Rants About Grants

Grantseeking - Making Your Message Stand Out

  

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I recently committed to raise $500 for an organization I care about -- the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN), an organization that helps nonprofits across the sector use technology skillfully and confidently to further their causes. Since virtually every organization has some sort of fundraising appeal at this time of year, and I was going to be asking friends and colleagues to donate, I knew I needed to do something to make my fundraising appeal stand out.

So I wrote a song.

You can hear (and watch) it at http://www.razoo.com/story/Championgoldstein (and please consider making donation to NTEN! Every dollar donated will be matched by their board).

The process got me thinking about grantwriting and a similar challenge faced by grantseekers.

Foundation program officers read a lot of grant proposals.  In smaller foundations where there may only be one staff person, that person has very limited time and pours over a lot of information.  He or she may recruit trustees to read proposals as well (or the foundation may have a review process that involves trustees or directors or a grant review committee).  Even in foundations with more staff members, each person reads a lot of proposals.

Many - if not most - of those proposals are compelling.  They are written by organizations that have reviewed the foundation's requirements and have crafted a proposal that outlines how their organization meets those requirements, why the organization's work is important, and why it is requesting support.  (Nonprofits do this to varying degrees of success -- more about that in the coming weeks and months.)

The number of proposals submitted is increasing, according to the most recent State of Grantseeking survey - more nonprofits are submitting more grant requests to try to make up for funding shortfalls in other areas.

Now, more than ever, it's important to make your message stand out -- to convey memorable information in a compelling way to catch your reader's attention.

Here are a few tips:

• Review the foundation's guidelines and ensure that your proposal addresses how your organization fits.  You have virtually 0% chance of getting a grant funded if it falls outside the foundation's stated guidelines;
• Provide enough information to make a compelling case, but not so much that the funder is inundated.  We hear from grantmakers frequently that applicants send them more information than they request.  While that may seem helpful ("let's send them samples of our publications so they can see how great they are"), it generally isn't, and risks burying your message. A notable exception to this rule is if the funder asks for additional information (e.g., "please send us any other relevant information or publications").  Even then, be judicious in what you send;
• Write compelling prose and use data where you have it.  Some funders will ask for information about impact or expected outcomes in quantitative form; some will not.  Particularly in the absence of specific direction from the funder, a mix of qualitative and quantitative information is a good way to go.

Finally, think about the one thing that you want your reader to remember when they put down your application, and ensure that message carries through the proposal.