Building a Powerful Needs Statement
by Cynthia M. Adams, CEO, GrantStation.com
Keep copies of everything and anything you read that will help you build your need statements.
You can use quotes from press releases, letters to the editor, editorials, news stories, even radio and TV shows (though you’ll have to get a copy of a transcript of the program if you truly want to quote from it) to help document the need for your work.
This is a great job for a board member who is hesitant to be "out front" in their fundraising. Let them do research on the web, review magazines, clip newspaper articles, get transcripts from local government meetings, radio shows, etc. to help document the need for your work.
When you write your need statement you’ll be trying to create a sense of “urgency.” One way to do that is to show a pattern of need over a period of time. For example, if you are trying to raise grant dollars to help install smoke detectors in low income homes and apartments, you might want to collect all of the newspaper articles/headlines that talk about fires in the past year. Something like:
Columbia Daily News
- January 17, 2023 – Twelve die...
