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You are here: Home / Featured Articles: Fundraising, Proposal Writing & NGO
Management / A Quick Guide on How to Write Powerful Concept Notes


A QUICK GUIDE ON HOW TO WRITE POWERFUL CONCEPT NOTES

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In recent times, many donor agencies prefer their grant-seeking applicants to
submit a comprehensive concept note about their proposed project before
submitting a full project proposal. We have also observed this trend in many of
the USAID and European Commission grant applications.

In some cases, these concept notes can be highly structured requesting in-depth
information about the project and in some other cases, it can just be an
overview of the project idea. Nevertheless, the concept note is your initial
step to tap the donor agency for funding. If the idea is interesting, you may be
requested to submit a full proposal.



So what exactly is a concept note? How much time does it take in preparing it?
What should go into it?

A concept note is a brief outline of the project you have in your mind. A simple
version of it will include an introduction, a background, proposed objectives
and results and a budget overview. Ideally, it should not be more than 2-3 pages
unless the donor agency has specific requirements. If you wish to supply extra
information, you can always annex documents such as your organization profile.

According to the ProPack: The CRS Project Package by Catholic Relief Services
(CRS), a concept note can be produced in a matter of hours. In some other cases,
it can also take a few days. But research is quite critical in both the cases
and experienced planners develop extensive notes and organize meetings with
project stakeholders (mainly the beneficiaries of the project) before starting
to write a concept note.

The concept note is not only an important document for making your first contact
with the donor agency, it is also the basic layout of your project plan. The
layout will form the foundation to develop a larger proposal document soon after
you hear a positive feedback from the grant-making agency.


THE FIRST STEPS TOWARDS DEVELOPING A PROPER CONCEPT NOTE

If you have a project idea in mind and you know the right donor agency to apply,
then it is fairly easy to come up with a proper concept note. So the first step
here is your project idea!

For example, if you see extreme poverty around you and you wish to address this
by introducing certain livelihood measures that will boost the income of the
poor people, then this is your project idea.

You should then start searching for your donor agencies that can possibly fund
your idea. It is easier to write the concept note after you have identified your
donors because there are vast differences in their systems of accepting your
project idea. Like mentioned earlier, some donors accept concept notes in
certain format only while others just request a simple narration.

Further, donor interests will vary and it may not necessarily be the same as you
think. So your concept note has to be molded in such a manner that it draws the
attention of the donor based on mutual interests. For this to happen, you may
need to research and learn more about your donor.

Where can I search for donors? FundsforNGOs Premium has an excellent donor
database of thousands of donor profiles and you can search them using filter
options such as Search by country or area of interest. You can learn more about
it here.



Once you have successfully identified your donor agency and your project idea is
ready, you can start working on your concept note.


THE QUESTIONS YOU NEED TO ASK YOURSELF BY WRITING THE CONCEPT NOTE

In order to refine your project idea, one of the best ways is to ask yourself
questions. Remember that your project idea is raw and unstructured – nobody will
ever understand it nor any donor agency will relate to it unless you refine and
give it a proper structure. To give it a proper structure, you need to refine it
as much as possible.

When you start asking yourself questions about the idea, it will be easy to
refine and bring clarity to it. For example, you desire to eliminate poverty
existing within a community. You can ask yourself why there is so much poverty?
People may be uneducated and there may be unemployment problems. You can further
ask yourself why there the issues of lack of education and employment are
prevalent amongst these people. You will find reasons such as poor awareness,
lack of educational facilities and no stable sources of livelihood.



We have collected sample proposals from successful grantees around the world and
are offering them for viewing for our Premium Members. Not a Premium
Member? Join Today 50% off

In the process of asking these questions, you can start making visits to the
community i.e. the stakeholders and start discussing with them about the
problem. Of course, in most cases, the community may not be as analytical as you
are and they may just blame the government. But some insights from them will be
useful.

Once you have discussed the problems, you can start thinking about the
solutions. If there are no educational facilities or no means of employment, you
can explain your concept note that you wish to address these problems by
launching interventions like opening a school or helping an existing local
school with new infrastructure or teachers or introducing a new livelihood
mechanism that can boost the income of the household families.



Once the basic structure of your concept note is ready, you can start asking
other questions like how long will take to address this problem, what will be
the geographical scope of your project, who will be the actual beneficiaries
(farmers, women, children etc), what will be the resulting change after you have
implemented the project and above all these, what is the uniqueness of your
project. Remember that thousands of other grant-seekers are simultaneously
applying for the same grant and you need to convince the donor that your project
is different when compared to others. Donors often emphasize on innovation to
address social problems.

