Grant Writing Demystified

Have Your Finances in Order

No matter how noble your project, appeals to funders’ hearts do not win competitive grants:

• Applying to a foundation for funding is similar to approaching an equity investor to make a financial investment in your organization.
• If you are not already tracking your organization’s income and expenses formally every month, you need to do so.
• The foundation will review your financial statements to assess your financial health, but also to make inferences about your leadership and past decision making.
• Financial statements for tax-exempt organizations help you solve problems, help you identify opportunities, and demonstrate your strengths in support of a grant. The main three types of financial statements are profit and loss statements, cash flow budgets, and if your annual revenue exceeds $250,000, balance sheet or statement of financial position.

External Communication

• Seek internal partnership (departmental) and external partnerships (alliances, like organizations, media) to support the project’s goals.
• Communicate plans, mission, assets, and success stories with your funding community before, during and after project application.

Planning

• Build a well-designed project and prove to the funder that it has a strong foundation and a plan for sustainability. Ask the difficult questions of your peers before the funder asks them (e.g., What will it really cost? Who will do the work? Are the resources in place?).
• Design a realistic timeline. Many foundations take 3-6 months to make decisions. Will the project still be as worthwhile to audiences in 2 years? Can you begin before full project funding is secured? Will the project still be as worthwhile to audiences in 2 years?
• Create a business plan. If you cannot identify viable funding sources (individual, corporate, foundation) that exceed your project need, you may stall in your efforts before you reach your goal.

Cultivation of Foundation Relationships

• Use your network – try to get introductions to the decision-maker(s) in the foundation. If you are unsuccessful in finding a connection, try reaching out anyway with a thoughtful question. The earlier you can begin a dialogue, the greater the likelihood that you will fully understand what the foundation is looking for in an award-winning project, the better you will be able to emphasize points of interest when you tell your story in the application, and the more likely someone will recognize your name or organization’s name when the review process begins.
• Nurture an authentic relationship with your funder. Keep them in the loop on your plans, adaptations, and successes.
• Let the funder, and other stakeholders, know of your success. Judiciously share materials that chronicle your progress – participant comments, Web site usage, photos, articles, a final report, impact of project on the public, impact on your organization, etc. Use this information to establish a track record and make the case for new projects as well.
• If they are willing, seek the assistance of your funder in leveraging additional funding. While corporations might prefer exclusivity, foundations appreciate multiple funders. Matching funds double or triple the foundation’s investment in your organization. Many foundations are now requiring matching funds as a condition of eligibility.
• If a project is only of local interest and impact, it is rare a national funder will support it. Focus on the local funding community. A local community foundation can be a great partner in raising awareness of your organization or project within the philanthropic community.
• Find ways to appeal to national funders, even if you’re focused on a seemingly local project. For instance, model a project that can be replicated by other organizations in phase two of the project. Or consider partnering with several other organizations and sharing the workload (e.g., one designs project structure, another maintains your web presence, another develops extended outreach plan).

Mission Match is Critical

The match between your project’s intended outcome and the mission of the granting organization is the strongest indicator of a potential grant application’s success. Your writing skills and impactful project cannot overcome a mission mismatch. The rare exception may occur when you have a champion within the foundation who is a decision-maker or had extraordinary influence over the decision-makers (founder, CEO, founding family member, etc.).

Be Careful What You Wish For

Corporations are often looking to polish their social responsibility image when awarding community grants. These grants may be conditionally linked to opportunities for the company to bring some of their employees to your project for a “volunteer day” where they can get great photos of their team in logo apparel and get good media coverage. These situations can create more work for you in the end and may or may not bring the kind of attention you desire for your project. Larger corporate grants usually come with expectations of promotional opportunities for their brand (social media shoutouts, company logo placed prominently on materials or signage) and have intensive reporting requirements.