Supporting Documents

Supporting documents are usually included in grant proposals as an appendix. Read the requirements from your funders very carefully before including supporting documents. Some funders do not allow the inclusion of supporting documents with a grant proposal.

Many of the supporting documents are items that can be reused many times for many grant proposals. It will be worth the time spent to gather these items together, before you begin writing your proposal.

Examples of typical supporting documents include:

a. IRS documents

b. List of Board members and affiliations

c. Financial statements

d. College budgets

e. College mission statement

f. Descriptions of programs and services

g. Geographic service area

h. Founding date, timeline, history of the institution

i. Where MSCD's money comes from (expressed in percentages)

j. Bylaws

k. Newspaper clippings on the institution

l. Biographies or resumes of project staff

m. Metro’s Antidiscrimination policy

n. Case studies or testimonials related to you project.

o. Letters of recommendation

Don’t assume that a board member or a member of the staff of the funder is going to be an expert in your subject area. You may need to consider writing some background information or including some informational articles or a reading list.

Also, be prepared to provide supporting research related to your project or idea.

EXERCISE: Much of the information you will need for supporting documents can be found on the Metro website. The list provided above contains links to some of these resources. After reviewing the list of documents above and considering all of the resources in this workshop, what items are missing? What information has not been provided that could aid in your grant writing process? Submit you answers and check back to the Workshop Feedback page to see suggestions from other faculty.