No time to search and develop a list of potential donors for your organization.
No Problem! We have built a powerful, searchable donor database for you. Just
pick your country and areas of interest and get to know the donor agencies
around the world interested in providing funds to you. Only for Premium Members.
Join Today 50% off.


THE STRUCTURE OF THE CONCEPT NOTE

The Title



An unstructured concept note should ideally have a title, submitted by, date of
submission as the primary information in the header section. Preferably, the
title should be short but make sure it reflects the overall idea of the project
that resonates with the donor’s objectives.

Introduction or Background

The first section of the project should be an ‘introduction’ or ‘background’ of
the project where you can state the problem you are trying address and also
explain what are the root causes of this problem. You can conclude this section
with the ‘opportunity’ available for you to make the intervention and address
the problem. Usually, the ‘opportunity’ can be in form of your own skills that
can be used to reduce the problem or a government policy.



Remember to give references to your narrative so that you can establish
authority to the facts given. For example, if you explain that there is
extensive poverty in the region, you need to supply some data and a reference.
Also, try to give numbers in terms of men, women, and children getting affected
by the overall situation. In this way, you can ensure that gender has been
integrated from the planning stage itself.

Goal and Objectives

List out the goal and objectives in this section. The goal is usually the
long-term impact of ‘reduction in poverty’ or ‘improved living conditions of the
people.’ It may not necessarily be achieved.

Objectives have to be specific and if provide numbers, it will be more helpful.
For example, 100 women will have access to newer sources of livelihood’. Also
limit your objectives to 3 or 5 – the lesser number of objective, the more
practical the approach will be.



Expected Results

This section briefly analyzes the result of your project. You can list out the
results that the project will achieve during the project period. For example,
100 households have increased income from agriculture.’ Again, numbers can be
very important while narrating expected results.

Innovation



A separate section explaining the uniqueness of your project will be very
useful. As donors are interested to see what new value you are going add to this
project, this section will quickly introduce them to the innovative approach you
will use to address this problem. Although most concept notes may not have this
section, if you include it, it will create a positive effect on the donor
agency.

Budget

The last section of the concept note will be the budget. Although a detailed
analysis is not required, you would still need to submit a reasonable sense of
how much money you are seeking from the donor to execute the project. You can
also give a quick breakup of the main items (not more than 5-6). Any matching
contribution from you or any other agency can also be mentioned here.

Our Premium Donor Database has more than 500 active donor agencies providing
funding specifically for human rights and related issues. Learn where they fund,
how they fund and what is the process of contacting them. Join Premium today!






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PRIMARY SIDEBAR




COMMUNITY CLIMATE ACTION PROGRAMME IN IRELAND – CALL 1

ACADEMY FOR WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS PROGRAM IN MALTA

APPLY NOW: EUROPEAN COOPERATION PROJECTS MEDIUM SCALE PROGRAM 2025

CFAS: EUROPEAN COOPERATION PROJECTS SMALL SCALE PROGRAM 2025

CFPS: HUMAN RIGHTS & DEMOCRACY THEMATIC PROGRAMME IN KOSOVO

HARCOURTS FOUNDATION LAUNCHES GRANT PROGRAM – NEW ZEALAND

OPEN CALL: SEA-CHANGERS INNOVATION FUND (UNITED KINGDOM)

UNITED KINGDOM: FCC COMMUNITY ACTION FUND 2025

COMMUNITY FESTIVALS GRANT AID PROGRAMME IN THE UK

LEEDS COMMUNITY FOUNDATION LAUNCHES HEALTHY HOLIDAYS GRANT PROGRAMME – UK

CALL FOR EOIS: CLIMATE, PEACE AND SECURITY PROJECT IN MALI

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: PROMOTION OF FAMILY FARMING PROGRAM 2025

INNOVATIVE CLIMATE WITH-BIODIVERSITY POSITIVE PROGRAM 2025

NOMINATIONS OPEN FOR CHAMPION AWARD 2025

FAO PARTNERSHIP AWARD 2025

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS: ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS 2025

ENTRIES OPEN FOR THE MARTIN ENNALS AWARD 2025

CFPS: ACTION GRANTS TO SUPPORT TRANSNATIONAL PROJECTS 2025

LOUTH COUNTY COUNCIL’S FESTIVAL GRANTS PROGRAM IN IRELAND

RFAS: WILKES CLIMATE LAUNCH PRIZE 2025

SOPHIE DANFORTH CONSERVATION GRANTS PROGRAM 2025

WORLD HEARING DAY SMALL GRANTS PROGRAM 2025

CFPS: REIMAGINING GENDER EQUALITY ACROSS GENERATIONS AND COMMUNITIES PROJECT
(TURKEY)

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