Just as your name is important to your identity, a project title is important to your proposal.
A proposal title sets the reviewer’s first impression, summarizes the project, and makes an application memorable. The title is an opportunity for the grant writer to artistically provide the evaluator an idea of what the grant proposal is all about, in a few words.
Where a good title summarizes the project, a great title makes the donor interested in the project. But a bad title for the proposal can throw off the whole concept of the project leading to the failure of the grant proposal.
Avoid these 7 mistakes if you wish to Write Great Proposal Titles That Win Grants:
Your title should stand out from the pile of hundreds of proposal applications. Make it specific. Emphasize the most important aspects of the project. What you are doing, how you are doing it, where you are doing it, and for whom.
Don’t: ‘Helping Girls in Rural Areas’
Do: ‘Advocating for an End of Child Marriage in Ngala, Borno, Nigeria’
Although the purpose of a title is to describe your full proposal, overly descriptive titles are boring. Focus on enticing the reviewer to spend time reading your proposal.
We have been taught to use as much vocabulary as we can in writing but this is not applicable in Grant writing. Except you are Hon Patrick Obahiagbon, please reserve those technical and fancy words for political rallies (lol). Some could be used in your proposal content, but never in a title. Your proposal title must be understandable even to a lay man. Use a clear combination of nouns, verbs, and adjectives to identify the project with a layman. Unless your project is all about scientific research, avoid using scientific/technical terms.
Finding a great title that immediately catches the readers’ attention is hard, especially while ensuring the title is short. But this is no excuse to make your title longer. Try to formulate a title with 15 words or less. Some funders specify the number of letters or characters you can use.
You may feel there is no way anyone can make a spelling error in the title. But this assumption is wrong and leads to overlooking the title spell check. There are no rigid rules on formatting titles for a proposal, but avoid using all caps. Using all caps is like shouting at your reader/reviewer.
As a general rule of thumb, the first letters of sentences should be capitalized.
Do not decide on the title first. Many writers make the mistake of writing the title first. As they move on with the proposal writing, the context takes a different approach than their title, making the title a disconnect to the proposal. Always write the title last.
If your project is about ‘Creating Awareness on Personal Hygiene Among Adolescent Girls’, do not use ‘Women Empowerment Through Health Education’ as your title. The higher the gap between expectation and reality, the higher the chances of the proposal failing. Indicate accurately the subject and scope of the project, do not heighten and crash the expectations of a review with exaggerated titles.
.png){kind=logo}
