Telling your story with data: 5 essentials for Grant Writers

Compelling stories bring your mission to life. They also differentiate winning grant proposals from all the other files in an overflowing folder in a funder’s inbox.

Seasoned grant seekers (nonprofit professionals and freelancers alike) understand that the most effective grant narratives strike the perfect balance between quantitative and qualitative, numbers and anecdotes. A rich mix of details makes it much easier to visualize your project making real, on-the-ground impact.

However, an effective approach requires much more than simply inserting stories into your proposals. 

Think of it this way—it’s easy to tell when a dish has had too much salt or random spices thrown in. As a diner, you’d think the chef was trying to overcompensate or hide something gone wrong. Every ingredient should come together to create a coherent (and palatable) finished product. 

Grant proposals are the same way. Stories, backed by data, should naturally infuse the overall narrative to help create a unified whole. 

But how do you make this a sustained practice? What will you need to get started? We’ll discuss the essentials for more effective data-backed storytelling into five key categories.

Hard Numbers

Concrete statistics and figures often carry the most weight with funders. Their mission is to maximize impact with their own limited resources, after all. Numbers go a long way to instill confidence in your proposal’s viability and impact.

Grant requirements often ask for data like:

• • Historical program performance statistics

  • Impact details from previously funded projects

  • Projected impact of proposed projects

  • Contextual data related to demographics, local trends, etc.

  • Data relating to your nonprofit’s partnerships and collaborations

  • Detailed financial and budget data

  • Other external research and statistics to back up your claims and projects impact

These types of data will help you build a compelling, well-rounded argument for your nonprofit’s proposal. Use these numbers to intentionally paint the picture you want to present to funders.

Impact is particularly important for shaping your overall narrative. Master impact reporting, and you’ll set your nonprofit up for stellar long-term results on both ends of the process—grant seeking and grant management.

Pro tip: If you need to contextualize less-than-ideal numbers, use strength-based rather than deficit-based writing. Transparently acknowledge your challenges while explaining how your strengths set you up to overcome them. Avoid overemphasizing the problems and constraints you face—this can make the challenges seem inherent and impossible to overcome. Focus on the circumstances and solutions.

For example, maybe something went wrong with program implementation or impact measurement the last time you won a grant, and these details are relevant to your current proposal. Don’t hide or whitewash the shortfalls. Acknowledge them, explain the situation, and lay out how you’ll handle it differently this time.

Humanizing Details

Human stories represent the other half of the coin, qualitative details that balance the data to create a complete, compelling picture of your plans. These stories bring your numbers and impact (past, present, and future) to life in memorable ways.

Examples of humanizing details to incorporate into grant proposals include:

• • Short anecdotes and quotes from constituents

  • Longer stories and interviews from constituents and program staff about their experiences and the impact they’ve seen or experienced from your work

  • Testimonials from partners about your work together

  • Quotes from experts on your area of focus or plans

  • Direct observations from the community about the problems you’re tackling

Qualitative information plays two important roles in your grant proposals: hooking readers’ interest and enriching your claims. 

Use these story elements strategically to catch the eye, make your challenges more real, and illustrate your impact in tangible ways. Get informed consent from constituents and others as you gather their input.

Pro tip: Are there ways you could capture data that conveys qualitative insights? For example, quick surveys that measure constituent opinions give you a hard number that directly reflects your relationships and impact. Using this data in your grants gives you an upper hand—authoritative numbers that tell a real story about your work.

Ongoing Data Collection

Consider the satisfaction surveys discussed above. This easy addition to your program follow-up process could bring lasting benefits down the line. 

On the other hand, not consistently gathering data leads to more difficult grant writing. Many organizations face the immediate hurdle of starting from scratch each time they write a new proposal. When a grant deadline looms, scrambling to gather jumbled data from past programs is never a good use of time.

