3 steps to identify what grants to go after
What a treat to speak with so many of you over the last month, helping you win the grants and build the donor relationships you need to make the world a better place!
You know, Social Impact Compass was something I had been dreaming of for a while. So many Executive Directors and fundraising teams told me they were ready to go after grants but they didn’t know how. In the face of so many things they heard they “should” be doing, they needed a clear path forward that made sense for their specific organization.
And thus Social Impact Compass was born, to give your grants team both the clarity of direction and the how. It was born so you can exceed your fundraising goals with confidence and ease.
To that end, a question I have gotten a lot recently is: What grants should I go after? I share with you my 3 steps to get you the answer!
3 Steps to Identify What Grants to Go After
Step 1: Make sure you should go after grants right now
Grants are excellent for providing larger amounts of money in the medium term (think money starting to come in the door in 12-18 months). If you urgently need funds sooner than that, focus first on individual donors or your current institutional donors— for example, you could do a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign or hop on the phone with a current funder to ask if they are open to chatting about engaging more deeply with you. Then, with that short-term cash in hand, it is the perfect time to submit grant proposals for the medium term.
Step 2: Identify your perfect-fit funder
Funders receive so many proposals that unless you are a perfect fit for them, you will probably get a ‘no’. So look for funders that check ALL of the following:
✅ Fund in your geographic region
✅ Fund the topic you are proposing working on (ex. education, health, economic development)
✅ Fund organizations with your annual budget size
✅ Fund organizations with your type of registration (Registered in the US as a 501c3? Registered locally?)
✅ Fund projects with a similar level of innovation and scale as yours
✅ Provide the funding amount you want to request
✅ Have funded other organizations like yours
(Not sure how to find this information on each funder? Grab a Discovery spot on my calendar and we can chat about how I can help.)
3. Apply to grants that will give you quick feedback
If your organization doesn’t yet have a track record of winning grants, I highly recommend you only apply for grants that initially ask for just a Letter of Interest (sometimes called a Letter of Inquiry or LOI) or where you know you can ask for feedback if your proposal is not accepted. You are in a learning phase of how to best present your organization and pitch your projects, so it’s critical you only submit to funders from whom you can easily and quickly get feedback. This will get you to “yes’s” faster!
I love hearing from you, so shoot me an email and let me know what resonated with you in these steps! Or let me know what other grants questions you have.
(Image by nickmorrison on Unsplash)
