What a Project Summery Should Look Like
You can use the following project summery as an example model in order to help you write your own. But don’t just copy it word for word, be sure to include everything positive there is to know about your project. In other words: use this as a model, use it for the guidelines – and NOT your actual summery.
The Craft of Business For Crafters
Project Summary
After some personal research, I have come to the conclusion that the vast majority of crafters in our state are very talented and passionate artists. However, they are usually not so talented when it comes to business practices.
I propose to remedy that situation by offering my considerable business knowledge to crafters throughout the state. I will accomplish this by holding free seminars for crafters where we would go into detail about all of the following topics:
o A simple bookkeeping system
o Are you making money on that item?
o Best business practices
o Business rules and regulations
o How to market effectively
o Do I need to be on the Internet?
There are 14 more topics included in the course outline I have included with this application.
I am certain that, with some simple fine-tuning, our crafter community in this state would be more vibrant, more profitable and perhaps be able to create more job opportunities as they grow.
I propose to offer this service free of charge to all crafters in our state.
In my proposed budget, I have figured 1 seminar a weekend for 52 weeks. The amount I am requesting reflects my minimal travel expenses and 4 actual hours of instructional time plus the cost of paper handouts given to the seminar attendees.
My project also entails follow-up with these crafters by phone, mail and email to reinforce the lessons and to track the program’s effectiveness.
A project end report will record all of this data in order to monitor and record our success as well as tweak the program to make it more effective in following years.
After a reasonable amount of grant- supported seminars, the program would have a track record of successes and could start to charge a small fee from each crafter attending the seminars. This would lead to the program being self-sufficient in future years.
In summary, “The Craft of Business For Crafters” would have a positive affect on our crafter community by allowing them to be more organized, more legally compliant and, most importantly, more profitable.
I have included a course outline as well as a videotape of me actually holding a seminar for crafters in my county.
I urge you to approve this grant. It will make a huge difference to the crafters of our state.
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Ok, now from reading the above did you notice how I did not include absolutely everything there is about my project? I just included the positives, which is done to draw the attention of the person reading my proposal.
The Project Summary is just that, a summary. Use it to spark interest. Interest enough to read the whole application. The people who screen these applications see them all day. You need to make them want to read yours and hopefully put it on top of the pile!
You should also notice that I referenced the additional items I included with the application…the course outline and a videotape. This gets across the fact that these are an important part of the application and should be taken into account.
The Project summery is a very important part of getting approved for a grant, it is the first impression and we all know ho important it is to make a good first impression. Make sure your summery is not full of spelling mistakes and sounds professional.
Be sure to be enthusiastic and positive. Use words like “will” instead of “would”, they sort of take for granted that the grant “will” be approved and the program “will” work. If you are thinking, “would” it means “maybe”…doesn’t sound too positive, does it?