Grants

The online world is full of anonymous opinions: Diners review restaurants, students rate professors, patients evaluate doctors. Now fundraisers are getting their turn. A new website, Inside Philanthropy, is asking them to “Speak Truth to Money” and say what they really think about foundations, program officers and philanthropists.

The anonymous-ratings feature is part of a broader effort by the online venture’s founder, David Callahan, to penetrate philanthropy’s inner sanctums.

A typical error with small or fledgling nonprofits is they think fundraising equals grants, when, as you and I both know, grants are only a tiny piece of a much larger pie. Grants can make a difference for your nonprofit’s bottom line. Grants are useful in many ways. However, grants should not be a stand-in for all fundraising activities or depended on long term for operation funding. The majority of money comes from individuals. Even project funding could be much more easily obtained from individuals than from foundations.

Once the technical understanding of grant application components is accomplished, I strongly believe it is time to focus on enhancing the craft of grant writing. It is time to now focus and improve on how you tell the story of your organization and proposed program or project within your proposal narrative, cover letter and letter of inquiry. Below I outline questions to consider for each of the seven qualities of a proposal that, if mastered, will land you in the stack of excellent funded grant proposals during the next grant application review.

How do you create a “dream” grant-writing team for an organization or specific application that covers all areas of needed expertise in order to create a competitive grant application? I recommend approaching your team composition from a strengths-based approach. Think about the strengths that each of the potential players brings to the table assessing a strong budget developer or a strong program evaluator.

In my decades of running charitable foundations, I read tens of thousands of proposals. Many share the same characteristics I'll touch on below.

Since nearly all foundations are required to disburse some of their funds each year, grants are always made — to someone. Over the years, grant-seekers have asked me how they can increase their chances of being among the ones chosen.

Here are answers to the questions I'm most often asked …

Most online grant applications have strict character and/or word limits for your responses to each question. Enter one character too many and you receive a pop-up message saying you’ve gone over the limit, or your keystrokes are instantly stopped. You’ve been cut off, my fellow grant writer. But, take heart — with practice you can learn to do something you should probably be doing as a grant writer anyway — keeping your text concise while still retaining focus and meaning.

Foundation Source shares key findings from a recent survey of private foundation donors. Issued earlier this month to its 1,100 private foundation clients, the survey collected feedback from donors about their beliefs and perceptions about some of philanthropy’s current “hot-button” issues.

Results were derived from 198 respondents, the majority of whom have private foundations with less than $50 million in assets. Foundations of this size account for 98 percent of the approximately 86,000 private foundations in the U.S.

Jessica Brown, chief professional officer of the Boys and Girls Club of Central Appalachia, was thrown into the grant-writing world and quickly picked up on the ins and outs of the process. Along the way, she learned a lot. Check out Brown’s advice on mistakes you should never make when you’re undergoing the grant-writing process.

As any grant writer or development professional knows, it's not easy to get a funder to actually sit at the table. Here are a few tips designed to help you demonstrate to potential first-time funders that your project or program merits their support: Craft a strong needs statement. Don't forget letters of support. Don't hide your volunteers under a bushel. Show you have broad support in the community. Solicit matching grants. Be happy with small grants. Cast a wide net.

“How are we going to bring in more money? Let’s get creative, folks!” Employees at nonprofit organizations of varying shapes and sizes have heard this from upper management in one way or another. There are only so many sources of fundraising revenue, and traditional foundation grants, corporate grants and annual appeals can become stale very quickly. We wanted to show you that there are several ways to think outside the box and give you a few unconventional ideas that might spark a creative fundraiser for your organization!