How to Create a Grant Boilerplate Document
If you’ve written even two grants, you know that grant funders ask the same questions over and over again. (sometimes within the same application! It’s maddening.) So that means that, as a grant writer, you will very likely be reusing the same grant answers from one application to the next. Without a plan, copying language from old applications quickly leads to inconsistent program descriptions or, even worse, errors in your application.
I’ve already talked about how important it is to have a boilerplate document as a means of simplifying your grant writing process, and this post will give you a practical guide for building your own. While I refer to this as an Institutional Language Document, you might also hear it called a Grant Boilerplate or Grant Template, or even a copy/paste document. You can think of a Grant Boilerplate Document as a centralized, living document that houses your organization’s most accurate and reusable grant language, data, and narratives.
Putting all of your commonly used language in the same place can save you so much time. This document will keep you from rewriting your organizational description again or having an error in a grant application because you copied and pasted from last year’s application and forgot to update the school year. I had a recent client who has used a different version of their mission statement in every document I’ve reviewed! Ouch.
In this post, I’ll discuss how to format your document, the topics that I suggest it include, and give you tips on how to build and maintain it. Depending on how you lay this document out, it could even serve as a basic template for an LOI.
Formatting your Grant Boilerplate Document
I work primarily in Google Docs, so I build out a grant boilerplate document for each of my retainer clients in that system as a centralized grant writing reference document. I’ve tried both paged and pageless Docs, and each have their pros and cons (good thing it’s easy to switch back and forth). What I like about Google Docs is the shared editing capabilities and the ease with which I can look through previous versions of the document.
To give you a sense of scale, these documents have ranged from 30ish pages to just over 100 pages. I realize that sounds like a lot of pages! But keep in mind that you will hardly ever sit down to read the entire document at once (I do that a couple times a year just to be sure we’re not saving outdated info). One thing I love about Google Docs is the ease of inserting (and updating) a hyperlinked Table of Contents. I do this in each of my boilerplate documents so it’s easy for me (and the grant team) to find the language we’re looking for. Often, I’ll skip to a section with a quick control+F shortcut.
On a related note: Because of the wonder of the search shortcut, I do recommend having all of your language in a single document rather than multiple documents or Google Docs tabs. My goal is always to cut down the amount of time I need to spend looking for data and information, and opening multiple folders, documents, or tabs introduces friction I want to eliminate.
Suggested topics for your Grant Boilerplate Document
I think about the boilerplate in three sections: the basic information about your nonprofit that every grant funder needs to know, an overview of your organization and all your operations, and detailed information about each of your programs. Here’s how I’d suggest you start your Grant Boilerplate Document for each category of information.
Basic nonprofit information funders require in every grant
I hate having to go searching for those pieces of information every funder asks for, but that I don’t necessarily want to memorize. So I put them at the top of my boilerplate and never have to go looking for them!
Legal name and DBA name
Addresses, contact information, URLs - so you always have these at your fingertips
Identifying info like your EIN, UEI, and so on, your fiscal year
Style notes - Is there a company font? Do you italicize program names when portals allow? How do you abbreviate your organization's name? Do you use Oxford commas or not? Does your grant program use first- or third-person in grant narrative?
Bonus points if you include your organization’s annual cadence of budgeting, programming, and financial filings
Organizational narrative and governance information
This section of your document will likely be the most evergreen: you won’t need to update it quite as often as your program language, which likely changes with each year. By the time this section is done, the reader should understand everything about how your organization operates.
Mission statement and vision, plus organizational values if you find those helpful
Organizational summary (short) - when you’re asked to tell about your organization in “500 characters or less”
Organizational description (long) - gives an overview of all of your organization’s programs
Organizational history
Community profile - demographics, local industries, and anything else unique about your community, ideally citing legitimate sources
Strategic plan - an overview of your current strategic plan and the goals you draw funders’ attention to
Role of your board of directors/trustees - how your board supports the big picture work of your organization, including the percentage and dollar amount of their giving in the last fiscal year
Role of volunteers - what responsibilities do volunteers have?
Fiscal health and sustainability, financial controls - the answer to the age-old question: “How will your organization sustain your work after this grant has ended?” Also helpful if you’ve had a deficit in recent years and find yourself needing to explain this to funders.
