Cover Letter for Grant Proposal Template
This cover letter goes on top of a complete proposal package — the narrative, budget, and any attachments a funder's guidelines require — once everything is ready to send. It's a short, functional note, not a persuasive document: the persuading happens in the narrative it introduces.
Don't confuse it with a Letter of Inquiry or Letter of Intent (LOI), which is a separate document sent before you write a full proposal, to ask a funder's permission to submit one. If that's what you need, see the Letter of Intent Template and Letter of Inquiry vs. Letter of Intent for the difference between the two terms and when each is used.
Copy the outline below into a Google Doc or Word file and fill in each bracketed instruction with your own content. If your funder's online portal doesn't have a field for a cover letter, or explicitly says not to include one, skip it and follow their instructions instead.
How to read this page: section headings are plain text you keep. Italic text in brackets is an instruction for what to write in that spot — replace it with your own content and delete the brackets. Nothing below is pre-written letter text.
Cover Letter for Grant Proposal — Template
[Organization letterhead or name]
[Address]
[Date]
[Program officer name, if known]
[Funder name]
[Funder address]
Dear [Program officer name, or "Program Officer" if unknown],
Opening Paragraph
[1-2 sentences: identify the project by name, state that this letter accompanies the enclosed proposal, and reference the funder's guidelines or deadline it responds to, if applicable.]
What's Enclosed
[List each item included in the package, e.g., "the enclosed proposal narrative, project budget and budget narrative, and [any attachments the funder's guidelines require, such as IRS determination letter, board list, or financial statements]." Match this list exactly to your funder's stated submission requirements.]
Funding Request
[The amount requested, restated briefly. If this is a partial request, note the total project cost.]
Closing Paragraph
[Thank the reader for their consideration, note who to contact with questions, and close.]
Sincerely,
[Name]
[Title]
[Organization]
[Phone] | [Email]
Once the letter is done, here's help with the package it introduces
This cover letter is short by design — there's no AI prompt dedicated to it in the toolkit, because there isn't much to draft. The real work is in the package it introduces. The Freelance Grant Writer's AI Toolkit ($34) has prompts and templates for the documents this letter accompanies: the Grant Proposal Template for the narrative, the Budget Narrative Template and Grant Budget Template for the financials, and the Letter of Intent Template if you need to request permission to submit before you get this far. If your funder also requires its own administrative face sheet, see the Grant Application Template.
If you also run the business side of freelance grant writing (rates, engagement letters, client intake), the Pro toolkit ($79) adds a Freelance Business Toolkit module on top of everything above.