The Problem Statement

How do you explain the challenge, need or problem your organization is attempting to address when you’re developing a grant proposal to submit to a private foundation. As a grant writer you should know that need statement or problem statement should form a chapter or major heading in your proposal, which means it’s key to defining and verifying your “ask”, i.e., your application for funding.

The need statement or problem statement should fit the values, vision statement and mission statements of a nonprofit organization to the reason you endorse in your grant application. It is the the core of the narrative, around which you develop your grant proposal. As you drill down into detail, the hierarchy of statements in grant writing goes from values to vision to mission and at last to need. You go from the big picture to pointed detail that tells about the problem.

Whose Need Counts?

Just what is it that is being referred to when you discuss need? Your nonprofit organization has a need for resources that sustain your mission, does it not? So surely you can apply to private foundations and say “we need this amount of funding to perform our mission”, can’t you?

Well, no actually, you can’t. To the other end of your communication that sounds like saying “look at me, I’m awesome, fund my organization and maybe I’ll pay attention to the issue that you support”. It’s a no no. You really should understand that, as a nonprofit, you are electing to be a means to an end. You are a force for the solution, not the solution that works to solve the need itself and it is the solution that private foundations are going to consider funding.

The recipients of relief and support from nonprofits are the end users of your program, they are the clients. An example of a need would be something not unlike the need to end the cycle of poverty within a given community. As in a situation where households can not raise their quality of life and children go on to repeat the cycle time and again because of some injustice or absence of community services. With this case the need would be for resources that support families and empower them to increase their standard of living.

Justify Your Case

Funders don’t truly have an interest in you over and above how you directly deal with the need that exists in the community. So, to successfully get grant funding, your need is to show that you will assign the grant directly to some aspect of the societal need. Your need supports the client’s need.

First explain the indicators of the need in broad outline. Next, define the underlying root of the problem. The symptoms will return until the root cause, the real problem is addressed and you should confirm that you have a lucid awareness of what that is. Back each assertion about the cause with as many statistical facts and figures as are relevant.

Because the need is the cause for your project you should match a portion of the problem to each element of your enterprise and how the grant helps your end users, the clients of your nonprofit, overcome the need.

Create A Clean Statement

The need statement is so significant to your proposal that you can not afford it as anything below razor sharp. Test this by showing it to someone who’s not connected like a friend or family. If they can grasp the need, based upon nothing more than your statement then it’s clear enough to include. If they can’t immediately grasp the problem then you should revise the statement to be more straightforward and clear.

Try to stay away from using circular reasoning. The absence of a solution is not per se a need. For instance, stating that not having childcare for a neighborhood is the need for childcare, is not sufficient. You have to go to the underlying root cause, which may be that single mothers in a community can’t break the cycle of poverty due to the fact that they are isolated and unable to work as they don’t have anyone to care for their children. The underlying need is how to break the cycle poverty, which repeats, generation after generation with no way out.

Pull It Together

To review, the need or problem statement specifies the cause that you are dealing with in your plan. You should make it plain that the funding ask is specifically intended to provide a solution to the problem. Make sure that you have the facts and figures that support your case. The numbers need to be right and make sense to the reviewer who appraise your plan.

Also, try to demonstrate that your plan deals with the need better than alternative projects. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to make your case by speaking badly about competing projects past or present. With the words you write build hopefulness in the need statement that you will have the ability to provide a successful solution to the problem.

One other thing to think about is if you are willing for the project to become a model for others to emulate. Certain types of programs have clear potential for duplication in other communities. If you consider that this holds true, it can give power to your proposal.

Keep in mind, as a grant writer, yours is not the need. If you are working with a non-profit as a client, your client’s need is not the need. Nonprofit organizations are brokers of the solution, their clients who are the final recipient of benefits have the need. So when you write that grant proposal make sure your statement of the need or problem is clear.