Permissions Problem!!!

My root issue is that I am unable to edit my template and I have been told that it is the permissions.

So I am having an issue with the permissions.

First of all, I am unable to change the permissions in the chmod to anything. It won’t save. That is with both FTP’s. I have used godaddy’s ftp and coffeecup FTP Clients.
I have been told that the FTP needs to be able to do that but don’t know how to check to see if my FTP has that capability. How do I check if my FTP can pull this off.