A
few best practices:
First, grants do not
replace board/staff fundraising from individuals
When
your board starts suggesting grants in lieu of their selling sponsorships,
event tickets, it’s time to urge that board member to move on (a future post :)).
Grants aren’t the
panacea to donor and board fatigue.
Grants
are strategic opportunities to enhance already-strong fundraising programs. Grants
can help you launch a program, but they are not annuity streams of revenue.
Second, do your
research!
Definitely
research Foundations (we like foundationcenter.org). Our process usually takes
a couple months – we start with broad criteria, such as Foundations that fund
in California in the field of say education.
We
generate an initial list of around 200 prospects. We cull this down to about
40.
We
research the Foundation’s profile on Foundation Center, its website, its 990
and sometimes its Guidestar profile. We also review the websites/annual reports
of like-minded organizations to see if ABC Foundation is really funding direct
services for mental health.
We
create a 12-18 month calendar. We keep the other 160 Foundations sorted in
various buckets – never eligible, possibly eligible or almost eligible.
For
instance, if you’re more than 18 months away from an audit and there’s a
perfect Foundation for your mission that will make absolutely no exceptions
whatsoever about submitting an audit, that Foundation goes on our almost
eligible list.
Every 6 months or so, we revisit these lists and update our
calendar.
And,
of course, most Foundations change their priority areas over time. Just because
you’re not eligible now doesn’t mean you should ignore the Foundation forever.
Third, read the guidelines
for each foundation
You
may not qualify. If I had a nickel for every time I was asked “how come we
aren’t applying to ABC Foundation – they fund education and we have an education
component in our debate team programs,” I wouldn’t write these blogs :). That’s why we go
from 200 Foundations to 40.
Seriously,
read the guidelines. The Gates Foundation won’t fund your grassroots,
after-school tutoring program.
Of course, it’s an outstanding program and yes, Bill should fund it, but the
fact is, submitting your proposal won’t change his mind.
High-level alignment between your and the Foundation’s missions doesn’t mean you’re
eligible to apply.
Unfortunately,
one client actually wanted us to apply to every foundation that supported
education, whether or not the foundation funded in our geographic area or specific
area of education. It was time to have a different conversation with the
client.
It’s
great to be aggressive with applications – we do believe if you’re not getting
turned down from time to time, you’re not applying to enough Foundations – but
taking a direct mail approach of applying to 200 Foundations in 6 months and
hoping 3 or 4 will come through is foolish. It’s a great way to burn your
reputation with funders.
Program
officers travel in small circles and move around among various Foundations. They
will remember the homeless shelter that applied for an education grant because shelter
volunteers talk to clients in the food line.
Foundations
are more similar to major donors in the level of customization required.
Fourth, develop relationships with Foundation
staff
Unless
contact with a Foundation is strictly prohibited in the guidelines,
professional fundraising staff (or ED) should contact the Foundation’s staff,
in advance of submitting a proposal.
Do
your research in advance – write down your questions.
Most
Foundations will appreciate that you took the time to call and ask a question
or two and develop a relationship. You don’t want to launch into your entire
proposal, but give them your 30-second pitch.
And LISTEN.
Most
program officers don’t have the ability to say yes to a proposal. But, they
have the ability to say no. That’s powerful.
Do
listen and take their advice if they tell you to change something.
Fifth, pilot your grant proposals
With
our clients, we leave some running room in the early months. We know we’re
still working on the exact pitch/phrasing – especially if this is the first
time they’ve applied for grants. We like scaling up.
Don’t
apply to 30 grants in one month. One client wanted us to do this; fortunately,
they didn’t have enough postage that day :).
You’ll
need to spread out your applications anyway; many Foundations have specific
deadlines, which may include that they only accept grants between May 1 – June
15. Don’t bother applying October 12.
When you’re venturing into grants for the first time, you need to develop the
relationships with Foundation staff and you’ll need to test out your pitch. Get
feedback from Foundations.
If
you are turned down, contact a Foundation and nicely, nicely, nicely ask for
feedback. Thank for their consideration of your request. Let them know you’re
new to Foundations and you want to learn.
Maybe
it’s simply that the grant process was competitive this time and your proposal
was strong. Great. Apply again.
Maybe your mission doesn’t dovetail as much as you thought; you give gift cards
to select clients, but you’re not a food bank. Put this Foundation on the back
burner.
The
downside of not piloting, especially when you’re a new organization, is you
could run out of Foundations to apply to. Say, we had applied to all 30 Foundations
in the first month for our client. Our client would have had no one else to
apply to for at least 6 months.
It’s also valuable to get feedback from Foundations that you can take to your
board. One nonprofit I worked at - before going into consulting - didn’t believe me when we told them that 100%
of the board needed to give and insisted I apply for grants. Only 75% of their
board gave.
So,
I applied to one foundation that immediately turned us down.
I
called for feedback and was told they wanted to see 100% of the board giving. Surprise,
Surprise.
But,
I took that back to the board and said if we were serious about securing
grants, we had to implement all the things on my original checklist.
This
inspired the Board Chair to get the three board members reluctant to give, off
the board.
Our subsequent proposals were funded.