A master proposal is an essential tool for organizing and streamlining the creation of consistent and professional-looking project proposals. This article discusses important points required for developing a master proposal.
Title Page: The title page typically contains the project title, along with the contact details of the organization and the donor. Remember that the project title should be catchy and capture the essence of the proposal. The project title should provide a general idea of what the project is about and, at the same time, be simple and straightforward.
Your title page should be attractive and should not look cluttered and unprofessional.
Executive summary: This section is the summary of the project and presents a snapshot of the project to the reader. The executive summary summarizes the project proposal and analyses important points relating to the problem, the solution, the uniqueness of the proposal, and the reason your organization is suitable to carry out such a project.
To set the right tone, it is important that you are able to address the Why, How, and what of the proposal (Why- why do you want to start a particular project/why is the particular problem so important, How relates to the approach you will use to resolve the problem; and What refers to the goals you want to achieve at the end of the project.)
Even though the executive summary is the first section in the proposal document, you can always draft this section once you have completed drafting the entire proposal. This way, it will be easier to take important points from the proposal body and use them in the summary. Some points that you should keep in mind while summarizing the proposal are given below:
- Why is the project important?
- What is the problem that you are addressing?
- How do you intend to resolve the problem?
- What is the total budget and duration for the proposed project?
The ideal length of the executive summary usually is around one page long, which is approximately 300-500 words.
Project Rationale/Background: This is an important section of the proposal as it presents the argument of why your project needs funding. It describes the issues and problems a particular community faces and how your organization would address them.
Some points that should be considered while drafting the project rationale are:
What is the problem?
- What are some important facts related to the problem?
- Why is your organization suited to carry out such a project?
- What are the key actions that you will carry out as part of the project?
- What are some expected results of the project?
There is no standard rule for writing the project rationale, but most experts consider that the rationale should cover the following four elements.
- Situation Analysis: This section should briefly explore the current situation of the area. You can quote facts about the problem in this particular section.
- Purpose: Here, you should talk about why it is important to solve the particular problem and also what approach can be used to resolve the issue.
- Organization Strength: In this section, focus on your organization’s strength and your past experience in resolving similar issues.
Project Goal: A goal is a broad statement that defines what you plan to do in a project. Always remember that a well-written goal statement is a marketing tool that will help you in getting funded. The goal basically defines the purpose of the proposal by giving an idea to the reader of what problem your organization intends to address.
As the goal of the proposal shows the reader your intention towards solving a particular problem, it should be linked with the problem statement. For instance, if the problem that you are addressing is related to widow rehabilitation and well-being your goal should state that you seek to empower widows in the area through the proposed project. Writing the proposal, you can use words like decrease, deliver, develop, establish, improve, increase, produce, and provide.
Framing a Quality Goal
Avoid vagueness: The goal should clearly indicate the purpose of your proposal and specify certain aspects of the project.
The goal here clearly indicates the following:
- The main purpose of the project is the empowerment of widows and vulnerable women.
- The target beneficiaries of the project are 100 widows and vulnerable women.
- Entrepreneurship Development and capacity development will be used to empower the women.
- The project will be implemented in Busia County.
Objective: Objectives are detailed statements describing the ways through which you intend to achieve the goal. Use the S.M.A.R.T. method of writing your objectives, which means writing Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound statements.
All the objectives should contribute and support in achieving the specified goal. While framing the objectives, ensure that they provide answers to the 5Ws:
- Why: are you proposing a particular thing?
- What: approach will you adopt to reach the desired goal?
- When: will you conduct the particular project?
- Where: will you implement the project?
- Who: will be the primary stakeholders/beneficiaries or who will be doing a particular thing in a project?
Your objectives should always be written using action verbs like create, identify, promote, enhance, increase, and develop etc. These verbs help describe the course of action and clarify your objectives.
Project Strategy: Project strategy refers to the methods used to achieve project goals and objectives. These are broad approaches and provide direction in project implementation. The strategy will align your project activities with the project goals and objectives.
Example:
- Awareness Generation
- Capacity Building
- Market Linkages
- Enterprise Development
Project Activities: These refer to the smallest identifiable and measurable pieces of work planned for completion throughout a project. Defining the activities helps the project staff to understand what actions to do and at what time. Every activity is associated with a definite interim goal or objective.
Example:
- Identification of widows in the village
- Conducting counseling sessions.
- Conducting Motivational sessions
- Meetings with families and guardians
- Awareness session on widow rights
Project Management/Personnel: This section talks about project management aspects. Here, you mention about the implementation staff, the implementation schedule, and other related stuff. You can describe the people who will be hired as part of the project along with their respective roles. Example: The Project team will comprise of the following staff members:
- Project Director, who will be responsible for the overall administration and management of the project. He/she will develop proposals for future funding and manage the other staff.
- Social worker: responsible for the mobilization and conducting of initial level village meetings and orientation sessions.
- Counselors: Will conduct emotional and motivational sessions for the women.
- Trainers: A total of three trainers for conducting training on soft skills, tailoring, and jewelry designing.
Similarly, you can also mention about the implementation schedule of various activities.
Monitoring & Evaluation: This section discusses the proposed mechanisms and procedures for monitoring the project activities so that one can ensure that all activities occur as planned. You should have a well-defined plan to monitor your project activities and also to evaluate the success of the project. Monitoring allows the project team to keep a check on the progress, while evaluation helps the team to appraise data and improve project implementation in the future.
Performance Indicator: Performance indicators are important to the proposal as they indicate whether the objectives have achieved meaningful results. Performance indicators help the project team in identifying the quality and level of the result that has been achieved. Performance indicators have been categorized into qualitative, quantitative, process, and result. Quantitative indicators are numerical in nature, while qualitative indicators require subjective evaluation. Similarly, process indicators are used to define a process or an activity, while results indicators refer to the indicators that indicate the result achieved from implementing the activity. While identifying the performance indicators, keep the following in mind:
- Should be realistic
- It should be simple to use
- Have a few meaningful indicators that can be used regularly to assess the project
- It can be used for analysis
- Gives a clear indication of the success of the result.
Sustainability: To sustain the impacts of any community-based project, it is essential that suitable linkages are developed with the local community, government department, and all relevant stakeholders. You should clearly spell out the sustainability measures in your project.
Example: Some ways through which you can ensure sustainability.
- Community Participation: We ensure that the local people actively participate in the entire project so that they own the project rather than considering it as some sort of charity.
- Multi-stakeholder engagement/partnerships: We involve stakeholders, which include local CSOs, NGOs, and government line departments and develop synergies with them. This helps enhance the project’s visibility and reduces duplication of activities.
- Expanding resource and donor base: We always engage new donors and stakeholders in our programs and we have multiple funding sources, which include membership fees and funding from individuals and institutional grants from donors.
Review and Editing: Read the proposal again and again so that you can reduce the occurrence of mistakes. Be sure that the proposal is clear and easy to understand. Have your proposal read by two-three to eliminate all sorts of errors in the text. Many organizations also get their proposals reviewed by a cold reader (a person who was not involved in the project writing). This sort of a review helps you improve the proposal’s quality. Once all the necessary changes have been incorporated, you can submit the proposal to the identified donor agency.
