Arts organizations, especially large ones, are expected to present themselves in a more dramatic manner. But even arts groups should consider the impression that very elaborate materials will make on the funder because of the expense involved in printing and mailing them.

Social service agencies, even large ones, usually have more simply produced materials. I once quit making contributions for several years to a social service agency that sent me an elaborate annual report, complete with vellum overlays and embossing. I suspected that the printing and design had been donated, but it was really off-putting to receive such an expensive report, considering their mission.

There are, of course, exceptions to every rule. When going to the sponsorship office of a major company, you might want to gloss-up your presentation a notch or two. In this situation, the people reviewing your proposal are more likely to believe that it takes money to make money and that a successful organization won’t be shy about looking successful.

The sophistication of word-processing programs makes it tempting to format proposals using all the bells and whistles available. Don’t do it. Rather than impressing the funder with your sophistication, you might give the impression that you spent too much time on the appearance of the proposal—time that could have better been spent creating and submitting additional proposals.

This isn’t to say you should never include an illustration in a proposal. Charts and graphs created by a spreadsheet program can make a point better than dozens of words, and a photograph illustrating your program description can also be effective. But never add any kind of illustration just to break up the page or because it’s a nice picture related to your organization. Everything in the proposal—words and images—exists to tell one story only. Don’t confuse the funder with extraneous materials of any kind.

Chances are that at some point you’ll want to raise money for an Internet project. Submitting samples of your work on the Internet can be tricky. Will the people reviewing your work be savvy enough using the Internet to understand what you want them to see? This is another place where redundancy can serve you well.

For a sample of work on the Internet, I include instructions on how to find the pages I want them to see (with URL and a sequence of items to click), but I also include pictures of those pages, frequently with commentary in the margins. That way, they can view it online or on paper—whichever works for them. (Hint: use the Print Screen key on your computer and then paste the screen capture in the Paint program [found under Accessories] to save a picture of any Internet page.)