Guidelines for proposal writing and preparing budgets

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Please send funding proposals to grantproposals@osisa.org, and reports on existing OSISA projects to grantreports@osisa.org.

OSISA invites you to submit project proposals conforming to the guidelines outlined below. Before submitting your proposal we encourage you to read through individual programme descriptions available on our Website to understand our funding priorities and our areas of support.

In addition to the proposal, please include the following items as attachments:

• a covering letter signed by the Chairperson of the Board of your organisation or any other executive authority in your organisation;

• most recent annual report and audited financial statements or a current activities and financial report;

• proof of registration and statutes of your organisation;

• a list of Board members, trustees and staff;

• the most recent evaluation of your organisation or of a programme related to the proposal;

• other names of donors who have been approached to fund the project submitted to OSISA, including the name of the relevant individual at the donor agency, and their contact information.

ELEMENTS OF A PROPOSAL

Please structure your proposal as follows:

1. Executive summary

The Executive Summary provides a brief summary of the project or programme. The summary is often prepared last, but is presented at the beginning of the proposal.

In this section we recommend that you answer the following questions:

• What is the issue or problem that you are addressing?

• How do you propose to address this issue or problem?

• Who will benefit from your proposed activities?

• What is the timeframe of the entire project/ programme?

• Who will implement the project/ programme?

• What level of funding will the project/ programme require, and over what period of time?

We recommend that you organise the Executive Summary in the following way:

Problem statement

A brief statement of the problem or need that you have identified, and that you are prepared to address (one paragraph) often referred to as objectives.

The solution

A short description of the project/ programme, including activities, who will benefit from the project/ programme, and how and where it will operate. Provide a brief outline on how the project will be carried out.

Duration of the project/ programme

Indicate the length of the entire project/ programme, including elements and activities that extend beyond the requested funding.

Project/ programme partners and authors

Identify the person who prepared the proposal and any partners involved with the project/ programme. For example, your organisation may decide to develop a programme in collaboration with a national institution, or a funding agency may have expressed interest in supporting a portion of the programme/ project and also helped with conceptualisation of the project.

Funding requirements

Provide an explanation of the amount of money required for the project and your plans for funding it in the future. Three years is a good benchmark. It is important to make clear what percentage of the total contribution to the project is being requested from OSISA in this proposal. Please indicate the local currency used in the tables and convert each budget line item into US Dollars indicating what exchange rate you used.

2. Involvement of OSISA

In this section please answer the question, “Why do you want OSISA rather than some other organisation to sponsor you?”

3. Project description

Context and background

Explain the process leading to the project’s ultimate design and development, highlighting any relationships your organisation has with similar projects in your area or in the country as a whole.

Problem statement

This section should inform about the issues and problems your project is addressing. Present the facts and evidence that support the need for the project, illustrating that you understand the problems and can reasonably try to solve them. This section should be short, persuasive and convincing.

We recommend that you answer the following questions in developing your argument:

• Why are you undertaking this initiative?

• What need or problem is it addressing? Background facts and statistics should be included here although information that is too generic or broad will not help the argument. Information that does not relate to your organisation or to the project you are presenting could cause the readers to question the entire proposal.

• How does the programme fit in with your organisation’s overall strategy and mission?

• Illustrate, where possible, that your project addresses the need differently or better than other projects/ programmes initiated by other organisations. Try to describe how your work complements, but does not duplicate, the work of others. It is especially important that you describe how this project differs from similar projects that are already being implemented at the national or local level. OSISA is interested in collaborative projects, but we want to see that what you propose is unique.

 

Goals and objectives

This section should answer the following questions:

• What? Provide a detailed description of your project’s goals and objectives.

  • Goals are conceptual and abstract;

  • Objectives are specific, concrete, measurable, and achievable in a specified time period.

For example:

Goal:Our after-school programme will help children to read better.

Objective:Our after-school remedial education programme will assist fifty children to improve their reading scores by one grade level as demonstrated on standardised reading tests administered after participating in the programme for six months.

The goal is abstract (improving reading), while the objective is much more specific. It is achievable in the short term (six months) and measurable (improving fifty children's reading scores by one grade level).

• How?Provide a detailed description of the programme’s components. Include all items that you expect to occur from the time of the project/ programme inception through to its completion. Your methods should match the previously stated objectives. You may need to defend your chosen methods, especially if they are new or out of the ordinary. How and why will the planned work lead to the outcomes you anticipate?

