Grant Writing Certificate

Program Overview

DePaul's 10-week Certificate in Grant Writing program equips non-profit professionals and artists with the skills to write successful grant proposals. Through online Zoom sessions, students cover topics from understanding philanthropy to crafting persuasive proposals, focusing on extending expository writing skills into technical fundraising writing. Successful completion requires attendance, participation, assignments, and a final draft of a grant proposal narrative.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

DePaul's Certificate in Grant Writing teaches you the art and science of writing successful grant proposals. Topics covered in the 10-week writing program include understanding philanthropy, researching prospects, crafting persuasive letters of inquiry, outlining and writing full proposals, evaluating program success, preparing budgets, and grant stewardship. By the end of the class, students should be prepared to effectively tackle a wide range of grant writing challenges. Certificate requirements include two or more chapters of reading per week, 2-4 pages of writing per week, independent research, asynchronous discussion forums, and synchronous online class attendance and face-to-face participation. Note: This class requires and assumes a core competency in expository writing and focuses on extending these skills into the specialized technical writing involved in fundraising. Students without fundamental writing skills, or those for whom English is a second language, may feel challenged at times.

Outline:

The program runs for 10 weeks and meets once/week on Wednesday evenings from 6:00 to 9:00 pm.

Week 1: Understanding the market: philanthropy overview

Week 2: Finding the fit: researching prospects

Week 3: Refining your ask: persuasion 101 and introduction to LOI's

Week 4: Ducks in a row: preparing for a grant-writing campaign

Week 5: Breaking down the proposal I (outline, background and need)

Week 6: Breaking down the proposal II (project description and evaluation)

Week 7: Breaking down the proposal III (capacity and sustainability, budgets and cover letters)

Week 8: Teacher/student conferences and problem-solving

Week 9: Revision, putting the package together, writing style

Week 10: Grant stewardship, ethical issues and career opportunities

Assessment:

Full credit and granting of a certificate for participation in this class requires: Regular attendance: no more than 2 absences unless approval is expressly given. Active participation in synchronous sessions, including engaging in small-group work. Satisfactory completion of all assignments. Complete Final Draft of the Full Proposal Narrative Final score of, at least, 70 out of 100 to earn the certificate.

Teaching:

All courses are taught online live via Zoom once per week.

Careers:

This class is primarily geared towards those seeking funds for nonprofit organizations. However, artists and scholars seeking personal support for projects will also benefit from this class. Who Should Attend Grant writers seeking skill enhancement, non-profit employees and volunteers and people seeking marketable skills in the NPO environment.

Other:

The program requires 2-3 books costing approximately $30/book. Books are not included in the course fee. The instructor will email a current booklist to all registered students prior to the course start date. All other course materials are included in the tuition fee and will be distributed in class and/or electronically. In this class, you will: Evaluate and draft Letters of Intent or Inquiry (LOI) Develop your writing skills via peer-review and individual conference Draft and revise a complete Grant Proposal Narrative Reflect on the importance of Grant Stewardship Compare Grant-Writing to Individual Donor Solicitation Case-writing