Grant Application Template
Some funders — especially private and family foundations without an online portal — ask for a short face sheet on top of your proposal: the administrative details a reviewer needs at a glance before they read a word of your narrative. This page is that face sheet. Depending on the funder, you'll also see it called a grant application template, grant writing template, grant template, funding proposal template, or foundation proposal template — same idea, different name. It isn't the proposal itself; for the narrative sections (statement of need, goals, methods, budget, and more), see the Grant Proposal Template.
Copy the outline below into a Google Doc or Word file and fill in each bracketed instruction with your own organization's information. If your funder provides its own required face sheet, form, or online portal with its own fields — sometimes called a grant proposal format or grant proposal form — use theirs instead. This template is only useful when a funder doesn't supply one of their own.
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 text, and no EIN, address, or other detail below is real — every field is a generic placeholder.
Grant Application Face Sheet — Template
[Funder name]
[Date submitted]
Organization Information
[Organization legal name]
[Mailing address]
[EIN — Employer Identification Number, format XX-XXXXXXX]
[Organization website, if applicable]
Contact Person
[Name and title]
[Phone]
[Email]
Project Information
[Project title]
[Amount requested] | [Total project cost, if this is a partial request]
[Project start date] | [Project end date]
Project Summary
[1-2 sentences: what this project does, who it serves, and the outcome you expect. Write it to stand on its own — this is often the only paragraph a reviewer reads before deciding whether to open the full proposal.]
Program Area / Funder Priority
[Name the specific funding category, program area, or stated priority this request aligns with, using the funder's own language from their guidelines where you can.]
Certification
[Signature]
[Printed name and title]
[Date]
[Certifying language stating that the information above is accurate and that the signer is authorized to submit this request on behalf of the organization — use your funder's own required certification wording if they provide one; this bracket is a placeholder, not fixed legal text.]
Once the face sheet is filled in, here's help with the narrative behind it
This face sheet doesn't need AI — it's your organization's own facts, not something to draft. But once this cover sheet is filled in, the toolkit's prompts help you draft the narrative sections it summarizes: the statement of need, goals and objectives, methods, and evaluation plan a reviewer reads next. The Freelance Grant Writer's AI Toolkit ($34) includes prompts and a template for each of those sections.
See the Grant Proposal Template for the full outline this face sheet sits in front of.
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.