Guidelines for Submitting Full Proposals - Spring 2025
Instructions
Full proposals should be submitted only upon express invitation from the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation. An invitation to submit a full proposal does not guarantee funding.
What to include:
Proposals should be direct and concise. Please include no more than 6 pages for the main proposal narrative which consists of:
Project Overview (see numbers 1-6 on page two)
Description, Impact and Capacity (see numbers 7-15 on page three)
Please submit all the information listed in numbers 1-16 in one PDF file. Please submit the documents listed from 17 through 22 as separate documents.
Your full proposal should build on the responses that your organization already provided in the submitted LOI. Proposals whose content or budget differ significantly from those presented in the LOI will be rejected.
Format:
Proposal should be in Letter paper format (8.5 x 11”) with minimum margins of 0.8 inches using no less than 11-point font.
Please do not embed hyperlinks in any of the documents. If necessary, we prefer reference to a URL.
The main PDF filename (including responses to 1-16) and email subject line should be: “The name of your organization” - “Proposal Spring 2025.” The other documents should be “The name of your organization” - the requested item (e.g. summary, IRS 501c3 letter, etc.).
Fiscal sponsorship:
If the applicant intends to use a fiscal sponsor, please contact the Foundation office immediately to ask for a copy of a contract that all fiscal sponsors must sign. Provide a signed copy of the fiscal sponsor contract together with items 19-22 from the fiscal sponsor.
Application deadline and communication:
Proposals should be sent by Wednesday, April 9 at 9am ET to grants@vkrf.org. Please do not forward to individual staff members. Please contact the Foundation staff if confirmation of receipt has not been received the day after the deadline. Applicants will be notified of the grant decisions no later than June 1.
Proposal
Project Overview
1. Short project title
2. Date of submission
3A. The precise legal name of the organization which will be responsible for all aspects of the project, including administrative, fiduciary, and programmatic responsibilities;
or….
3B. The precise legal name of the fiscal sponsor for the project AND the name of the organization/individual executing the project, if different. Clearly indicate which of the two would act as fiscal sponsor and therefore the legal entity which would receive the grant.
or….
3C. The precise legal name of the organization which will receive the funding on behalf of a larger partnership and thereby carry fiduciary and programmatic responsibilities on behalf of the partnership; (Please note you will add information about partners in items numbers 9 and 15).
4. Contact information for applicant (and its fiscal sponsor, if applicable), including:
• Mailing address
• Website
• Name of Principal Investigator or Program Lead, telephone number and email address for the individual with overall responsibility for the project’s content.
• Name of the individual responsible for the fiscal oversight of the project, telephone number and email address.
5. Length of grant requested and the grant period (start and end date of programming - must start on or after July 1, 2025)
6. Total amount requested in USD. Please note that the total budget cannot be higher than the budget indicated in your Letter of Inquiry.
Description, Impact and Capacity
7. A project description that includes, but is not limited to, the following elements:
- A clear statement of the need or problem being addressed;
- A theory of change/transformation statement;
- Theoretical or conceptual frameworks that you draw on;
- The project’s goals and the means for achieving those goals;
- The expected results and a description of how they will be measured;
- An assessment of the potential impact of the work, what audiences will be addressed or affected, as well as implications for the field in which you operate;
- A list of the countries the project will operate in;
- Assessment of challenges that the upcoming years might bring for your project and how would you address them
- An explanation of why the project is novel/innovative;
8. A short description of the unique experiences or other qualifications that have prepared your team and organization(s) to lead in this work.
9. If applying as a partnership: List all partners here. Provide insight as to what led you to seek to work with one another as well as information on how the partnership will be structured and roles divided.
10. The Foundation wants to ensure that the research or end products funded will reach key stakeholders and constituencies. Please highlight the way you plan to disseminate and/or communicate the results of your work. If relevant, please share how you plan to disseminate results and knowledge that can also benefit broader audiences and field building.
11. The project’s timeline, including milestones and deliverables.
Project Budget
12. A detailed line-item budget for the project for which funding is sought, including other funding sources already identified.
Description of the Organization which holds Fiscal Responsibility
13. A description of the organization, its mission and goals.
14. A list of directors and officers.
Bios related to the Organization with programmatic responsibility
15. Brief bios of key personnel involved in the project. If applying as a partnership, please include key personnel from all partnering organizations.
Citations
16. A list of references specifically cited in your proposal, if any. This especially applies to academic proposals. There is no page limit for this section, but please only include relevant citations.
Please include the following as separate documents:
17. In Microsoft Excel: A copy of the Project budget (number 12) in spreadsheet format.
18. In Microsoft Word: A document with a 150-200 word summary of the five-page proposal, including key information on your organization, a short description of the project, and why it is important.
19. In any format: An organizational budget for 2024 or 2025. This item should be whatever length and format is available. This item is not required for applications coming from universities.
20. In PDF format: A copy of an IRS letter certifying 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status or the equivalent if the sponsoring organization is not US-based.
21. In any format: A copy of the last audited financial statements for the organization (must be from 2022 or 2023). The Foundation unfortunately will not be able to provide grants to an organization that does not have audited financials for one of those two years. If the organization cannot provide recent audited financial statements, a fiscal sponsor must be identified.
22. In PDF format: A copy of the latest tax return (must be from 2022 or 2023). In the US this is a 990-tax return.
Information for non-US applicants
While not relevant during the application process, we would like to briefly outline the “equivalency determination” process that all non-US VKRF grantees will have to complete.
V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation is required by the US Internal Revenue Service to grant funds only to non-profit organizations that meet the definitions laid out in section 501(c)(3) of the US tax code. International grantees without US government certification stating that they are in compliance with that code will therefore need to be officially classified as equivalent to a US 501(c)(3) non-profit.
The V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation is not able to handle the “equivalency determination” process on its own and therefore initiates and pays for a third-party certification process. After the Board has reviewed a full proposal and decided to fund it, the Foundation engages a firm with expertise in this area, NGO Source, to handle the determination process. The grantee or financial sponsor must provide extensive documentation to NGO Source as part of this process. If your organization has not previously completed an equivalency determination, the process will require a minimum of 4 weeks. Since VKRF has a deadline of June 27, 2025 for completing the grant process, your organization is expected to respond quickly to requests made for this process after awards are announced on June 1. Please note, many non-US universities and non-profit organizations that have received funding from US foundations or donors in the past will already have gone through a similar process, which will make the process easier.
Updated March 17,2025