Overlooked Opportunity in the Grant Proposal: The Needs Statement
Hi, I’m Larissa, a Development Associate here at Ivanhoe Development, where I focus on writing grants and the foundational piece that leads to excellent grants: program design.
I’d like to highlight a critical piece of a grant proposal and a key insight from my perspective as a grant writer and grant review panelist—one often overlooked in its importance—the Needs Statement.
I once came across a social post that stated something like, "The Needs Statement in grant proposal applications should be eradicated. Do we really need to describe how horrible things are in today’s world, where everything is burning around us?”
While I sympathize with the sentiment, I couldn’t disagree more.
Needs Statements (or Needs Assessment, Problem Statements or Justifications—whatever the funder wants to call it) are the backbone of the proposal. In this for-profit business world, we understand the gravity of the question—what problem is this product or service solving? Here, it is easy to see that an invention or new idea needs a problem to justify its existence. In the nonprofit world, the question is no less critical. Without understanding the problem we are concerned about, we cannot create a program to address the situation. Not only does the Needs Statement build the foundational logic for your program activities, goals, and strategies, but it also presents an opportunity for the organization to demonstrate an aspect of programs that is increasingly emphasized: community engagement.
Funders at the foundation, state, and even federal levels are including questions in grant applications like, “ How do you involve the community in planning, program design, and implementation? How do you identify the community’s needs? How do you integrate Lived Experiences? Describe your community engagement strategies.”
These “bottom-up” program design approaches, which emphasize starting with the community's needs, understanding their worldview to shape programming, and sharing power in decision-making, are becoming markers and expectations of effective nonprofits.
Though funders are now stating and emphasizing this more explicitly, the Needs Statement has always been where these questions inherently existed. It is in the Needs Statement where an organization demonstrates the depth of its connection to the community. This is where the funders meet the program’s target beneficiaries, learn how well the organization understands their challenges, and why the proposed program is the best solution. As someone who has sat on grant review panels and read endless needs statements, I find that these answers often shine a bright light on which organizations actively engage the community to shape programming and which aren’t.
However, I have also worked with enough nonprofits to know that many nonprofits are doing some form of community-engagement work, but may fail to articulate or highlight this effectively in the proposal. Weak Needs Statements will only have overly broad data and demographics (only citing national data or research), outdated data, a narrow understanding or one-sided perspective of the issue, or unsupported claims that lack data or context. The best Needs Statements are crafted like funnels—laying the contextual foundation for a broad understanding of the issue and how your organization or program fits within it, narrowing down to more localized data. The stand-out Needs Statements paint as complete a picture as possible of the target beneficiary, combining quantitative insights (demographics, statistics) with qualitative elements (quotes, stories, case studies) gathered by the organization or partners for the specific proposed program.
Here are three simple questions that an organization can consider when crafting their needs statements or reflecting on their approach of community inclusion in program design:
How do we identify needs?
What are all the ways your organization gathers feedback and uses that feedback to shape solutions? Is there more informal processes? Does the staff know where to collect and record participant feedback? Does leadership review this regularly? Does your organization organize formal group listening processes? Is there a community board? Are there multiple pathways for a community member to offer feedback or ideas?
The strongest and stand-out approaches go beyond gathering feedback—they continuously share back insights back to the community to ensure there is alignment and a shared understanding of the issue.
How do we generate program ideas and solutions?
This question gets at the germination of program ideas—the format and process of this is particularly important to consider here. Does your organization design and project and then ask the community for input or feedback, or are there ideation sessions with the community before developing the project? Your organization may fall anywhere on a spectrum, from keeping the community informed about project ideas, to collaborating with a deeper, more formal partnership.
How do we decide what program to implement, and how we will implement it?
This question addresses the concept of power. Who ultimately decides which program will be implemented and how? Consider the format and process of your program design and implementation—this might include the type of touchpoints and frequency of contact with the community when implementing the project, the structure of the decision-making leadership groups and meetings.
These questions help get at the heart of community-driven work and what we at Ivanhoe are passionate about doing—strengthening your connections to the community so you can steward your financial investments responsibly and effectively toward the needs of your community.
