Case Study 2 — One Project, Two Summaries: Foundation vs. Government
Composite, for teaching. The organization and funders are illustrative.
The Situation
Lighthouse Community Services (composite) runs a workforce-training program for adults leaving incarceration. The program is strong, and Lighthouse has identified two promising funders for the same expansion: a regional family foundation focused on "second chances and economic mobility," and a federal workforce program that scores applications against a published rubric. Lighthouse's development director, short on time, is tempted to write one executive summary and send it to both. This chapter warns that the structure can be shared but the register cannot.
The Same Five Moves, Two Registers
Lighthouse drafts the universal structure once — need, project, organization, outcomes, request — then writes two versions.
For the family foundation, the summary opens warmly and with a human face: "Every year, hundreds of people return to our community from incarceration determined to rebuild — and most hit a wall of closed doors that the Foundation's second-chance mission exists to open." The outcomes are tied to mission impact (people employed, families stabilized, recidivism avoided), with a number alongside a story. The close looks toward partnership and long-term sustainability. The tone assumes a mission-driven reader who responds to narrative backed by evidence.
For the federal workforce program, the same project is summarized tightly against the rubric: "This project addresses [Program]'s priority of employment services for justice-involved adults, serving 120 participants across two sites, with outcomes aligned to the program's required performance measures: credential attainment, job placement, and 6-month retention." The need is stated with data; the project maps to the program's defined service categories; the outcomes are expressed in the program's own performance-measure vocabulary; and the summary previews each scored criterion in the rubric's order. The tone is rigorous and compliance-signaling, not warm.
Why One Summary Would Have Failed Both
Had Lighthouse sent the warm foundation summary to the federal reviewer, it would have read as vague and non-compliant — where are the required performance measures? which scored criteria does this address? — and lost points mechanically. Had it sent the tight, rubric-keyed government summary to the family foundation's board, it would have read as cold and bureaucratic — where is the mission, the human stakes, the reason we should care? — and failed to move a relationship-driven reader. The structure was identical; the register made the difference between fit and misfit in each room.
The Time Trade-Off
Writing two summaries cost Lighthouse a few extra hours. But those hours bought a materially better fit with each funder — and, given the leverage of the executive summary (the gateway to a careful read), a few hours tuning the register is among the highest-return time in the whole proposal. The development director's instinct to save time with one generic summary would have saved hours and lost both grants.
Discussion Questions
- The two summaries shared a structure but differed in register and outcome language. Articulate precisely what stayed the same and what changed, and why.
- The federal version mapped outcomes to the program's "required performance measures." Why does using the funder's own metric vocabulary matter so much for a government summary?
- Lighthouse nearly sent one generic summary to save time. Using the chapter's "gateway" argument, explain why that false economy is so costly.