Rants About Grants

The State of Grantseeking - Fall 2011

  

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PhilanTech and GrantStation are pleased to announce the release of the State of Grantseeking Fall 2011 Report.

Grantseeking activities seem to be stagnating as nonprofits try to find new sources of funding to replace reduced government and other funds.  The 928 survey respondents indicated that while they were still actively searching for grant funds, the state of the economy and increased competition for fewer grant dollars presented challenges.

Other findings from the survey included:

• A majority of organizations applied for more grants, but increased efforts only resulted in more grant funds for 26% of respondents;
• The average size of grants decreased from the same period last year;
• Economic and organizational conditions present the greatest challenges to nonprofits’ grantseeking efforts.  Researching and finding grants was cited as the greatest challenge by 31% of nonprofits, while competition for a reduced amount of funding dollars was the greatest challenge for 23% of nonprofits;
• And yet 81% of nonprofits think their grant funding will be consistent or better in the next 6 months.

The survey was open from August 18, 2011 until October 2, 2011, and received 928 complete responses.  While nonprofit organizations of all sizes responded to the survey, the majority could be considered small to mid-sized organizations:

• One third (33%) had one to five staff members; and,
• Over half (60%) had budgets under $1,000,000.

The next State of Grantseeking survey will be conducted starting in January 2012.

Download the full State of Grantseeking Report.