Proposal Writing
Sustainability Plan Example for a Grant Proposal
Allison Brandt, CFRE
August 13, 2026 · 5 min read
Table of contents
Key takeaways
- A sustainability plan must name specific successor funding, not describe an intention to seek it.
- The strongest plans reduce the ongoing cost of the program, not just replace the revenue.
- Reviewers look for evidence: named funders, committed partners, board decisions, dates.
- Say plainly which parts of the program continue and which end; selective continuation reads as honest planning.
Most guidance on sustainability plans explains what to include. This page shows a finished one. Below is a complete sample sustainability plan for a grant proposal, followed by an annotation of why each part works, and what the weaker version of the same paragraph would look like.
The example is a fictional youth literacy program requesting a two-year, $180,000 foundation grant.
The worked example
Sustainability Plan
Riverside Youth Literacy Initiative, continuation beyond the grant period
The Initiative is designed so that its ongoing cost falls by roughly 45% between year one and year three, and so that the reduced cost is met from four sources already in development rather than from a single successor grant.
Reducing the ongoing cost. Years one and two carry one-time costs that do not recur: curriculum development ($22,000), tutor training design ($14,000), and assessment tooling ($9,000). Once complete, these assets are owned by the Initiative and reusable. From year three the program's annual operating cost falls from $90,000 to approximately $49,000, consisting of the site coordinator (0.6 FTE), materials, and evaluation.
A second reduction comes from the volunteer tutor model. In year one, paid staff deliver 70% of tutoring hours. The training curriculum funded by this grant allows trained volunteers to deliver 60% of hours by year three, verified through our existing volunteer retention data showing an 11-month average tenure.
Diversified successor funding. Against a year-three requirement of approximately $49,000:
Source Target Status Hartwell Community Foundation, education portfolio $20,000/yr LOI invited; full proposal due March 2027 Riverside Unified School District, Title I partnership $15,000/yr MOU signed 12 Feb 2026, conditional on year-one outcomes Annual donor appeal, restricted to literacy $9,000/yr Raised $7,400 in 2025 from an unrestricted appeal Corporate sponsorship, Fairbanks Regional Bank $5,000/yr Verbal commitment; board decision scheduled Q3 2026 No single source exceeds 41% of the year-three requirement, so the loss of any one does not end the program.
Committed partner contributions. Riverside Unified provides classroom space at three sites, valued at $18,400 annually, under the signed MOU referenced above. The Riverside Public Library provides meeting space and materials storage at no cost, confirmed in the attached letter of support dated 4 March 2026.
What continues and what does not. The tutoring program, volunteer training, and annual assessment continue past the grant period. The family engagement workshops, which are the most staff-intensive component at $16,000 a year, will be discontinued at the end of year two unless the district partnership expands. Our board reviewed and approved this scope reduction on 21 January 2026.
Governance. The board's Development Committee reviews progress against these four funding targets quarterly. The first review that could trigger a scope change is scheduled for October 2026, twelve months before grant funds end, giving the organization a full year to adjust.
Why this version scores
It reduces cost rather than only replacing revenue. Nearly every weak sustainability plan answers "how will you replace $90,000?" This one answers "why will you not need $90,000?", by separating one-time investment from recurring cost. That single move is the largest difference between plans that convince and plans that do not, and it is also an argument for funding you: the grant buys durable assets.
Every source has a status and a date. Compare:
- Weak: "We will pursue additional foundation funding and expand our individual donor base."
- Strong: "Hartwell Community Foundation, education portfolio, $20,000/yr, LOI invited, full proposal due March 2027."
The second is checkable. Reviewers score checkable.
Nothing depends on one source. Stating explicitly that no source exceeds 41% pre-empts the reviewer's next question. It also demonstrates that the applicant thinks about concentration risk, which is a proxy for general financial competence.
The in-kind is valued and documented. $18,400 of classroom space under a signed MOU is a real contribution. Our guide to matching funds and in-kind contributions covers how to value and evidence these properly, and the same discipline applies here.
It admits something ends. The family engagement workshops are being discontinued, with a board decision and a date. This is the paragraph inexperienced writers delete, and it is the one that most increases credibility. A plan where everything continues at full scale on 45% of the budget is not a plan; it is a wish. Selective continuation reads as an organization that has genuinely done the arithmetic.
There is a governance mechanism with a trigger date. Quarterly review, first decision point twelve months before the money stops. This tells the reviewer that the plan will survive contact with reality because someone is accountable for watching it.
The four failure modes to check yourself against
- Intent instead of evidence. If a sentence could appear in any applicant's proposal, it is not doing work. "We will diversify our funding" fails this test.
- One successor grant. Replacing this funder with a single hypothetical future funder moves the problem rather than solving it.
- Silence on cost. If your year-three cost equals your year-one cost, explain why, or explain what falls away.
- No dates. A plan without dates cannot be monitored, which means it will not be.
Adapting this to your proposal
The structure transfers to almost any program: reduce cost, diversify sources with status and dates, evidence partner commitments, state what continues, name who monitors it. Fill in the four blocks with your own facts and you have a defensible section.
Check the funder's guidelines first, some federal programs prescribe required elements or a page limit, and where they do, their structure overrides this one. For the underlying concepts, see how to write a sustainability plan. The cost figures should come straight from your budget, so build that first with our grant budget builder, and make sure the outcomes you promise to sustain match your logic model.
