Talk to the program officers over the phone first, know the grant programs thoroughly and come prepared with written abstracts and preliminary proposals to review in detail. You also can take administrators and staff members with you to discuss their ideas with program officers and help them develop grants expertise. The core of any proposal is the section in which you explain your goal, objectives and activities, all of which should flow naturally from the need statement in which you describe the problem you are attempting to solve. They should be clearly distinguishable. Goals express the overall intent and outcome of the proposed project and should relate directly to the funder's purposes and priorities.
Objectives specify a result or outcome that moves the project toward the goal.
They can include quantitative measures of accomplishments and qualitative descriptions of progress. Each objective should explain what will be done, by whom, to whom, when, how and to what level of performance. Objectives must be specific and measurable because you also will have to develop evaluation methods to judge your success. Activities explain what the project actually will do, including time frames, personnel responsible for carrying out each activity and the client population that will participate. From your goals, objectives and activities flow your project's procedures, timeline, staffing plan, evaluation, dissemination methods and budget.