Using Evidence When Applying For Grant Funding

When applying for grant funding it is crucial to provide evidence that supports your application. Evidence enables you to demonstrate your understanding and the services need for the grant funding.

Using Evidence When Applying For Grants

Documenting evidence along with your application also:

demonstrate your capabilities
demonstrate your linkages within a community
emphasise the scale or importance of an issue
strengthen an argument for a service by demonstrating its past performance, and
illustrate how the service is accepted or received by intended recipients.

Using Evidence To Support Your Claims

When applying for grant funding you will need to demonstrate evidence against the selection criteria, you should be providing evidence to support your claims which may include:

your understanding of the need for the funded Activity in the chosen community/ communities
how the implementation of your proposal will achieve the Activity objectives for all stakeholders, including value for money and existing linkages within the service area
your experience in effectively developing, delivering, managing and monitoring activities to achieve the Activity objectives for all stakeholders
your organisation’s capacity and your staff capability (experience and qualifications) to deliver the Activity’s objectives in the chosen community/communities, and
a service delivery model that includes effective partnerships, linkages and referral pathways that directly contribute to the Activity outcomes.

Types Of Evidence

When applying for grant funding when documenting evidence, there are five basic categories of evidence:

quantitative evidence,
qualitative evidence,
evaluations,
expert evidence and
anecdotal evidence

The table below describes each:

Collecting Evidence

When collecting evidence to prepare for you grant application, it's important to do so through a variety of different sources which will support your services application for funding.

Sources include:

data from your own records and experiences as a service provider (eg annual reports or surveys)
data available from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (eg census data or crime statistics),
program or service evaluations, reports released by research bodies, government departments, or not-for-profit organisations.
needs analyses or expert advice
interviews – conducted by your own organisation or another – with clients or subject experts, with a focus on benefits of proposed services to the local community
content from broadcast or social media, and
public meetings and fora.