The Results of the 2023 Winning Grant Proposal Competition Are In!

Every other year, GrantStation and the Grant Professionals Association sponsor the Winning Grant Proposal Competition (WGPC). This summer, over 185 organizations that won a grant award in 2022-23 submitted their award-winning proposals to us for review. Using an expansive group of talented prescreeners, the finalists were reviewed by our expert panel of eight external judges.

It was a challenging undertaking! Not just the logistics of making sure each proposal was given the time and attention it deserved, but also selecting the winner from the group of stellar applications. After careful consideration, I am delighted to announce that Soccer Without Borders won the “Grant” Prize.

The author who penned the application is Mary Connor, the Co-Founder of Soccer Without Borders. GrantStation is hosting a free webinar (What Makes a Proposal a Winner) on October 18, 2023, from 2-3 p.m. EDT to discuss the lessons learned from the Winning Grant Proposal Competition with Mary and some of the external judges. We will dissect the many strengths of the application and why the judges found it stood out among the rest of the very well-written submittals.

There are a couple of very valuable outcomes of the competition. First, winners receive prizes and recognition for their hard work. You can see the list of the winners, including the Grant Prize winner, four Sector Awards (private and government), and eight Honorable Mentions. All organizations that submitted an application received $25 off an annual membership to the Grant Professionals Association.

Second, proposals that win the WGPC are posted on the GrantStation website. They are used by grantseekers to understand how successful proposals are organized and written. We will have another competition in 2025, so now is the time to learn from the success of others! Grantseekers can learn a great deal from reading well-written proposals, such as how the need is justified, how to put together a strong set of outcomes, how to develop budgets, etc. The proposals provide another tool in a grantseeker’s toolbox to learn how to create winning grant applications.

We want to thank all the organizations that submitted applications to the competition. And a special word of gratitude to our partner, the Grant Professionals Association, for their continued support in implementing the competition and providing valuable prizes to participants. Our prescreeners were a vital component in the process, and we could not have done it without their volunteer support. And to our external judges—thank you for your thoughtful reviews and unpaid labor. We are so grateful for your time and talents!