Grants

Funding from foundations in support of global human rights initiatives totaled $1.8 billion in 2012, a report from Foundation Center and the International Human Rights Funders Group finds. The 2015 edition of Advancing Human Rights: Update on Global Foundation Grantmaking found that 774 foundations based in 45 countries made nearly 19,000 grants to almost 11,000…

City Year, an education-focused nonprofit organization that helps students to stay in school and on track to graduation, announced that it will standardize and scale its after-school middle school program with the support of a three-year $2.5 million grant from New York Life Foundation. “We are grateful and proud to welcome New York Life as…

Last week, Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, announced that the foundation would shift its programming to focus exclusively on grantmaking that addresses inequality. In many ways, the move was very much in character for the evident culture and values set of the current leadership: “Among these many trends, the one we returned to…

The fight against inequality will take center stage at the Ford Foundation under a sweeping overhaul announced today by the nation’s second biggest philanthropy. Not only will Ford direct all of its money and influence to curbing financial, racial, gender, and other inequities, but it will give lots more money in a way grantees have…

The Humana Foundation has selected three communities for its Humana Communities Benefit program. Nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations that aim to transform their communities by lowering barriers to health and well-being are encouraged to apply for the multi-year charitable grant totaling $350,000.

Does your organization receive government funding? Or are you at least considering it? The federal government is increasingly stepping away from providing human services like elder care, and instead it is calling for nonprofits to take up the services slack.

In the nonprofit fundraising world, here are some of the trends we’ll be watching for and responding to in 2015.

It is clear that foundation opportunities exist, but many FQHCs lack the grant sophistication to identify, target and secure these funds. To mitigate these barriers to funding, relying on grant professionals to prospect for key grantseeking priority areas, develop research-based programs, and submit competitive proposals will be critical to FQHCs' long-term grantseeking success in the post-ACA era.

Does staff size affect grantseeking activities and success? The short answer is "yes," but let's looks at some of the data that are available. Because all-volunteer organizations usually lack personnel dedicated to grantseeking, it becomes a less consistent, ad hoc affair, resulting in few awards. Moving an organization from all volunteer to having one to five employees increases the likelihood of grant funding; moving the organization to six to 10 employees increases that possibility even more.

Stopping a downward spiral is doable — but not without investing time and effort, and enduring some short-term pain.