Ongoing data collection greatly eases the process of using data to tell stories and illustrate your impact to funders. However, making it an intentional habit requires upfront effort and time investment. Consider these ways to bolster your data collection:

• • Learn more about and invest in your organization’s impact measurement practices.

  • Double-check that your recordkeeping and accounting processes effectively serve your reporting and compliance needs.

  • Start recording the easiest-to-capture data, such as quick stats on your sponsorships, that you know would be helpful to have at the ready for your next grant proposal.

  • Regularly review industry reports and subscribe to authoritative publications in your sector or focus area.

  • Establish a regular survey cadence that rotates between topics or target audiences.

  • Send out a quick call for story submissions from constituents and donors, perhaps as part of a mini-contest. Or, consider making a bigger push for story collection by recruiting focus groups or launching an “oral history of our organization” project.

You can make data collection a sustained effort in many ways, and it pays off. 

More data and details will enrich your proposals. Improving your data infrastructure leads to improved operations and easier grant management. Regularly asking for constituent, partner, and donor feedback deepens your relationships and gives you powerful social proof to use in other communications, like fundraising appeals.

Backend Logistics

Staying organized drives success. You already know that grant seeking can be complicated, with input flowing from several departments and individuals, complex plans and financials, and more.

We recommend conducting a preliminary kickoff meeting to ensure your grant writing process runs smoothly. Use it to:

• • Gather everyone involved with the current grant, including those who will need to help gather information for it. 

  • Explain the grant, its requirements, and your proposed project. 

  • Clearly assign ownership to different steps and resources as needed. 

  • Establish a schedule of deadlines for what you need from whom and by when. 

  • Schedule regular check-ins and progress updates. 

Knocking this initial meeting out of the park can go a very long way to keep your grant writing process organized. You’ll have the data and plans you need to develop a thorough proposal well ahead of the final deadline.

If you regularly manage your organization’s grant seeking efforts, you’ll also benefit from brushing up on your project management skills. Delegation, time management, schedule creation, and more will serve your team and your nonprofit well in the long run.

The Right Tech Stack

The right tools will help you progress at a steady pace, craft more compelling stories, and keep improving. The wrong tools eat up more time and resources than they save.

To build or improve your data infrastructure, you’ll need:

• • Your nonprofit’s CRM or central database

  • An accounting platform or easy access to the reports they generate

  • Integrations between your CRM and any tools you use to fundraise, engage constituents, and/or run programs

To support grant seeking specifically, you’ll need:

• • Access to grant databases and directories

  • Project management and collaboration tools for file sharing, setting deadlines, etc.

  • Grant management tools to ensure you’ll stay organized and meet funder requirements once funding has been awarded

Bonus tip: Many organizations also now turn to AI grant writing tools to help streamline the research and drafting processes, but note that this is an emerging field. Stay mindful of AI’s limitations if you go this route!

Take some time to review your current tech stack and the data it could provide—are you currently making the most of your data to enrich your grants with compelling details? Do you have any glaring gaps in your toolkit?

For small shops, some tech resources like grant databases and reporting tools might be worked around inexpensively through free directories and manual spreadsheet systems. 

Just keep in mind that investments in purpose-built tools with more advanced functionalities will yield the most long-term value. While small organizations don’t need to commit to a heavier-duty tool right away, an intentional upgrade will likely be needed in the future to scale up your efforts and make grants a sustained revenue source.

Data-backed stories stand out to funders, but they don’t appear out of thin air. 

Understand the types of quantitative and qualitative data that will make your proposal shine. Turn data collection into less of an overwhelming task by baking it into your regular workflows. Stay organized and use the right tools to ensure you have all the information you need when you begin on a new grant. 

These might be uncharted waters for your team, but they’ll pay dividends. The future you will be popping confetti when that shiny award letter arrives!

This blog is an original work of the attributed author. It is shared with permission via Foundant Technologies' website for informative purposes only as part of our educational content in the social good sector. This text's views, thoughts, and opinions belong solely to the author and do not necessarily reflect Foundant's stance on this topic.