To get grant dollars, whether from private foundations or government agencies, your writing should be secondary to other preparations. Too many nonprofits make the mistake of investing in a solid technical writer and spending hours preparing a lengthy proposal with perfect grammar, while ignoring what is really important. Yes, writing counts, but make sure you …
Today more and more nonprofits and organizations are competing for less and less dollars of foundation and government grant support. While nonprofits need to stay true to their mission and vision, they also, to win those precious dollars, need to frame themselves within the context of what their community needs. Non-profits need to market themselves …
A startup nonprofit is often rich in sweat equity. Eager volunteers are full of enthusiasm and gladly donate hours of time to the new organization. This can work well at the beginning but it does come to a point where money is needed. The challenge is that a new charity has no track record or …
The last few weeks of the year are a good time to take stock of things and at the same time look ahead to the coming year. Nonprofit organizations rely to some degree on the ability to secure grants in a usually very competitive market. The better prepared the organization is for the active grant …
Nonprofit organizations in the early stages are full of enthusiasm and ideas but low on cash. Fundraisers such as bake sales and organized marathons will generate contributions, but grants can often provide much larger amounts of needed money. Some nonprofits are a bit intimidated with grants writing and are afraid they’ll be unsuccessful. Failure is …
So often, nonprofit organizations are looking to “hit it big” with large grants from big, well-known foundations. The competition for those grants is fierce and an organization can spend countless hours tracking and applying for these grants that they may have little chance of getting. Instead, a tighter focus on a secret source of local …
Congratulations! You’ve become the official recipient of a grant! Now what? Well, the first thing to do, once you’ve received the money either in the form of a check or sometimes as part of a contract, is to write back to the grant foundation and thank them. The grant foundation will appreciate it and your …
Obviously it’s impossible to make a blanket statement and say that “all foundations want x,” but there is one thing all foundations want to know: Can you be trusted? If they can reasonably answer that question, “Yes,” then you will go far in the grant-seeking process. If not, your application will likely be one of …
With growing fundraising needs across society, the need to approach trusts and foundations for support is increasing. Grants fundraising takes persistence, determination, imagination and creativity! Here are my top five tips to writing successful grant proposals: 1. Do your homework These days most Grants research is conducted online and you can’t always be …
If you’ve been considering filing for 501(c)(3) status for your group, but are still hesitating, here’s another good reason not to postpone it any longer: If your group has current 501(c)(3) status (K-12 schools also qualify), you’ll be eligible to apply for free software donations such as from Adobe. Adobe creates and distributes such great …
You might have already had to answer the following question when you applied for non-profit status. However, instead of just copying the same answers into your grant application, take a second look and see if you can’t possibly tweak or update this information. Maybe your organization has grown considerably or maybe your board has new …
Maybe you’ve been raising funds for your kids school, cancer research programs, or other good causes for quite some time, but now you find that you need some financial help yourself. Maybe you’ve lost your job or had your hours cut back. Now what? The only thing that can help long term of course is …
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