Your goal is to make it easy for your readers to find and refer to your original source, so that they can confirm the information that you presented and judge its quality for themselves.

If the funder hasn't given specific instructions about how to cite your sources, provide the full citation in a footnote on the same page where you quoted or paraphrased the material. Aim to find and cite the original source, instead of an article that summarized the data or results.

To know what information to include in a citation, use the style guide typically used for your field. Most nonprofits would probably follow American Psychological Association (APA) style. Reference or citation management software can also be a useful tool to help format citations for grant proposals.

Henry Flood, senior grant management advisor for The Grantsmanship Center in Los Angeles, further suggests that organizations should have a grants policy that requires citations in all proposals and someone to review and verify sources.