A large part of your funding applications, business plan and communications will involve evidencing (or demonstrating) need: the demand for your organisation in the community, the services you can provide, and the outcomes you've had.

When you're new to writing funding bids or reports, it can be difficult to make sense of the key terms and buzzwords used by grant makers, local authorities, businesses and other VCSE organisations. 

The glossary below will explain the most common words you will come across - words that don't come up in everyday conversations but are still useful, like 'qualitative' and 'quantitative', and words you'll hear all the time and you should use in your reports, like 'impact' and 'monitoring'. 

This glossary was developed by Dr. Lorna Henry, Voscur associate trainer, as part of the Evidencing Need course.