Tips for Grant Success

Advice for first-time and returning Grantees.

SUBMITTING A NEW GRANT APPLICATION

Upload your grant early

Try to get it ready 15 days before the start of the Grants Round. Give time to the process of getting your grant approved and for the team to review your Tags Request.

Start with a TL;DR or summary

Provide a brief overview of what it is that you're trying to do. Some key questions to answer upfront:

• How do you intend to spend the money?

• Why is this the right thing to focus on?

• Any other specific relevant information.

• If you are tagging your project for a specific round, be very proactive about trying to illustrate how your project fits within that round.

Many donors only read the beginning of a grant proposal, so start with a concise summary that includes how you plan to use the grant funding. You can add more technical specifications further down, or link to your website for more details

Explain what you are building & why it's essential in your grant title

Placing header descriptions is very helpful when going through grants - it gives you an idea of what they are about. Keep your description simple and clear. The first line of your description will also be visible in your thumbnail so it is a good idea to communicate your best hook right here.

Compare your solution vs the Status Quo

When describing your project, try to demonstrate its importance by contrasting your solution to a well-known project. This is a powerful statement that clearly demonstrates what exactly you are trying to change and why.

New to Gitcoin and have more questions about setting up your grant?

Check out the following Grantee Onboarding Guide.

Grab people’s attention

Choose your banner, headline picture, and title carefully. You do not have to use your logo. Any visually compelling picture can be uploaded here. These images are important signals that will help your proposal gain attention. There are many projects on the Gitcoin platform so choose a picture and title that will make your project stand out.

Share information about your Team Members

Often, the people involved in the project are just as critical as the innovation itself. Make sure you include a list of your key project members and their qualifications.

SHARING RESULTS FROM PREVIOUS ROUNDS

Explain the results from your latest round and your plans for the current one

These are two very important sections to be included in your Grant page.

Be very specific about all the activities and projects you worked on with the funds from the latest round. Share finished projects or products so that the community can see their support materialized.

And of course, set up a detailed plan of your plans moving forward if the community decides to support you again.

Have a separate section to prove your impact

A very important success factor is that your supporters want to know what you end up doing with their funds and how that success is shared transparently with the community. Document your previous impact.

COMMUNITY BUILDING AND MARKETING YOUR GRANT

Share your failures as part of your evolution

We all know you are not perfect. There is a lot of value in showing the community that you are learning from your mistakes and listening to the feedback after trying something. It didn't work but you have a plan moving forward. People will want to support a team that seems to be iterating.

One of the most beautiful ideals of open source development is doing and learning in public. So there's a lot of openness and receptivity to witnessing your project as emergent and in the process of becoming. It doesn't have to all be figured out ahead of time as long as you're clear about where things are and communicate that in your project proposal.

Twitter engagement is more important than a large following

Often the most successful grantees have a true and solid community. Never get disconnected from your audience (do not contact them only when you are crowdfunding). Once they start following your project, maintain constant contact with all of them. Don’t worry about your following numbers, just focus on having a true connection with your actual community and make sure they are fully engaged with your project.

Reach out to your community early

Probably many of your current followers are not yet onboarded to web3. So you have to consider all the time they will need to set up a wallet, create a Gitcoin account, a Gitcoin passport, and even troubleshoot many aspects during checkout. So reach out early in the round so you can help them with all of this without having the pressure or risk of losing the round matching window.

Attend and cheer up for other grantees’ community events

Stay connected in all the different spaces. It is not a zero-sum game: The more we all rise, the bigger the tide.