Which Comes First the Search for Funders or Writing the Proposal?

Similar to the old adage regarding the chicken and the egg-which do you do first when seeking grant funding? Do you find the funder or write the proposal? There is no magic formula to obtaining grant funds, however if you have a written program plan in place prior to searching for funders you can really narrow down your search criteria. It may seem counter intuitive to have a grant proposal (or program plan) already written before looking for the right funder, but I do typically find a higher level of success when making sure everything including the budget is written out in plain language before even searching for potential funders.

Write out the program plan first, which can then be adapted to individual grant proposals that meet the individual funders guidelines. Then begin to search for potential funders that have similar interests, and may want to fund your program or organization.