How to write a winning grant proposal for your daycare

With so many daycare centers operating on small budgets and tight funding, grants are crucial for many daycare owners to be able to provide quality supplies and support for their students and educators. It can feel overwhelming the first time you go to submit a grant application, but with the right tips and tricks you'll be flying through proposals in no time!

Forming your business plan

When you’re applying for daycare grants, it’s important to have a water-tight business plan that shows clearly the sort of center you are running, what your goals are, how the business operates and what your needs are for the future. You can write your own business plan from scratch or buy a template that ensures you cover all necessary details.

We’ve created a completely customizable, 32-page detailed business plan to elevate your grant proposals and secure the funding that you need, and Standout Daycare members receive exclusive coaching throughout the whole process, with the help of a supportive and hands-on community of like-minded daycare owners.

Writing your grant application

The key to a successful daycare grant application, is providing a proposal that is detailed and thorough, but concise and simple to understand. For a foolproof application, we’ve created a Standout daycare grant proposal template that you can customize for your business, including all necessary proposal topics, as well as a bonus list of grant opportunities!

If you’re wanting to write your grant proposal from scratch, here are our top tips:

Summary/introduction

Someone should be able to read only your summary and have a pretty clear idea of your entire proposal. This can be really tricky to do, and a lot of people start with their summary and then write the rest of the proposal, but really you should hold off on writing your summary until you are completely finished with the rest of the proposal. That way, you can work on condensing the information into an introduction, and you know you won’t need to go back and change it later!

You want the reader to feel excited and inspired when they finish reading your summary, so make sure that you include information about what makes your daycare unique, and what visions and plans you have for the future that the funding would help you achieve. Information like the number of students that will be impacted by the funding can really encourage people to keep reading.

Benefit to the community

Philanthropists who provide the funding for grants want their contributions to have the widest benefit as possible across the community. So, it makes sense that in choosing beneficiaries, they will choose daycares that can show the benefit that they provide to the community around them. What need do you fill for your community? Maybe your daycare is in a low-income area, and your services allow families that don’t have relatives nearby to access affordable and reliable childcare so that they can continue working and providing for their families.

Your plans for the funding

The person reading your grant proposal needs to be able to clearly envisage what impact the funding will have on your daycare, and exactly where the money will be going. Whether that's new supplies for teachers, or new toys and equipment for students, it’s important to have planned out your program, including exactly how much it will cost to bring to life.

This is no time to be too proud; clearly outline where your funding currently falls short, and why the grant is necessary in order for you to create the program. By having a detailed plan for your program, you will also be able to demonstrate in your proposal exactly how many children and families would be impacted by the benefit of the funding.

Getting started

With these tips, you’ll be able to craft your own winning grant proposal and hopefully secure some well-deserved funding to grow your daycare! Or if you want a bit more guidance along the way, our business plan and grant proposal templates guide you step-by-step to create a proposal to Standout from your competition. If you still feel unsure, become a Standout Daycare member today to receive guidance and coaching from expert daycare business coaches, and support from a wide network and community of other business owners just like you.