The Center for Nonprofit Resources receives a number of comments and if truth be told, complaints, from executive directors, grantwriters and development folks regarding their board members’ level of awareness about grants and what it takes to write competitive proposals. The usual comment is something like, “Our board thinks we need to get more grants and asked me if we knew about grants.gov or The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.” My heart goes out to you dear EDs and staff who are responsible for bringing in dollars. For those of you experiencing pressure to “get more grants”, perhaps the advice below will help you and your board members understand grant seeking realities.
My Top Ten Things Every Board Member Needs to Know About Grants
1. Grant writing is a very time and labor intensive matter (in most cases). Not only must the proposal be well-written, it must also be accompanied by several attachments that grant writers must acquire from finance departments, HR departments, board members, management and collaborative partners. A two- week turnaround time is not enough! Understanding how much the grant writing process is costing you in staff time is important. Be honest with your board about the staff time it takes to complete a competitive proposal. Morgan Giddings, a successful science researcher and grantwriter says, “Without understanding how grants work, they can be waste of time, a waste of human talent and a waste of resources.”
2. Grant writing is a competitive process. Grants are selected for funding by human beings. These human beings may have absolutely no understanding of the work your organization does. Grant reviewers may not be familiar with your sector. Your grant writer could be a regular Ernest Hemingway and not get funded because the reviewers simply don’t have a passion for the work you do. As Dan Arielly states in his book,Predictably Irrational, “It is just difficult for us to imagine that the person on the other side of the transaction, buyer or seller, is not seeing the world as we see it.” But the reality is, they might not like cats (or fill in the blank) as much as we do.
3. Grants are most often tied to specific program funding and the costs associated with conducting that program. Those funds may not be used to pay for anything that is not directly related to the program being funded. If your goal is to have unrestricted money to pay staff or operational costs, please consider a fundraiser event instead. If grant money is not spent exactly as the funder requires, it is not unusual to be asked to pay the money back. Keeping accurate, detailed accounts of grant expenditures is critical.
4. Grants have deadlines and reporting requirements associated with them. If you hire an outside grant writer to write and submit the proposal, your staff members will still be responsible for all of the reporting back to the funder. The cost of creating and submitting these evaluation and financial reports along with any site visits by funders must be considered in the cost of the grant submission. Does your staff have the capacity for this extra, uncompensated work?
5. In most cases, grants should be a small portion (10-12% at most) of your annual revenue. Most grant money is offered only one time, for one project. When the time period is over, the money is gone. It cannot be considered a consistent source of income. If your organization has been grant dependent, your board should take a look at building a more sustainable fundraising mix. The idea of putting all of your eggs in one basket is very dangerous. Having several different revenue streams including earned income, private donations, corporate sponsorships, event revenue and some grants is a more sustainable way of doing business and builds capacity. Focus on individual donors. According to Kim Klein, “Seven out of ten adults give away money — more people give away money than vote, attend a house of worship or volunteer”.
6. Understand the differences among types of funders. Private family foundations, corporate foundations and community foundations’ grants are decided upon by committee members selected by the funder. These committees may or may not contain people who know of your work and what you do. They could run the gamut from bankers to doctors to factory workers to stay-at-home parents. State and government funding is done through a scoring process.Those proposals that score highest go to a committee that discusses each project and comes to a funding consensus. These committees will usually be made up of specialists in the field for which you are proposing a project. In all cases, if the grant office has a program officer, get to know that person.
7. Grants are received by people who follow directions. Remember your third grade teacher who gave your class a worksheet that said, “1. Read the whole paper carefully before doing anything. 2. Put your name in the upper right-hand corner of this paper? Then remember how the rest of the page directed you to do a bunch of things until…10. Now that you have finished reading everything carefully, complete only sentences one and two?” Remember how you got a zero for not reading the whole page first? That is what grant writing is like. Why are they making you staple your proposal in the upper right hand corner instead of the left? Are they crazy? No. The grant makers want to give money to people whom they can trust. Those trustworthy people know how to follow directions.
8. If you decide to write the grant, make sure you and the grant maker are like-minded when it comes to mission and purpose. Talk to the funder (or the program officer) and read the request for proposal or grant guidelines carefully. If the guidelines clearly state they do not fund special events, then they do not fund special events. It would be a waste of your time writing a grant to cover the costs of your special event and make your organization look foolish in the process.
9. Before you decide to write the grant, research your topic area for data associated with need or that proves your program works. Even if there is data that supports your cause as an issue of national concern, can you demonstrate a particular local need for your program? You know — besides the fact that your organization “needs” the money. Also, consider how you will evaluate your program. Even though a similar program worked in Boston, if the conditions aren’t the same in Toledo, you have to be able to demonstrate that this same program will be effective. If you haven’t done your homework, the funder will know.
10. Finally, funders will not grant an organization with an annual operating budget of $47,000 a grant of $200,000. Simply by looking at the size of your organization’s budget, the grant makers will see that you do not have the internal capacity to manage the grant dollars. People give to you because you meet needs, not because youhave needs. Make sure you ask for the amount of money you can reasonably handle (in the above example, perhaps an ask of $10,000). After all, the purpose of the grant is to launch a new program, not to fill a gaping hole in your revenue column.
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