Provide an audience-sensitive definition and description of the problem your proposal seeks to solve or alleviate. Try to stay away from basic dictionary definitions; instead, it might be more appropriate to use a field specific definition from the literature while citing your source(s).

Focusing on key indicators such as income, age, education, employment status, crime, etc., describe the group that has the need and to whom your program will be directed.

While comparing and contrasting national trends, regional trends, and local trends, provide (research) data supporting how the problem affects your target population in particular.

While citing your sources, provide more secondary data (e.g., newspaper reports, police precint data, school reading and math scores, dropout rates, violent incidents reports, hospital and health department statistics, relevant research data from the literature) supporting the existence of the problem in your target population.

Primary data (data collected yourself) can be invaluable in documenting specific local problems. Provide any primary data (community demographic data, organization records, survey results, interview and focus group results, and/or anecdotal information demonstrating the existence and severity of the problem your proposal seeks to solve or alleviate.

Summarize your key data points documenting the conditions in your target population while showing the gap in service that you intend to fill.