Before you write your first letter of inquiry
The first step a funder asks for has no standard shape, so the first task is not writing. Four questions to answer in order, and the guides that cover each one.
You have a funder, a deadline, and a vague instruction to send a letter of inquiry. Nobody has told you what that document looks like, how long it should be, or what you need in hand before you start.
So you open a blank page. That is the wrong first move.
What a letter of inquiry actually is
A letter of inquiry — an LOI, sometimes called a letter of intent or a concept paper — is a short request a funder reads before deciding whether to invite a full proposal. It is a screening step, not the application.
That is the part worth holding onto, because it changes what you owe it. You are not making the complete case for your program. You are answering one question: is this worth both of our time? A funder who says no at this stage has saved you the full proposal, which is the expensive document.
Which is also why the shape of it varies so much.
The part nobody mentions
The first step has no standard shape. For some funders it is a two-page letter on letterhead. For many it is a web form with its own fields and character limits. For some it is a portal that will not show you a single question until you have made an account.
Which one you get tends to follow the kind of funder. Community foundations and corporate giving programs handling a lot of applications lean toward structured forms. Research funders and long-relationship private foundations often still want a document, sometimes down to the font size. You cannot assume from the outside, and the guidelines page frequently will not say.
So the first task is not writing. It is finding out what you are actually being asked to produce.
Four questions, and the order they go in
Everything that happens before the writing sorts into four questions. The order matters, because each one can save you the work of the next.
| # | The question | Why it sits here | Roughly |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Is there a way in at all? | The only answer that can end the exercise | Ten minutes |
| 2 | What exactly are they asking for? | Decides what you need to gather | Half an hour |
| 3 | What do I need to have on hand? | Lead times you do not control start now | An hour, plus waiting |
| 4 | What of this will I reuse? | Decides whether the next one is cheaper | Ongoing |
Is there a way in at all? Some funders do not accept applications from organizations they have not already invited. This is the only question whose answer can end the exercise outright, which is why it goes first, and it takes about ten minutes — how to tell whether a foundation will accept your application.
What exactly are they asking for? A funder's guidelines are not prose. They are a list of requirements wearing prose, and the requirements are not all the same kind of thing: some are pass-fail gates, some are graded by a reviewer, some are documents you either have or do not, and some are the argument you write. Sorting one into the wrong category is expensive in both directions — how to read a NOFO.
What do I need to have on hand? Your records are not equally findable, and the reason is structural rather than a filing failure. Documents with a legal deadline behind them stay current, because something outside the organization forces them to exist on a schedule. Documents produced only when someone asks are often missing, and that is normal rather than a deficiency — what to have ready before your first LOI.
What of this will I reuse? The facts about your organization and your program are reusable for years. The finished document almost never is, because it was shaped by requirements that belong to the funder rather than to you. Knowing which is which before the second application saves more time than any other habit here — why a master LOI template stops working.
Why that order and not another
Work the access question first because it is fast, and because it is the only one that can stop everything cold. Finding out on Tuesday that a funder is invitation-only costs twenty minutes. Finding out after you submit costs the weekend you spent and the opportunity you did not pursue instead.
Then the requirements, because what they ask for decides what you have to go find.
Then the documents, because those have lead times that are not yours. A request that routes through a volunteer board secretary takes days, and people have weekends.
Then the writing, last. It is the only part that genuinely needs you at your desk with your best thinking, and it is the part most damaged by being done under deadline pressure with numbers you have not re-checked.
What this does not cover
Finding funders in the first place is a different problem, and nothing here speaks to it. Federal applications are also out of scope: they carry their own structure and their own compliance requirements. What follows is written for foundation and community funders.
The part worth taking away
None of the four questions is writing.
Most of what makes a first application go badly happens before anyone writes a sentence, and most of it is cheap to prevent — an afternoon of sorting and gathering, against a weekend you would otherwise spend on an application that was decided before anyone read it.
The guides
How to Read a NOFO: A Compliance Checklist for Nonprofit Grant Applicants
A method for turning any funder's requirements — a federal notice, a foundation's guidelines page, or a portal form — into a register you can check a draft against, so a missed requirement surfaces before you submit rather than after.
How to Tell Whether a Foundation Will Accept Your Application
Access closes in four different ways and only one looks like a locked door. A ten-minute check to run before you write, covering where to look and what each source can actually tell you.
Grant Readiness Checklist: What to Have Ready Before Your First LOI
A readiness checklist for a first letter of inquiry: which records are reliably findable and which are not, in the order that costs you least, so a gap turns up on Tuesday rather than the night before.
Why a Master LOI Template Stops Working (and What to Reuse Instead)
The content is reusable; the document around it never was. Three mechanisms defeat a single master file, and the fix is a content bank you assemble from rather than a finished thing you paste.
What a Foundation's Tax Filing Can and Cannot Tell You
When a funder publishes almost nothing, the 990-PF is where people look next. It is a dependable record of what a foundation has funded and a poor description of what it wants now — and the difference decides how much weight you can put on it.