Successful nonprofits know that humans respond to stories.

When we hear the right combination of characters, motivations, and actions, we often can’t help but get hooked. The right story catches our attention and makes us more willing to listen to the hard numbers and details that ultimately convince us to take action.

Whether it’s an emailed donation appeal, social media post, or old-school flyer on a bulletin board, the best nonprofit communications help your audience relate to and position themselves within your mission’s story.

But what about some of your highest-impact communications—grant proposals? Do your grant applications tell stories that catch the attention of funders and illustrate the real impact their support will have on your community?

Let’s take a look at why storytelling matters for nonprofit grant writing and actionable ways you can start telling more compelling stories in your proposals.

Why Does Storytelling Matter for Grant Writers?

Storytelling matters in grant writing for two key reasons:

• Stories help you stand out. Foundations and corporate philanthropy programs receive floods of applications for new grant opportunities. A compelling story with interesting details will go much further to catch the attention of a reviewer working through a stack of proposals rather than just facts and figures.

• Stories make things real. You need numbers and projections to make a compelling argument, but lean too far in this direction and you risk over-abstracting your pitch. Effective storytelling keeps things balanced and tangible. After all, you’re not starting a new program to make a line go up on a graph—you’re starting it to drive more and better outcomes for real people.

Remember, no one has your unique mission, community, and vision but you. These are powerful assets to tap into that will catch the eye and differentiate your proposals. Storytelling is how you put them to work, but they’ll only contribute to a persuasive whole if you follow a few tried-and-true best practices.

(And for freelance grant writers, taking the time to learn and tell your clients’ stories will make a fantastic impression and potentially lead to continued business.)

We’ll explore some foundational storytelling strategies for grant writing, broken into two categories: tactical and stylistic.

Tactical Tips for Storytelling in Your Grant

Even before it’s time to put pen to paper, these logistical and process tips will help you hone your grant storytelling strategy:

• Understand your funder. Always take the time to research the funder providing the grant, its mission, past funded projects, and other partners. Needless to say, you should also read, read, and reread the grant’s requirements. These insights will keep your application on the right track from the start and help you better understand the types of mission-aligned stories that will best resonate with the funder you’re trying to convince.

• Host a kickoff meeting and gather what you need. Develop an agenda and invite stakeholders to review the grant’s purpose and guidelines, as well as the data and stories you’ll need for writing a well-rounded proposal. Identify who owns that information and how to access it—generating a report in your CRM, collecting constituent testimonials, etc. This step is always important, but it’s particularly valuable for freelancers who may not be as familiar with the nonprofit’s team and workflows.

• Don’t skimp on the details. Take your time (ideally you’re not facing an imminent deadline) to collect more data, financial statements, testimonials, and anecdotes than you think you need so that you can focus on curating rather than scrambling as the submission date approaches. Remember to gather a range of both qualitative and quantitative information from a variety of sources to help flesh out your stories.

• Keep it focused. You can only effectively curate your stories to support your grant goal if you have a laser-focused plan for satisfying its core requirements. Otherwise, you run the risk of using precious word counts on details that, while interesting, might drift from the key message you’re trying to drive home. This is why we recommend grant writers start with a “narrative skeleton,” an initial outline directly based on the grant’s guidelines and requirements.

• Overwrite, then trim. It’s much easier to trim down your proposal to focus on the most compelling of your talking points and examples than it will be to fluff up or inflate your proposal at the last minute. It’s easy to ignore filler content, and your funders can probably sniff it out quickly. But by following all the best practices above (and for writing your grant proposal in general), it becomes much easier to trim your way down to a focused, highly effective grant narrative.

Key takeaway: An effective grant proposal should be like a marble statue, revealed by thoughtfully chipping away at the whole, rich story of your mission, and not a jumble of rocks glued together at the last minute. And while a jumble of rocks might tell a story, chances are it won’t be the perfect story for the situation or nearly as targeted and effective as the one told by a carefully crafted marble statue.

Stylistic Storytelling Tips for Grant Writers

You’ve prepared an outline, synced up with your team, and gathered a wealth of qualitative and quantitative information to help shape the stories in your grant proposal—what now? Here are stylistic tips that will help during the writing and editing processes:

• Understand strength- vs. deficit-based writing. As you lay out the context for your proposal, consider how you frame your nonprofit’s mission, history, community, and more. Do you focus more on what’s broken or missing, or what’s working and should be further invested in? Is the tone nihilistic or optimistic? There are nuanced distinctions between strength- and deficit-based writing. While you should avoid “positivity whitewashing” your community’s problems in a way that obscures your organization’s need for resources, your proposal should reflect an urgent, forward-looking position rather than get stalled out in problems.

• Use a people-first approach. Your constituents and community are the driving force behind your entire mission and all your work. Make sure this is abundantly clear in your grant proposal by anchoring your stories and details with real people. Specificity and authenticity are much more appealing to readers than vague hypotheticals. Just be sure to get permission from individuals as needed to use their real stories and/or names.

• Find the right mix of first- and third-person. Writing in the first person (“We,” “our organization”) encourages readers to connect with your stories and even imagine themselves in them. The third person (“It,” “the organization”) is in many cases essential for clear and concise communication, especially when dealing with complex subjects that require contextualization. Don’t listen to advice telling you to only use one or the other—both have their purposes in effective writing. Just be mindful to not over-rely on the first person to the point of coming across as vague or unserious, and avoid using the third person so much that your stories become repetitive, long-winded, or cold.

• Be mindful of passive voice. Similarly to first- and third-person, understanding the roles of active and passive voice and the impacts they have on communication will help you frame your stories in the most effective ways possible. Active voice (“We will serve X constituents…”) creates dynamism and clear cause and effect, creating a feeling of movement and impact. Passive voice (“X constituents will be served…”) can create a dry or impersonal effect, but it’s often essential for clearly describing complex situations or concepts. When writing about impact and people, generally emphasize active language, but remember that passive voice can and should be used strategically, too.

• Strike the right middle tone. As you seek the right balance of person and voice in your grant narratives and anecdotes, don’t forget about tone. Funders need facts to make their decisions, but you know that stories and emotions get readers’ attention and could be the deciding factor in your win. While you should never be manipulative or overwrought in your language choices, you also shouldn’t speak flatly to the point of coming off as apathetic. Instead, focus first on speaking to your funder clearly and directly. If you follow the best practices listed above, you should end up with impactful, well-tailored language that doesn’t come across as cold or melodramatic.

Key takeaway: There’s no one-size-fits-all way to approach writing style when it comes to storytelling in grant proposals. If there were, stories wouldn’t be nearly as effective at catching our attention, evoking emotions, and spurring action. 

The key is to understand the different tactics and trade-offs at your disposal as a writer. Understand the situations when some strategies work better than others, learn as you go, and take your time to revise and experiment if something reads unclearly or isn’t striking the right tone.

Once you have a complete draft of a grant proposal full of engaging narrative details and compelling arguments, give yourself a quick break from it. Ask a team member to review your draft, proofread it, and share any suggestions. When your team is happy with the final product and has attached any necessary supplemental documents, ship it off! Take the time to recognize everyone involved in the process, and keep them updated with any news.

And for fundraisers who have been tasked with grant writing for the first time (or the first time in a while), don’t be afraid to seek some expert guidance beforehand or take some refresher courses online. Applying for grants is a very worthwhile investment of your nonprofit’s time but only if you’re equipped with the tools and resources you need to succeed.