Accessibility - how your organization ensures that your programs and venues are accessible to people with different abilities
Diversity, equity and inclusion statement - while there is conflict in the grant world about these terms now, I believe in creating safe, inclusive spaces, and those spaces will always matter to folks who need them the most. The pendulum swing away from DEI policies at the moment doesn’t mean we won’t get back to incorporating common-sense policies in the future.
Staff and partner bios - make sure to highlight your C-suite employees, plus your program staff and any specific partner organizations and individuals who benefit your programs
Information for each grant-relevant program
The topics below can be copied and pasted for each of your grant-relevant programs. I say grant relevant because (1) not all your programs will be eligible or attractive for grant funding, and (2) make your work simpler by only including grant language in this document!
Style notes specific to this program, like whether you use your organization’s name before the program (is it “XYZ’s Music Achievers” or “XYZ Music Achievers”?)
Summary of your recent achievements and outcomes so they’re easy to find - how many students you served last school year, what percentage of your participants said they’d learned from your program
Program summary (short) - ditto to the organizational summary, a brief overview of the program
Program description (long) - use this version when you have a bit more space
Timeline - the annual cadence of your program planning, implementation, and evaluation, detailed by season or month
Need statement, ideally with cited research, that helps funders understand what community need your program solves
Goals, objectives, outcomes of the program, and be as specific as possible! Bonus points if you import your logic model here
Evaluation methods - describe how you evaluate the success of your program
Impact - this is a great place to save patron quotes, links to survey results, and other language directly from your audience about how great your programs are
Description of beneficiaries served, including demographics (again, with citations if possible)
Partnerships with other organizations that are vital to the program
How to build your Grant Boilerplate Document
Don’t worry about building this document all at once! I’m working on one for a new client now. While I’ve created an outline similar to the one above, I’m filling it in as I answer these questions in distinct grant applications. Then, when I input the language the first time, I’m sure to note which application (funder, cycle name, and year) that language came from. If I find myself needing more information, I can always go back to that application for more.
If it feels overwhelming at first, remember that even a partially-built document becomes immediately useful! I’ve only just started building a boilerplate document for a new client and already refer to it on an almost daily basis.
And what shouldn’t you include in this document? I wouldn’t include information that is only relevant to a single funder or language that could become obsolete quickly. And I find that best practice is to transfer final drafts of narrative to the boilerplate rather than drafts. (That said, I do leave notes for myself about missing information or future updates.)
Using (and updating) your Grant Boilerplate Document
And voila! After you have your document built, it’s a fantastic starting point for your next application! You can copy and paste language from the doc into your working grant application and tweak from there, or you can even use your document to train an AI on your programs and tone.
The tough bit is keeping this document up to date. (Ask my VA: it’s the task she always assigns to me that I always put off as long as I can. Ha!) But seriously, it is important to update your boilerplate after each application or report submission, or else it loses its relevance. Make sure your post-submission checklist includes this subtask. If you find yourself putting it off, assign yourself a block of time to update the document with multiple applications and reports at once. I do prefer for the document to include only language that is relevant and up to date (i.e., remove programs that have been retired, take out staff bios if they leave the organization, etc.).
Ideally, you want this document to serve as your single source of truth. When I talked about having to open multiple documents and folders above leading to friction? Tell me the last time you have 15 tabs open in your browser to pull language from 10 different applications and reports. Oh, girl, I know it was yesterday.
I mentioned above that it’s possible to use a version of this document as a template for a letter of intent (LOI, also called a letter of interest or letter of introduction). And it is a great starting point for an LOI. But because I always suggest tailoring your language to the funder’s priorities, you would never simply export this document to a PDF and call it good. Ideally, you’ll also have had a phone call or meeting with the funder before submitting an LOI, so that you’ll know exactly which parts of your program they’re most interested in funding.
What would you include in your version of this document?
This is all about figuring out the systems that you can set up and maintain to make your life easier. Even grant writers don’t want to be writing all the time!
Are there any topics you feel grant funders ask all the time that I haven’t covered in my outline above? Do you already have a document like this that you use?
Enough reading: time to go build your own document!! It’s okay to start slow and build as you go.
P.S. If building this document feels overwhelming, my Increase Your Mileage service helps nonprofits create systems like this without starting from scratch.
Cover photo by Women of Color in Tech on WOCinTech.