Activities

• When?This section presents a timeline, including the order and timing of the tasks and activities. We suggest that you provide a timetable — i.e., 1st month, 2nd month, 3rd month... 1 year, etc.

Project indicators of success

• Expected outcomes: This section of the proposal is similar to the project objectives, but stated in a more complete and detailed form. Be sure to cover all your proposed activities - every activity must have an outcome.

The question we encourage you to consider and answer in this section is, “How will you measure whether or not your project has been successful?” It could be helpful to consider the SMART indicators used for gathering information on verification and planning:

Specific Outcomes must reflect exactly what the project intends to change.

Measurable Outcomes must be precisely defined and able to be measured.

Attainable Outcomes must be achievable by the project and sensitive to change.

Relevant Feasible time and money must be allocated to collect data using chosen indicators. These indicators must be relevant to the project in question.

Timebound Outcomes must have clear timelines indicating when particular changes are expected.

4. Implementing organisation

Please include the following information about your organisation:

• legal status

• where and when the organisation was founded

• examples of other activities the organisation is involved with

• collaboration with other organisations, groups, etc.

• track record (on other projects)

• composition of governance structure, including if it reflects a gender balance, and if there are any conflicts of interest

• mission of organisation

• target beneficiary or constituency

• leadership

• primary sources of funding.

In describing the project/ programme, you may have already mentioned staffing for the project. In this section include information about the number of staff, their qualifications, and specific assignments. CVs can be included.

"Staffing" may refer to volunteers or to consultants, as well as to paid staff. If you are entering into this project with a partner whose staff will be involved in putting the programme together, be sure to include some background information on the most important people.

If your programme is being developed with a partner organisation, it is important to include background information about that organisation to demonstrate why it is well suited for the project. It would also be useful to include copies of documents indicating that the partner is in fact willing to commit to this specific project, as well as any proof of funding already secured from their side, if applicable.

Finally it is important to describe governance within the project, especially if it is being implemented by two or more partner organisations.

• How are decisions being taken within the project?

• Has a project committee been convened? How and by whom?

• Describe who and what organisation takes responsibility for which parts of the project?

5. Gender analysis

We encourage interventions that are sensitive to gender dynamics in communities and that clearly define strategies for addressing them to ensure that activities supported do not further entrench discrimination and marginalisation of some social groups, relative to others. OSISA therefore encourages proposals that acknowledge the need for inclusive approaches that aim to bring about positive change.

OSISA endeavours in its approach to support activities and projects that recognise and acknowledge the power structures, and the different roles and responsibilities that women and men, girls and boys play in society. We appreciate the fact that these power structures can have either positive or negative impact on how women and men get involved and participate in and benefit from the activities and interventions that are supported, depending on the nature of the project.

A few selected indicators are given below to guide partners in preparing proposals for consideration by OSISA. These are by no means exhaustive, but are some of the key indicators to factor into the proposal preparation.

1. (a) Gender indicators with respect to project content. are some examples of possible gender indicators:

• project design and formulation encompasses the effective participation of both men and women, except where projects are gender specific;

• baseline surveys that inform project design contain, as far as possible, gender disaggregated data, information, and analyses;

• proposed project dimensions stimulate thinking and debate, and/or directly address issues concerning women, or concerning the relationship between men and women in the particular area of the subject matter of the project;

• project implementation addresses, where appropriate, the effective participation of both men and women, in relation to:

  • activities,

  • roles and responsibilities, and

  • the structures of the project team(s) and implementation processes.

  • issues that, in implementing communities, might disable or vitiate the effective participation of women, including times of meetings, security and safety concerns, cultural constructs of roles of men and women, etc.;

• monitoring and evaluation indicators are as far as possible gender disaggregated;

• both women’s and men’s participation in the monitoring and evaluation of the project, where appropriate, and that in this process adequate attention is paid to gender-related benchmarks and indicators set for the project.

1. (b) Gender indicators with respect to the institution proposing and implementing the project. Here are some examples of possible gender indicators:

• the numbers of men and women in the organisation and the management structure;

• human resource policies and practice, and how they affect women and women, including recruitment and benefits;

• staff or team roles and responsibilities;

• opportunities for advancement and career growth for both men and women.

OSISA will assist partners to do gender analysis in preparation of their proposals, where partners express such a need.

