Most of these companies spell out exactly what they hope to accomplish by offering corporate grants. This is where strategy for preparing applications for these grants should begin.

Use their words, quote their goals, and clearly explain that both you and company have same goals in mind.

Before developing any grant proposal, it is essential to understand goals of entity offering grant. In their offering, these goals are clearly explained. From these goals, grant writer should note certain buzzwords and phrases which should be incorporated into grant proposal. Simply, give them what they want.

Also, be neat.

Neatness and organization do count.

Demonstrate a Need Companies offering grants don’t want to allocate funds to entities with means.

Clearly demonstrate in your proposal why you need their grant money.

Keep records of everything, don't be afraid to re-apply if you are turned down, and always say thank you.

Finally, don't let rejections discourage you as they will be your best learning experiences.

A written plan also communicates to others a broader scope than a verbal plan. After all, when you're writing, you can bring in past, cover present, and look into future. Or, you can illustrate your points with more detail than you can in a verbal report.

So, let's subject this article to writing test, to see if hangs together.

First, article opened with idea of looking or thinking ahead, and I assumed -- note, I assumed -- that this thinking implied future action.

Second, you'll see idea that to take action, or to get others to take action on our behalf, we need to be clear about 'what' and 'why' before we start. Of course, not every action needs this kind of launch; perhaps I should have said "For important projects...."

Third, I suggested way to get this clarity is to write it out, but in retrospect, perhaps that simply reflects my bias toward writing. Perhaps you manage well simply by thinking, and don't need to write.

Fourth, I next listed a couple of benefits that flow from writing, and looking back I see a that I had bigger projects in mind when I wrote it.

So, all in all, subjecting this article (at least first part of it) to writing process did have desired effect, and I discovered a couple of assumptions that I wasn't conscious of while writing. And, if I was writing a plan, especially a plan for a big project, those would be worthwhile discoveries.

In summary, act and process of writing down an idea will help you implement idea, because it will help uncover some of assumptions and expectations underlying your idea.