use the simplest verb. The same guidance warns about hidden verbs, nouns like "implementation" or "utilization" doing the work of "carry out" or "use". Look for the "make a decision" and "give consideration" patterns and replace them with "decide" and "consider".
- Define acronyms the first time and use few of them. A reviewer on a different panel may not know yours.
- Keep sentences short. If a sentence runs more than two lines, it probably holds two ideas.
- Cut filler. Phrases like "it is important to note that" delay the point.
Funders' own language is the exception. If the notice says "participants", don't switch to "clients", and if it defines a term, use that definition. Matching their vocabulary helps the reviewer match your answer to their form. The article on clarity over cleverness goes further on this.
Use visuals where they help
Tables and white space can do work that paragraphs cannot, as long as you stay inside the funder's rules.
- Tables suit timelines, staffing plans, budgets and anything with rows and columns. A reviewer can check a table in seconds.
- White space helps. Short paragraphs and headings make a page look approachable.
- Consistency matters. Use the same heading style, the same terms and the same number format throughout.
Check the formatting rules before you design anything. Federal agencies must state limits on page numbers and formatting requirements such as font and font size, margins and paper size in the Application Contents and Format section of a notice (2 CFR 200 Appendix I). Some funders set specific rules. NIH, for example, requires text in attachments to be 11 points or larger, no more than 15 characters per linear inch and no more than six lines per vertical inch, with margins of at least half an inch on all sides. Those are NIH's rules, not everyone's. Use the ones in your notice, and don't shrink type or margins to squeeze in extra words. If you're over the page limit, cut.
Read it aloud, then read it cold
Two checks before you submit:
- Read it aloud. Anywhere you stumble, a reviewer will skim. Fix it.
- Hand it to someone who hasn't seen it. Ask them to find your answer to each criterion in under a minute each. If they can't, neither can the reviewer.
These work alongside a full proofread. The final read-through describes how to schedule one.
Your next step
Read your next draft aloud, section by section, and mark every spot where you stumble or lose the thread. Then rewrite the first sentence of each section so it answers the criterion directly.
SoliContraX is built to take the first draft off your plate, so your time goes into editing like this. Upload the notice, work from a draft built from your own materials and make it clear before it goes out. See how to get started.