2 Day Grant Proposal Writing Training Participation

Day 1

The event was organized by Nepal Institute of  Research and Communication, and I was also interested because proposal writing skill specially for grant, is something the upcoming technical manpower should have good command on. And I am not so much good at understanding these things so I had set up my mind to participate in this event.
The training started by generally talking about what is proposal, what a proposal must contain to be eligible for receiving grant or certain fund or for selection. We discussed about what to be done and what should be avoided during proposal preparation.
Then our Sudip Upreti sir take hold of the class. In which, we go on to study in detail about parts and components of technical proposal writing.

Talking about various aspects, which we describe below:
Cover page: Very simple yet relevant thing
Executive summary: In 400-600 words, your plan briefing, considering your designing as well.
Introduction: With background and context, linking with the call of the proposal. In which you can further use infographics to show conceptual framework.
Capabilities statement: To show that you are capable of doing the project. Your project management practices and sectoral experiences, if included is great.
Implementation plan: For this, it would be better to use flow chart using striking notes and bold fonts etc.
Team composition: It shows that you are serious about carrying out the work, with sound and capable team in hand. Capabilities of team leader and other members should be highlighted.
After studying all these things, we went on to prepare a conceptual framework for a given proposal. We were actually in a great dilemma since we were not sure on what to do, we hadn't ever prepared or done anything like that ever, so it was really weird, specially when all the team members got puzzled at the same time. With the great discussion but barely writing or drawing anything hour went by. We tried to organize ideas together and write in the way we understood (which we later found out to be wrong haha). We successfully presented out framework in front of the class, received suggestions and technical advice from fellow teammates and teachers, on what to consider in such situation.
So it was interesting time together.

Then we went on to discuss remaining portion of proposal preparation
Quality assurance mechanism: How will you guarantee the Funder that your collected data will be safe, secured and protected.
Monitoring and Evaluation framework: How do you plan to evaluate your own data. Using experts, preparing reports/articles and using different indicators were discussed in this portion.
Stakeholder Mapping: By knowing about the influence and impact of different stake holders level, the funder can be sure that you well know the work you are doing and with the people you are involved in the community.
Potential Risk: What might be the probable factors that might be the barrier in project completition is mentioned here. While writing this section your own personal experience adds extra value.
Appendices: In this section list of studies, Gannt Chart showing time-frame and activity pattern, figures and other stuffs are included.

Hence, the day ended with good vibe. Participants enthusiasm was good, we all had pretty good team work and tried to present our ideas in good way, in which we received quality suggestions. The overall component of Grant proposal was covered, then we departed for home.