When it comes to writing grant proposals, a lot of nonprofits instinctively focus on problems: what’s broken, missing, or underfunded. However, there is a powerful alternative that not only makes your proposals more compelling, but also can energize your entire organization.
It’s called Appreciative Inquiry, and it flips the script. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong and how do we fix it?” Appreciative Inquiry asks, “What’s working, and how can we build on it?” By grounding your grant narrative in your organization’s proven strengths, you tell a story of capacity, credibility, and future potential that funders are eager to support.
Appreciative Inquiry is both a mindset and a method for engaging people in self-determined change. It’s built on simple but powerful assumptions:
- What you focus on grows.
- Every system has strengths.
- People support what they help create.
- Language shapes reality.
Instead of framing your proposal around deficits, Appreciative Inquiry helps you identify and amplify your positive core, the unique combination of strengths, achievements, and values that set your organization apart.
The Appreciative Inquiry 5-D Cycle offers a strength-based framework for crafting grant proposals that inspire while grounding them in evidence. It begins with Define, where you set an affirmative focus that emphasizes growth and potential rather than deficits. In Discover, you highlight your organization’s proudest achievements and unique strengths, using these stories and data to establish credibility. Dream encourages envisioning the ideal future if those strengths are fully leveraged, painting a compelling picture in your proposal that shows the potential for transformation.
From there, Design maps out the concrete actions, resources, and partnerships needed to achieve that vision, demonstrating how proven strategies will be scaled for greater impact. Finally, Destiny focuses on sustaining success by measuring progress, celebrating wins, and adapting along the way, using strength-based indicators to demonstrate growth and resilience. Together, these steps create a proposal narrative that is both aspirational and backed by evidence.
On September 4, we presented a webinar on this subject. See the recording here.
Thumbnail image: Shutterstock