6. Youth participation

OSISA believes that the ideal environment for development is one that creates or facilitates broad-based participation. Considering the centrality of youth in Africa's population and the recovery and development process necessary for true progress, actions need to be taken to ensure the inclusion of youth in a wide variety of projects and programmes. Therefore projects should ensure that young people, both students and those not currently attending school, are targeted for interventions and inclusion in all stages of a project life cycle.

Please use this section to illustrate how youth are included in your current initiatives and how you plan to integrate involvement of youth into your proposed project.

 

7. Sustainability

Your proposal must include some description of your plans for the project’s sustainability. If your project generates income, a business plan should be included. When applying to OSISA, please keep in mind our general funding principles listed below.

OSISA’S general funding principles:

• OSISA will provide start-up funds for a project on the explicit understanding that no further support will be granted if, in the course of the first year, an organisation fails to develop a credible plan to sustain itself without further OSISA funding after more than another two years.

• OSISA will generally fund projects on the basis of proposals that set forth a credible plan to sustain the initiative without continued OSISA funding after no more than three years.

• OSISA may provide funds for projects that, by their nature, would be completed within a three-year period.

• OSISA will provide no more than one third of the resources needed by an organisation, on condition that the remaining amount needed is obtained from other sources.

A good sustainability plan should be worked into the structure of your project/ programme strategy and be part of your work plan.

Given the enormity of the needs in the region and the relative amount of resources available from OSISA or other donors, OSISA’s funding will rely on and encourage donor, government and other partnerships wherever possible. Community involvement and in-kind or monetary contributions to a project by a grantee are also encouraged whenever possible. OSISA is committed to developing funding strategies that inherently encourage and develop self-reliance and effectiveness.

8. Partnerships

We encourage you to discuss any particular partnerships or combinations of partnerships that are part of the project’s proposal such as:

• other NGO actors

• national and regional partners

• multiple donors

• cost sharing (pooling funds, in-kind matching, etc.)

• extent of involvement of partners

• how OSISA’s role will decline over time.

9. Grant duration

Indicate clearly the planned duration of the grant from its inception to the completion of proposed project.

10. Conflict of interest

In this section indicate any possible conflicts of interest for this project, either between OSISA and your organisation and project partners, or within your organisation relating to this proposal and your plans.

11. Evaluation

An evaluation is a good management tool and OSISA recommends that each organisation explain how it plans to evaluate their programme or project through time. Like strategic planning, it helps you to refine and improve your programme. An evaluation can be an excellent means for others to learn from your experience in implementing their own projects.

There are two types of formal evaluation. One measures the product or results of your programme; the other analyses the process by which you reach your objectives. Either or both might be appropriate to your project. For either type, you will need to describe how evaluation information will be collected and how the data will be analysed. You should present your plan for how the evaluation and its results will be reported, and the audience to which it will be directed. For example, it might be used internally, or it might be shared with the funding organisations, or it might deserve a wider audience.

12. Project budget

OSISA requires that all organisations applying for funds submit:

• A detailed budget that outlines the financial needs of the proposed project.

• An overall organisational budget (which includes all administrative, capital and project costs for your organisation) for each year to be funded in addition to the budget we are being asked to fund. (This is useful because it will inform OSISA of the other activities that your organisation is undertaking and the volume of funds being managed by the organisation).

Budgets should be built from the ground up, based upon your organisation’s goals and objectives, and on the methodology you have proposed. So when planning your budget, it is wise to look closely at your goals and objectives in order to determine the level of activity in the programme and the methods you will use to achieve them.

Your list of budget items and the calculations that you have done to arrive at a final figure for each item should be summarised on spreadsheets. You should submit these with your budget as an annotation and keep these to remind yourself how the numbers were developed. These spreadsheets can be useful as you continue to develop the proposal and discuss it with funders. They are also a valuable tool for monitoring the project once it is under way and for reporting after completion of the grant.

If your project is planned for more than one year, you should include as detailed a budget as possible for the entire duration of the project, year by year.

It is not necessary for your partner to submit a detailed item-by-item budget, but you should indicate generally what costs will be covered by your partner’s contribution to the project.

Consult with OSISA staff if you have any questions.

13. Conclusion

Every proposal should have a concluding paragraph or two. This is a good place to call attention to the future, after the grant is completed. This section is also the place to make a final appeal for your project.