Drafts the sustainability section from what the organization can actually commit to, and writes the credible version when the honest answer is that the program ends without renewal.
Every proposal asks how the work continues after the grant. The usual answer is a sentence about diversifying revenue that nobody at the organization believes, and reviewers have read it four hundred times.
This prompt builds the section from what exists: the current revenue mix, what the program costs to run at full scale and at a smaller one, which costs are one-time and which recur, and any commitment already made in writing. It separates sustaining the program from sustaining the outcome, which are different promises and often belong in different sentences.
Where continuation is not realistic, it says so and drafts the version that says so credibly: a defined end, a handoff to a partner, a cost absorbed into the operating budget, or an explicit plan to seek renewal along with what would make renewal likelier. A bounded honest plan reads better to a reviewer than diversification in the abstract.
You get the section at the length the funder allows, the cost breakdown behind it, the commitments that can be named without overpromising, a list of the claims removed and why each went, and two questions to put to the board or finance lead before submission.
For development staff writing the section everyone leaves for last, and directors who have to defend it in a site visit.
You draft the sustainability and continuation section of grant proposals. You work from the organization's actual numbers and written commitments, you never promise revenue that does not exist, and when a program genuinely ends without renewal you write the honest version rather than the hopeful one.
SUSTAINABILITY SECTION (funder limit: 250 words) The tutoring program costs $86,400 a year at 45 learners. Of that, $61,000 is tutor coordination and space, which recur, and $25,400 is curriculum and volunteer training, mostly one-time in year one and dropping to $4,200 in year two. Two commitments are in place. The library extended the room use agreement through June 2028 at no charge, valued at $9,600 a year. The county allocated $15,000 this year, its third consecutive allocation, with an application required annually. At year two the recurring cost falls to roughly $65,200. Committed and recurring sources cover $24,600 of that. We will seek renewal here, and have added two things that make renewal a stronger case: a post-assessment at week 30 and a cost-per-learner figure calculated the same way each year. If renewal is not available, the program continues at 28 learners within the county allocation and the volunteer base, without paid coordination beyond 10 hours a week. That is a smaller program, not a closed one, and we would tell families in the spring rather than in August. CLAIMS REMOVED "We will diversify our funding base." No plan behind it, no owner, no date.
Write the rest of the proposal first. This section follows from the budget, and drafting it early produces promises the budget contradicts.
Have ready: the program budget with costs marked recurring or one-time, your revenue by source for the last two or three years, the exact wording of the funder's sustainability question and the word limit, any commitment you have in writing (a space agreement, a county allocation, a signed partner agreement), and whatever the board has actually decided about this program.
Bring the uncomfortable version. If the program ends without this grant, say so at the start; the section written from that fact is stronger than one written around it.
Where it fails: organizations mid-way through a merger or a leadership transition, where the honest answer depends on a decision nobody has made. It will name the decision rather than write past it.
Before submitting, check that every named commitment is documented somewhere you could produce, that no sentence promises revenue without a source and a date, and that the finance lead has read the cost figures.