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Plain-English guide · for nonprofits
What is a letter of inquiry?
Updated September 2026
A letter of inquiry, or LOI, is a short letter that many foundations ask for first. Often its job is to earn an invitation to send a full proposal. But plenty of funders decide whether to fund you from the LOI alone, so write it as if it is the only thing they will read.
Two or three pages, five moves: who you are, the problem, what you would do about it, roughly what it costs, and why this funder.
The five moves, in order
Who you are, in one paragraph
Mission, community, one line of credibility. Not your founding story.
The problem, made local and concrete
The situation in your community, not the global statistics page. The funder knows homelessness exists; they do not know your county's version of it.
What you would do
The program in enough detail to be believable: who it serves, what happens, what changes. Name the outcome you would hold yourself to.
What it costs, roughly
The total and the amount you would ask this funder for. Funders read LOIs partly to check the ask fits their range; hiding the number wastes everyone's month.
Why this funder
One honest paragraph connecting your work to what they say they fund. If you cannot write it, that is the research telling you something.
What ends an LOI early
Sending the same letter to every foundation, with the name swapped. Asking outside the funder's published range. Ignoring their stated format when they give one, because an LOI that does not follow instructions predicts a grantee who will not either. And burying the ask, which reads as either disorganized or evasive.
After you send it
Log it: funder, date, amount, response deadline if they publish one. A declined LOI is not a dead relationship; a funder who says "not this year" has told you they read it. Track it like the pipeline it is, and the second letter to the same funder starts warmer than the first.
This is general information. Each funder sets its own application steps, length limits and deadlines, so follow the funder's own guidelines first.
Letter of inquiry (LOI) is one of 41 terms in our plain-English nonprofit glossary.
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Sources: Definition and method content; no external statistics cited.