FREE 2026 GUIDE

Winning Grants: 17 Expert Tips to Craft a Standout Application

Grant applications are competitive. Having something worth funding is not enough on its own. You need to make it easy for the people assessing your application to understand what you’re proposing, why it matters and why they can trust you to deliver it.

This free guide gives you 17 practical tips to help you make the strongest case you can.

Understand what the funder is actually looking for.

Answer the questions they actually ask.

Build a clear, credible and evidence-backed case.

Use the included 17-tip checklist before you hit submit.

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Winning Grants 2026 guide displayed on a tablet beside a laptop and small plant.

Is this guide for you?

You don’t need to be a professional grant writer. You need to know how to make a strong, credible case for something worth funding.

You’re applying for competitive funding.

Business, nonprofit, arts, research, social impact or another kind of grant — the fundamentals of making a strong case still matter.

You have something worth funding.

But you need to communicate what you’re proposing, why it matters and why you can be trusted to deliver it.

You’ve applied before.

You want to strengthen your next application rather than simply repeat what you did last time and hope for a different result.

You don’t have time to waste.

You want practical guidance — including how to recognise when a grant is not a good strategic fit and walk away.

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What you’ll get

17 practical tips

Clear guidance on everything from understanding the funder’s purpose and answering the actual question to budgets, evidence, sustainability, suppliers and letters of support.

The assessor’s lens

Practical insight into what makes an application easier to understand, trust and support — and the mistakes that make good applications easier to reject.

A 17-tip checklist

A simple final check you can use before you hit submit, so the basics don’t undermine the quality of the idea you’re asking someone to fund.

Why listen to me about grants?

I’ve written successful grant applications for individuals, startups and organisations, and I’ve served on selection panels for grants and awards.

That means I’ve experienced both sides of the table: building the case for funding and assessing the case someone else has put in front of me.

The same principles I use across strategy and persuasion apply here too: understand the objective, interrogate the evidence, know who needs to say yes, anticipate what might stop them, and make the strongest credible case you can.

The assessor can only work with the application in front of them.

They cannot fill in the gaps with everything you know about your work.

A worthwhile project can still lose because the application is vague, generic, poorly evidenced or fails to answer the actual question.

Your job is to make the case.

“This guide is amazing because it’s packed with useful, practical information that you can put into action immediately. I got so much out of this piece, thank you Juanita.”

— Karlene Latimer

About Juanita

Juanita Wheeler is Founder & CEO of Full & Frank, a strategy, persuasion and leadership consultancy.

She works with leaders, founders and organisations on the thinking behind high-stakes ideas and decisions — strengthening strategy, testing evidence and assumptions, building the case for support, persuading the people who need to say yes, and developing the leadership required to turn worthwhile ideas into impact.

Her work spans business, social impact and complex cross-sector initiatives.

Full & Frank

Strategy.
Get the thinking right.

Persuasion.
Build the case and mobilise the people who need to say yes.

Leadership.
Develop the capability to make the strategy real.

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Preview of five pages from the Winning Grants 2026 guide, including the cover, practical grant tips and 17-step checklist.

WINNING GRANTS — 2026 EDITION

Make the strongest case you can.

Get Winning Grants: 17 Expert Tips to Craft a Standout Application delivered to your inbox, including the 17-tip checklist you can use before you submit your next application.

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