If I Was Your Grant Writer: You Can’t Cry Your Way Into a Grant Award

I love a good story. The passion, the “why,” the people whose lives you’re changing. That’s the heartbeat of your work. But the cold, hard truth is that funders don’t fund feelings. They fund proof.

And most organizations confuse the hell out of proof and performance. They mix up outputs and outcomes like they’re the same thing, and they’re NOT.

Outputs are what you do. They show activity. Like:

• You trained 120 teens.

• You served 4,000 meals.

• You hosted 10 community workshops.

Cool. Clearly, you’re busy. But outcomes? Those show what changed because of what you did.

• 85% of those teens opened savings accounts.

• 70% of meal recipients reported less food insecurity.

• 9 out of 10 parents left your workshop actually using the tools you taught.

See the difference? Outputs say, “We’re doing stuff.” Outcomes say, “It’s actually working.” And funders want both.

Outputs prove you can deliver, outcomes prove you’re worth investing in. However, you can’t track outcomes without solid evaluation systems in place. If you’re not collecting data intentionally with pre- and post-surveys, follow-ups, and consistent tracking tools, you’re basically guessing at your impact, and I say that with love.

Without evaluation, you’ll end up relying on anecdotes instead of evidence. You know your work is powerful, but on paper, it just looks like a list of activities. That’s not fair to you, your team, or your community.

Instead of addressing this shortfall, so many organizations try to write their way out of the data problem. They think that if they just make the story sound more emotional, it’ll cover the gaps. But you can’t write your way out of a measurement gap any more than you can paint over a leaky roof. It’ll look good for a minute, and then it’ll fall apart.

I’m not saying that you need to have fancy dashboards or hire a data scientist. I’m saying you need to learn to track the right things consistently, define what success looks like in real, measurable terms, and track it like your funding depends on it… because it does.

So before you crack open your next grant application, pause and ask: what can we prove about our impact? 

At the end of the day, your story gets funders interested, but your outcomes close the deal.