Concept notes and letters of enquiry could represent a means to contact potential donors when there is no call for proposals to be answered to. Yet, the request for concepts notes is becoming more and more popular even when calls for proposals are advertised as a way to make a very first selection among potential candidates. Certainly, this applies to agencies and donors managing big funding schemes who find useful to ask for concept notes in order to handle big bunches of applications.
A) Concept Notes are a shorter version of project proposals and they should not exceed 3 pages (1500 words). Concepts notes should be clear, straight to the point, informative, and attractive to the reader. The main difficulty in writing concepts notes is to reach a balance between the amount of background information given and the explanation of your planned activities. Try to limit the first part (background information) to 300 words and use the remaining words to explain how the project will concretely achieve its set goals by developing a number of activities and also to clearly state how you intent to measure the success of the project once completed.
You could use the following guidelines to draft your concepts paper:
1) Choose a catchy title (see what written above in the section proposals writing)
2) First Paragraph: Background of the project. You should answer to the following questions: why is the project important? For whom are you implementing this project? What has been done to engage with the issues you are addressing and how is your project different from others or how is it contributing to existing attempts to tackle same problems?
3) Second Paragraph: Objectives and Beneficiaries. List a maximum of 3 objectives; remember that your project must be concrete and feasible. Clearly state how your objectives relate to the problems outlined in the first paragraph and introduce your target group. You should clearly answer to the questions: why are you selecting this specific layer of the population? Who are they and why do they need your project to be implemented? Explain how your project will successfully impact the social, political, or economic situation of your target group by expanding on how planned activities will lead to a measurable improvement of the target group’s life.
4) Third Paragraph: Outputs. List the outputs for each of your objectives and in relation to your planned activities. Outputs must be concrete and tangible. For instance, if your planning a number of trainings to improve the employability of young women in your community, you could write “x women will be trained in y by the end of training z”.
5) Fourth Paragraph: Activities and Duration. The listed activities are the means by which your project will achieve set objectives. Each activity must be concrete and limited in time. Therefore you should clearly state the duration of each activity and how it is structured. For instance, if you are training a group of young women to improve their employability in your community, you should write the duration of the training, how many hours a week these women will be attending the training, who is the facilitator, and what classes are about.
6) Fifth Paragraph: Monitoring and Evaluation. This part is very important to donors because they will get an idea on how they will assess your progress and measure the success of your project when completed. You should elaborate on a methodology that could include quantitative or qualitative methods in relation to your objectives and activities (refer to the LogFrame table for clarifications on the matter). Following the given example, you could write something like “the training in x will improve the employability of at least x women by x%”. Make sure that your prognosis is backed up by statistical evidence and that your outputs are realistic!
7) Include the budget only if you are answering to a call for concepts notes and the donor agency asks for it.
B) Letters of enquiry are normally used to make a first contact with potential donors. You might need to write a letter in order to assess the interest of a potential donor in funding your project when no call for proposals is available. You might also need to write a letter when you are about to submit a proposal or a concept note as a reaction to a call but you need more information to complete your application.
As a general rule, letters must be formal, short, and clear.
1) Unsolicited Letters. Start by explaining why you are writing this letter and introduce yourself and your organisation. As a way to justify your unsolicited request for funding, you could mention projects that the donor has sponsored in the past, which resonate with your own activities and goals. For instance, you could write that you are aware of the goals of this organisation and existing funding schemes and because you believe that your planned activities fit well in their agenda you would like to ask whether they could become interested in collaborating with you to develop your project.
2) Letters asking for explanation. Before contacting your donor to ask for further explanation make sure to have read all the information made available in the packages for applicants. You will also find useful to carefully read the Q&A section where a number of issues presented by previous applicants are discussed and explained. Yet, if you cannot find an answer to your questions or you have technical problems with the submission of your application, you should certainly write to the donor as soon as possible. Keep the letter brief and make sure to present your problem in a clear way; in doing so you will help the person answering to give a solution for your issue.
