The art of writing a winning grant proposal

In our previous article, we explored the crucial first steps in unlocking grant success: identifying your farm’s unique strengths and finding grants that align with your goals. We discussed the importance of self-reflection, where to look for funding opportunities, and how to start decoding the grant giver’s objectives.

This month we’ll dive deeper into the grant application process. We’ll walk you through the art of crafting a winning application by aligning your farm’s unique features with a funder’s goals. Using the real-world example of Love Is Love Cooperative Farm’s successful application for the Farm Labor Stabilization Program, we’ll demonstrate how to effectively communicate your farm’s story, address challenges head-on, and present a compelling case for funding.

Whether you’re new to grant writing or looking to refine your approach, this article will provide practical strategies to help you navigate the complex world of agricultural grants and increase your chances of securing valuable funding for your farm.

For Love Is Love, we decided to apply for the Farm Labor Stabilization and Protection Pilot Program (https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/FLSP_NFO.pdf). This was a new program, and the bureaucracy was strong with this one. The stated purpose was:

“[To] improve food and agricultural supply chain resiliency by addressing challenges agricultural employers face with labor shortages and instability. The FLSP Program seeks to advance the following Administration priorities: Goal 1: Drive U.S. economic recovery and safeguard domestic food supply by addressing current labor shortages in agriculture; Goal 2: Reduce irregular migration from Northern Central America through the expansion of regular pathways; and Goal 3: Improve working conditions for all farmworkers.”

This seems decently straightforward. But how on earth do those goals fit into a grant program? The answer is, not cleanly.

As it became apparent over several webinars and email exchanges, the people administering this program had only a general idea of how it was going to work. The program was a laundry list of different practices, some more practical than others. Offer collective bargaining options to workers? Easy enough to implement. Only recruit H2A workers through the ministries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador? A bit problematic when said ministries wouldn’t answer emails with questions about recruitment. Applicants could choose how many practices they would commit to implementing with the funding, and the number of practices would determine whether their application held platinum, silver or baseline status. That status, cross referenced with the number of full-time workers they employed, determined the amount of money they could apply for.

Confused yet? Add on the complexity of navigating “existing practices” versus “new practices” to implement and figuring out what constituted a “commitment,” and we had the makings of a head-spinning application due right smack after the December holidays, when no one would be checking their emails anyway.

That said, we suspected Love Is Love would be a strong candidate for this program. The ethos of their collective ownership means that they were already doing most of what was on the practice list. Given that, we knew that writing a winning application would depend on our ability to clearly describe what the farm hoped to achieve, be honest about where they needed help, and convince the grant committee that these practices were things they truly wanted to do — we weren’t just promising to create conflict resolution procedures to get grant money.

So, we set out to write a winning grant application. First, we wrote about what Love is Love already does for their workers, how workers can become owners, and what challenges they’ve run into as they expand their operations. Then we addressed every single practice in the RFA and described in excruciating detail what the farm currently does and what they planned to do. This got down to the level of checklists for inspecting worker housing and contact information for the plumbers and electricians who would get called in if a problem arose. It also got incredibly repetitive — when it comes to the differences between preventing retaliation, having a complaint procedure and preventing management from interfering in cooperative bargaining, for example, at the end of the day for a small team the answer comes down to “we’re not sure since this has never come up before, but please trust us that we’re good people and we’ll figure it out.”

When we submitted the application, we weren’t sure what to expect given that the program was new and we were trying to thread the needle on a few of the practices — for example, since we hadn’t heard anything from any of the government ministries, we wrote that we would recruit simultaneously through an agency and a government ministry with the goal of having one worker come from each source. But not only did Love Is Love win $400,000; we also wrote a winning application for another Georgia farm!

You don’t want to apply for every grant that your farm is technically eligible for — you’ll spend all your time writing applications, to start with, and you’ll start to view your farm as something to shoehorn into someone else’s priorities rather than the place where you’ve put in so much labor and love. We counseled a lot of potential applicants not to apply for the recent wave of Resilient Food System Infrastructure funding because the stated goal of the program was to invest in projects that would benefit the most farmers and consumers. An individual farmer wanting to upgrade their cold storage simply wasn’t going to rank higher than a small flash-freezing facility serving multiple farmers. This was especially true given that this was a new program, and the needs were huge. If RFSI continues to be funded, this dynamic may change over the next several years as the high-impact projects are funded and the lower-impact projects are able to compete. But we told several farmers that applying this year was a waste of their time and ours given the program goals and limited funding. Being eligible for a program doesn’t automatically make you a good applicant.

Putting It All Together: Crafting Your Winning Application

So, how do you combine your unique farm with the goals of the funder to come out with grant funds?

Tell Your Story

Use concrete examples to illustrate your farm’s unique qualities and let your passion shine through.
Work within the lines of the application — make sure the budget covers your actual financial plans, not your vision for what the funding will achieve.
Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself and even use the same phrases over and over again. Use the words in the RFP to describe what you’re planning to do.

Be Specific

Provide detailed plans for how you’ll use the grant money, down to the dollar and cent.
Include timelines and measurable goals — how long will each step of the project take, and how will you know when each step is done? This may mean you include sentences that feel painfully obvious.
Show that you’ve really thought this through. Grant applications are not the space to wave your hands and say, “it’ll happen somehow.”

Address Challenges Head-On

Every farm has its struggles — don’t shy away from them. In our application for Love Is Love, we were honest that they would need help navigating the H2A process, especially if the government ministries weren’t responding to email.
Explain how the program will help you overcome these challenges. The FLSP offers technical support for farms to implement the recommended practices, and we highlighted that the farm would appreciate having help to create formal procedures for conflict resolution and collective bargaining.
Frame problems as opportunities for growth and improvement. Show how you want to change, and how the program will help you get there.

Get a Second (and Third) Opinion

Have someone else read your application before you submit it. This is especially important because this is a language we’re not necessarily familiar with as farmers — it’s easy to let your eyes glaze over and miss the point of a sentence or entire paragraph.
Find readers who aren’t familiar with your farm — they’ll be able to spot any confusing or unclear sections. Having a family member read your application can help you refine your descriptions of your farm and goals, but they’ll be just as familiar with the operations as you are and won’t be as well placed to help you identify holes in your narrative.
Be open to feedback and willing to make revisions. The strong farmer knows what her strengths are and can accept help. I’ll venture that very few farmers are truly strong grant writers, so all of us should be listening for the flaws in our work

Rowing in the Same Direction

Grant funding isn’t an easy solution, but when you find a program that fits with what you’re already trying to accomplish, you can use grant funds to boost you on your way to your goals. You’ll have to wade through the bureaucratic language and explain your plans until you go blue in the face, and then the money won’t show up quickly.

For Love Is Love, we submitted the application on January 3rd, 2024, heard we had won in June of 2024, and funding likely won’t land in their accounts until sometime during spring of 2025. But when you can find a program that fits with what you’re already planning to do and you have the financial flexibility to wait for the money to show up, grant funding can be an awesome boost. Love is Love was already planning to hire H2A workers and become a Fair Food certified farm — and now they’ll eventually have $400,000 to help them reach those goals and others.

You should view grant programs through the lens of what you’re already doing and find the ones that fit you well. Craft the best application you can using the language from the RFP, get lots of feedback, and you’ll have a shot at getting extra money for things you’re already trying to do.

Kirsten Simmons is the co-founder and Chief Farming Officer for Good Agriculture (goodagriculture.com), a company dedicated to helping farmers find funding, manage finances, reach new customers and get certified. She also farms at Ecosystem Farm in Atlanta (ecosystemfarm.com).