Is this free, and what format are the files?
Yes. The download is three Word documents and three CSV spreadsheets, which open in Word, Pages, Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets with no conversion. Edit with AI opens the same pack as a working space instead, where the register converts your own funders' limits against your own measured letter.
How long should a letter of inquiry be?
That question has no answer independent of the funder. Fordham's research office publishes three real funders' requirements and not one states a limit in pages: 700 words in a single box, 7,750 characters across eight boxes, and 19,000 characters across five. The usual advice, one to two pages, describes none of them.
Can we not just send the same letter to every funder?
You can, and in the worked example it is returned by all five. Three fail on length and four are missing at least one element that funder named. Aldergate and Ellersby both say two pages and are 618 words apart, so a single version is over for one and half-empty at the other.
Does a portal character field count spaces?
Usually it does and almost never says so. On ordinary prose the two counts differ by about 16 percent, which on a 3,000 character field is 494 words against 591. Where the form is silent, plan against the stricter reading, then paste into the field and read its own counter, because pasted formatting carries hidden characters.
Our letter fits the limit. Why would it be returned?
Because length and content are separate tests. In the worked example one funder's version has 655 words to spare and is still unsubmittable, since three of the ten elements it requires by name are absent. A word count cannot see a missing element, which is why the matrix runs at the same time as the conversion.
What if the funder publishes no format spec?
Record it as silent rather than filling it with a default from another funder. Federal notices are required to state page limits, formatting including font and margins and paper size, and the sequence sections must follow. Private funders publish far less, so a word limit needs no spec and a bare page limit is a question to ask.
What happens after the letter goes out?
An invitation leads to the full proposal and the budget behind it, reusing the outcome measures it promised. The mission and capacity paragraphs can come from a content library too, already reviewed and dated. A declination gets a revisit condition on the tracker row, and the reasons worth extracting from it are usually not the reasons the letter stated.
Letter of Inquiry Template for Nonprofits