The Art of Applications

How to master the formula for a basic application form, or where the donor has no format and then how to go beyond the basics to meet the demands of the sophisticated funders.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Understanding of the universal components within all application forms.

  • Ability to develop answers to the key questions that funders ask.

  • Ability to interpret the underlying logic beneath contrasting application forms.

  • Understanding of the definitions of the complex proposal terminology.

  • Ability to develop your own portable concept note template.

Presenters: Bill Bruty and Neela Jane Stansfield

Process:

We will explain the source and the rationale of the fourteen questions that underpin all application forms. We’ll explain the meaning of each question and their inter-relationships with each other. We will give you a chance to assess your own proposals against these fourteen questions so that you have a self-assessment tool that you can use for all applications, whether in a form or less formal.

We’ll help provide answers for the questions that you and your organization will struggle with.

How do you interpret and respond to a funding application with 34 pages of guidance notes?  This session will equip you to rise to this challenge. 

We’ll then look at two very different funders and show how there is an underlying consistency across their different application forms. We’ll make sure that you fully understand terms such as: ‘the enabling environment’ and the difference between ‘intervention logic’ and ‘intervention strategy’. 

As a ‘takeaway’, you’ll have a template for a concept note that will help you to describe all of your projects in a way that can be easily adapted for virtually every funder.

This Superpod will consist of two sets of 90-minute online live workshops, on a single day.  They will start at 11am and finish at 3pm on each day, with an hour break in between.  It will be held three times per year in the Spring, Summer and Autumn. It costs £175 to join these sessions.

19th March 2025

3rd July 2025

26th November 2025

Book your place here.