WVA Virtual Funding Workbook - Section Four

At last, you can do the fun bit of packaging all your ideas together into a project!  This section is about putting the final polish on the idea before you write it up into the bid.  You can use our ‘Project Plan’ matrix to help.  The following are some things to think about.

PROJECT NAME – Give your project a catchy and memorable name, this means it’s easy to refer to by users, funders, other agencies and your team.  Having a strong title gives everyone involved a sense of identity and belonging.  Do some research into what other organisations have called their projects and see if anything inspires you, don’t steal their name though!

STRONG TARGETS – Create some strong SMART (specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, time bound) targets for your project which will be used all the way through it to make decisions and inspire services and activities.  Then at the end within the monitoring to establish if the project has achieved its goal.

BUDGET – Does your itemised budget add up and make sense?  Are you asking for anything outlandish?  Who is going to look after /maintain and store all the stuff you are needing?  Have you put in reasonable figures for staffing or volunteer costs?  Have you considered all the elements that need funding?

SUSTAINABILITY – In what ways are you going to be funded aside from grant funding?  Does your group fundraise? Do people pay a membership?  Do you charge for services?  Do you trade?  It is undesireable for an organisation / project to rely on grant funding alone.

REALISM – Have you set out to do something you can deliver?  Are you making wild promises?  Will you be able to get to the end and say you actually did what you promised you would?

CLARITY – Does what you have written make sense?  Can someone that has no idea what you do understand this project plan?

Measuring The Impact

One last thing to consider is how are you going to monitor the outcomes?  As you go through the project you will gather the material you need to effectively complete a report on how the project went and what the difference was that you made.  Some ways in which you could gather feedback:

User surveys about attitudes or personal perceptions

Engagement / attendance figures

Figures from partners (schools, law enforcement, medical professionals etc.)

Photos / videos / soundbites / voxpops

You could also have case studies as added colour / interest but remember a case study is only ever one individual’s journey at a time.