Every grant round ends with more declines than awards. For most funders, the declined applicants outnumber the successful ones by a significant margin. The quality of those decline letters — the clarity, the tone, the reasoning — shapes how applicants experience your organisation long after the round has closed.
A poorly written decline creates friction where there does not need to be any. Applicants become frustrated not because they were declined — most experienced applicants accept that as part of the process — but because they cannot understand why, or because the letter they received felt automated and dismissive despite the significant effort they put into applying.
A well-written decline does three things: it explains the decision with enough specificity to be useful, it preserves the relationship, and it produces a record your organisation can stand behind if the decision is ever questioned.
The obvious reason is applicant experience. Organisations that apply to your fund often apply multiple times over years. A decline letter that explains the reasoning clearly, acknowledges the effort, and points toward future opportunities converts a disappointing outcome into a useful interaction. Applicants come back. They recommend your fund to peers. They trust that the process was fair.
The less obvious reason is governance. A decline letter is a decision record. If an applicant challenges a decision — formally through a complaints process, or informally through a board member or a politician — your letter is the first document examined. "We decided not to fund this project because..." needs to be followed by a statement that is both accurate and defensible.
For public funders subject to the Official Information Act or similar obligations, the stakes are higher still. A decision to decline a grant application is a public decision made with public funds. The reasoning should be on record, should be consistent with the published criteria, and should be explainable to anyone who asks.
Applicants want to know two things: why this application was not funded, and whether there is any point applying again.
They do not want:
They do want:
A workable structure for a contestable funding round decline:
Opening: acknowledge the application specifically. Name the project, name the programme, and note the round. This signals that the letter is about their application, not a template sent to everyone.
Decision statement: clear and unambiguous. "We are not able to offer funding to [project name] in this round." Do not hedge. Do not soften to the point of ambiguity.
Reason for decline: specific and grounded in criteria. One to three sentences that explain why the application did not progress. The explanation should map back to the assessment criteria the applicant was given at the outset.
Acknowledgement of effort where appropriate. A single sentence is sufficient. If the application was genuinely strong but simply below the funding threshold, say so. If it was not strong, do not say it was.
Forward guidance. Is there a future round? Is there an expression of interest process for the next cycle? Is there a different programme within your organisation that might be a better fit? Give the applicant something to act on.
Contact information. Offer a named contact — or at minimum a generic programme email — for applicants who have questions.
Closing. Keep it brief.
Generic language is the most common problem in decline letters. It backfires because applicants can tell. When every organisation receives the same letter with only the name and project title changed, the experience is of a process that did not take the application seriously.
Specific things to avoid:
"We received a large number of high-quality applications." This is almost always true and almost always unhelpful. It tells the applicant nothing about their application.
"Your application did not meet our criteria." This is a conclusion, not a reason. If it is not followed by which criterion was not met and why, it is not useful.
Apologising for the decision. You are not sorry you made a considered decision with your funding resources. "We regret to inform you" is fine as a formality. Multiple apologies read as institutional anxiety rather than genuine empathy.
Inviting reapplication when you know the work is not fundable. "We encourage you to apply in future rounds" costs nothing to write and raises expectations you cannot meet. Only say it if you mean it.
The following is a framework, not a template to be copied verbatim. The reason for decline must be specific to the actual assessment; this structure gives you the scaffolding.
Dear [Name],
Thank you for submitting your application for [project name] to the [Programme Name] [Year] funding round.
After careful assessment, we are not able to offer funding to this project in the current round.
[One to three sentences explaining the specific reason for decline, grounded in the assessment criteria. For example: "While your project demonstrated clear community need, the assessment panel found that the proposed outcomes were not supported by a sufficiently detailed implementation plan. In particular, the milestones in your activity schedule did not align with the requested budget, making it difficult to assess value for money against our funding criteria."]
[Optional, where accurate: "The panel noted the strength of [specific element]. This was a competitive round, and a number of strong applications were not able to be funded."]
[Forward guidance: "Applications for our [next round] open on [date]. If you are considering reapplying, we recommend [specific suggestion — e.g., attending our applicant briefing, reviewing the funding criteria against your logic model, contacting the programme team before submission]."
If you have questions about this decision, please contact [name or email].
Regards,
[Name and role]
Writing individual decline letters for a large round is not realistic. But sending a generic letter to every declined applicant is not acceptable either. The solution is structured variation at scale.
The approach that works: define a set of standardised decline reasons that map to your assessment criteria — specific enough to be meaningful, general enough to apply across applications — and assign each declined application to one or more reasons during the assessment review. When letters are generated, those reasons populate the relevant section of a template.
This is not mail merge in the traditional sense. It is a structured decision record that drives communication. The programme officer is not writing a new letter for each application; they are making a classification decision during assessment that the system then uses to generate a substantive, specific letter.
The letter each applicant receives is personalised to their decline reason. The process that produced it is scalable.
In practice, this requires a grants management system that supports automated decision letters with merge fields — one where decline reasons are structured data, not free-text notes. When a batch of 50 or 100 applications is declined in a single action, each applicant receives a letter that reflects the actual assessment outcome for their application: the right reason, the right guidance, the right next step.
The dispatch is logged against each application record. If an applicant calls to ask about their letter, you can tell them exactly what was sent and when.
To see how automated decision letters work in practice — including bulk approve and decline workflows — book a demo.