When seeking grants, you must be willing to exert effort without any guarantee of success.
“The difference between individual fundraising and fundraising through grants is that at least with individual fundraising, you have some certainty you’re going to get some money, whereas with a grant, you don’t know,” says Deborah Koch, author of How to Say It: Grantwriting and a grant writer at Springfield Technical Community College in Massachusetts.
But the rewards can also be much higher: Foundation grants may provide support for multiple years.
Fundraising experts recommend that nonprofits that are seeking foundation grants for the first time take the following steps.
Determine how much of your budget should come from grants.There’s no one-size-fits-all model. Some organizations may have more grants available, depending on the size of the nonprofit and its mission.
“You don’t want to be overly dependent on grants,” says Andrea John-Smith, a management consultant who teaches classes on grant seeking at the University of Washington.
Nonprofits need sources of income that are not restricted, Ms. John-Smith says, and those types of grants are often harder to come by.
Determine which grants to apply for. Just like fundraising from individual donors, grant seeking begins with research to determine which foundations are a good fit with your organization.
Many grant writers suggest starting small and local to give your organization credibility before expanding your search.
“If somebody else has funded you, that kind of vets you for the next place,” Ms. Koch says.
Shana Heilbron, chief development and communications officer at the YWCA National Capital Area, begins by looking at which foundations give to causes similar to those of her organization. She also looks at whether her group has connections with a foundation or its board of directors.
Talking to organizations with similar missions about which foundations they’ve applied to can also be helpful, says Jennie Smith-Peers, executive director of the Brooklyn nonprofit Elders Share the Arts. Looking at Part XV of a foundation’s IRS Form 990-PF helps her get a sense of its funding priorities, she says.
The goal is to find foundations that share the same goals as your organization.
“Don’t turn yourself into a pretzel to fit the qualifications of the grant,” Ms. John-Smith says. “If you really focus in on those grant makers that are a good match for you, you will raise more money.”
Employees at Kids’ Food Basket, an anti-hunger group in Grand Rapids, Mich., set email alerts through Google to let them know about grants awarded to similar groups, says Bridget Clark Whitney, the organization’s executive director.
“It’s not always grants that we’re eligible for,” she says. “However, in some cases, it gives us great ideas.”
Start a dialogue with potential grant makers. Think of foundations as major donors, says Lloyd Martinez, a senior development director at the National Audubon Society. Relationships can mean everything.
“Many people will send out cold proposals, and I think that’s a fundamental mistake,” he says.
He spends the bulk of his time meeting foundation officials, going to their offices, and trying to get in the door. That helps him gauge a grant maker’s level of interest, which leads to a high rate of proposal success.
“We rarely submit proposals unless we know it makes sense,” he says.
Just because a foundation doesn’t accept unsolicited proposals doesn’t mean you can’t approach it, says Ms. Smith-Peers. She connected with more than half of her organization’s foundation supporters by writing a letter of introduction and asking her network if they had connections to the grant maker.
Make sure leadership approves. This will vary, depending on your organization, but you may need approval from the group’s leaders before starting work on a proposal.
“They have to agree it’s important and fits into the mission,” says Ms. Koch.
Approval may come from the board of directors, the senior managers of the development department, the facilities manager, or the information technology department, depending on what the grant supports.
Determine who should write the proposal. Grant writing is a collaborative process at organizations of all sizes.
During the first few years of Kids’ Food Basket, Ms. Clark Whitney was the main grant writer. Now that the organization has grown to 22 employees, the development team’s manager of corporate and foundation relations manages the language of proposals and an assistant helps with proofreading and some writing. Sometimes the two development interns start the writing process. On larger proposals, the associate director and Ms. Clark Whitney will do a final edit.
At the Audubon Society, Mr. Martinez, who is the designated grant writer, works closely with the director of development communications and staff subject-matter experts, depending on the particular grant. Each grant has its own team from the beginning.
“They’ve been part of the conversation; they heard from the horse’s mouth what the foundation is looking for, what their expectations are,” he says. “And then we brainstorm and put together something on paper and then development will polish it, do some editing, and once it’s good to go, we’ll submit it.”
People who do the work on the ground may have the concepts down, but they are not necessarily the best writers, says Ms. Koch.
If many people are contributing, you need an editor who has the final say, Ms. Koch advises. That person should make sure the language is consistent and the sections flow smoothly.
Decide whether to hire outside help. Ms. Heilbron, of the Washington YWCA, says that hiring a contract grant-writing team has allowed her to cut the time she spends on proposals in half. Now the bulk of her grant-seeking efforts go toward cultivating relationships, not writing.
But hiring a consultant may sometimes present a challenge, says Ms. Smith-Peers, of Elders Share the Arts. It can be difficult for an outsider to understand an organization’s programs as well as internal employees do. She says that hasn’t been an issue at her organization, however, because she works closely with its long-time contract grant writer to tell its story.
“It’s so helpful that she knows our programs as well and has seen them and experienced them,” she says.
Organizations that decide to hire a contract grant writer should seek recommendations from local professional associations and referrals from colleagues, advises Ms. John-Smith.
Stay organized. Each proposal should have a “shepherd” or a project manager, says Ms. Koch. That’s the person who makes sure everything happens on schedule.
A centralized grants calendar is the core of many organizations’ grant-seeking systems, helping keep track of deadlines and reporting requirements.
Whether it’s a simple Excel sheet or a Google calendar, this will help you stay on top of important dates.
Some organizations, such as the YWCA National Capital Area, use systems that automatically generate weekly updates about grants they’re considering applying for and applications that are already in the works.
Kids’ Food Basket has an internal checklist to remind employees to follow up on submitted proposals.
“You don’t want things to fall through the cracks,” Ms. Clark Whitney says.
If a request for proposals doesn’t provide applicants with a checklist of required components, Ms. Koch suggests making one.
“Put that somewhere where you’ll see it frequently,” she says.
Manage your time. Organizations should triple the time they think it will take to complete a proposal, says Ms. Koch.
“Whatever you think it’s going to take, I guarantee you [that] you haven’t thought it was enough time,” she says. “A good, solid proposal can take months to prepare.”
As a rule, spend more time on proposals with a larger potential payoff, says Mr. Martinez.
Over time, organizations will develop boilerplates to work from that reduce the overall effort.
“You’re not reinventing the wheel every time you have to do a proposal related to a particular subject matter,” says Amy Purvis, chief development officer at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
At the same time, she says, grants should still be as customized as possible.
“Be very careful about selecting your target,” she says. “Submit better requests to fewer people who are best aligned to your mission.”
