Pitch deck structure for funders and partners

Most organisations need two versions of the same pitch. A presented deck supports a speaker in a meeting or at a conference, so slides carry a headline, an image or a chart, and very little else. A send-ahead deck is read alone, often forwarded inside a funder's team, so each slide must make sense without anyone explaining it.

Trying to make one file do both jobs is the most common reason decks fail. Build the read-alone version first, because it forces you to write the argument down. Then strip it back for the room and move the detail into speaker notes or an annex.

Funders and partners ask the same few questions: what is the problem, why you, what will change, how will you know, and what do you want from us. A good pitch deck structure answers them in that order, in around 10 to 15 core slides, with everything else in an appendix.

• Title slide: who you are and one line on what you are proposing
• The ask: what you want from this funder or partner, stated plainly
• The problem: who is affected, where, and how you know
• Your approach: what you will do and why it should work
• Track record: what you have already delivered, with evidence
• Results: what will change, and the indicators you will report
• Partners and roles: who does what
• Team: the people accountable for delivery
• Budget summary and timeline: the shape of the money and the milestones
• Risks and how you will manage them
• Close: the ask again, and a named contact

Many decks open with the organisation's history and reveal the request on the final slide. Readers who stop after three slides never see it. Journalists solve this with the inverted pyramid, where the most important information, even the conclusion, comes first.¹ Nielsen Norman Group notes that readers who read only the opening still know what the piece is about.¹

Plain-language guidance from the US government says the same: start by stating your purpose and the bottom line, put the most important information at the beginning, and leave background near the end.² In a donor presentation, that means the ask belongs on slide two, not slide fifteen.

It helps to think about how your work will later be evaluated. The OECD Development Assistance Committee sets out six evaluation criteria: relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability.³ You do not need a slide titled with each word, but your problem, approach, results and budget slides should between them answer all six.

When you show numbers, choose the chart for the point you are making. The Financial Times Visual Vocabulary groups charts by the relationship in the data, for example deviation, ranking, magnitude or flow.⁴ A slide that says "enrolment rose in all five districts" needs a chart that shows change, not a pie. Put the finding in the slide headline so the chart confirms it rather than hides it.

Good pitch deck design is mostly restraint. Give each slide one message, written as a full-sentence headline. Use one strong photograph, chart or diagram to support it. The W3C's guidance on accessible presentations asks speakers to limit the amount of text on each slide and to make text and important visuals big enough to read from the back of the room.⁵

Contrast matters as much as size. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines set a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text, defined as at least 18 point, or 14 point bold.⁶ Pale grey text on a white slide, or white text over a busy photograph, often fails. Test your palette before you build the deck, not after.

• One message per slide, in the headline
• Real photographs from your work, used with consent
• Charts with a clear takeaway and labelled axes
• Consistent layout so the reader learns where to look

A partnership deck has a different centre of gravity. A funder asks whether your work deserves money. A partner, such as a company, a ministry or another agency, asks what the collaboration will do for its own goals and what it will cost in time and reputation.

Keep the same backbone but change the emphasis. Add a slide on shared objectives, a clear split of roles and responsibilities, how decisions will be made, and how each partner will be credited and made visible. Be specific about what you need from them in the first six months. In our own practice, we find that a simple diagram of who does what answers more questions than several slides of text.

W3C recommends providing slides and handouts to participants, interpreters and captioners in advance where needed, and describing all relevant visual information when you present.⁵ It also suggests that any audio you use, such as a short film, is available in text, for example through captions.⁵

Send the read-alone version as a PDF with a clear file name and a date, and keep it short enough to forward. After the meeting, follow up with the full appendix, the budget detail and any reports you referred to, so the funder's team has everything in one place.

• Decide if the deck is presented, read alone, or both
• State the ask within the first two slides
• Answer: problem, approach, evidence, results, team, budget, risks
• Write every slide headline as a full sentence
• Match each chart to the point it makes
• Check text size and contrast against WCAG
• Move detail to speaker notes or an appendix
• Share slides in advance when interpreters or captioners are involved