Grant guidelines exist to do one thing: help eligible applicants understand whether to apply and how. Everything else is secondary.
Guidelines that are too short fail the first part — applicants can't determine whether they're eligible, what's in scope, or how they'll be assessed. Guidelines that are too long fail the second part — the key information is buried in caveats, definitions, and procedural detail that few applicants read in full.
Most grant guidelines are too long. This guide is about finding the right length for your programme.
Long guidelines have real costs. Applicants spend more time reading and less time on their application. Programme staff spend more time answering clarification queries about information that's technically in the guidelines but hard to find. Assessment panels encounter more applications that don't fit the programme because applicants got lost in the detail.
The cost falls hardest on applicants with the least capacity — small community organisations, emerging groups, first-time applicants. Larger, more experienced organisations have staff who can parse complex guidelines. Smaller ones often don't.
If your guidelines are discouraging good applicants, they're not serving their purpose, regardless of how comprehensive they are.
For most grant programmes, guidelines should fit in eight to twelve pages. This is enough space to clearly describe eligibility, scope, process, assessment criteria, and how to apply — without overwhelming applicants or burying the essential information.
Exceptions exist. Complex multi-year programmes, programmes with extensive regulatory requirements, or programmes funding highly technical work may legitimately need more. But if your guidelines exceed fifteen to twenty pages, it's worth asking what's driving the length and whether all of it is necessary.
Over-hedging on eligibility: Instead of defining clearly what's eligible, trying to list every possible edge case and exclusion. This approach never achieves completeness (there's always another edge case) and makes the guidelines much longer and harder to read. Define the principle clearly and handle edge cases through the query process.
Procedural detail that belongs in the application form: Explaining how to complete each section of the application form in the guidelines, rather than in the form itself. The guidelines should describe what you're looking for; the form should explain how to provide it.
Legal and compliance language: Some legal requirements genuinely need to be in guidelines. But guidelines that read like contracts — dense, formal, full of defined terms — are discouraging for applicants and rarely add real legal protection. Consult your legal advisers on what actually needs to be there, not just what someone once decided should be.
Repeated information: Many guidelines repeat the same information in multiple places — once in the overview, again in the detailed section, again in the FAQ. Repetition adds length without adding clarity.
Everything that's ever gone wrong: Guidelines that expand every time there's a problem applicant — adding a new clause to prevent the situation from recurring — end up as archaeological records of past programme issues rather than useful guidance for current applicants.
Programme overview (half a page): What this grant funds, what it's trying to achieve, and who it's for. This is the applicant's first filter — it should tell them quickly whether to keep reading.
Eligibility (one to two pages): Who can apply, what activities are in scope, what's excluded, and any specific conditions (geographic, sector, timing). Clear, direct, and as specific as you can be without trying to enumerate every edge case.
What we fund / what we don't fund (half to one page): The types of activity or costs that are in scope, and common examples of what's excluded. Tables work well here.
How much you can apply for (half a page): Minimum and maximum grant amounts, whether you can apply for full project costs or co-funding is required, and any per-organisation funding caps.
Assessment criteria and process (one to two pages): What you'll be assessed against, how applications are assessed, who assesses them, and how decisions are made. Include the scoring criteria and any weighting. This is the section applicants most need to write a strong application.
How to apply (half to one page): Application form, supporting documents required, deadline, where to submit.
Timeline (half a page): Application deadline, assessment period, decision date, funding commencement date.
Contact and queries (quarter page): Who to contact, how, and what kinds of questions they'll answer.
Total: five to seven pages for a standard programme. Add FAQ, definitions, or supplementary guidance as separate documents for applicants who need more detail — keeping them separate from the main guidelines preserves readability for the majority.
Before publishing, test your guidelines with two or three people who represent your target applicant population. Ask them to read the guidelines and identify:
Their responses will tell you more than any internal review. The questions they still have after reading the guidelines are your FAQ. The things they found hard to find need to move up or be signposted more clearly. The confusing parts need to be rewritten.
This test takes a few hours and prevents a significant volume of pre-deadline clarification queries.
This article is part of the complete guide: How to Write Grant Guidelines That Attract the Right Applicants.