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Creating a Grantseeking Calendar for 2010 – Part 4
by Cynthia M. Adams, CEO GrantStation
Generating a Grants Strategy
After you have developed a Project Description Worksheet for each project or program for which you need funding in the next 12 to 18 months, you will then launch into an extensive grants research phase.
The trick is to stay focused, researching only one project at a time. A disciplined approach will help you complete this task quickly.
Start your research by looking at all government funding sources. Refer to the key words you listed on the Project Description Worksheet to guide your research. Begin with local government and state funding agencies and move on to federal agencies. You can use the GrantStation searchable database of State and Federal Grants & Loans to make the search quick and easy.
Doing government research upfront accomplishes two things:
- Government funding is often “one stop shopping.” In other words, it should be a large enough grant award to cover most, if not all, of the project costs (although some government grants require a non-government match).
- If you can’t identify any government funding, then when you apply to a private grantmaker you can add a statement such as, “After researching potential government funding sources, we have determined that at this time there are no government programs that will support this project.” This statement underscores the importance of the role that private grantmakers play in this project.
To do your local government research, go to the municipal or county/borough website to see if any grant programs are available that might work for your project. Most likely you’ll already know if there are local government grant programs that you can apply to, but it’s always good to double check. A phone call to local government offices can save computer time, so you might want to make a few calls to find out if there are any funding programs relevant for your project.
After you have done your local government research, move on to state agencies. If you are a Member of GrantStation go to State Grants & Loans and select your state in the drop down box. Check through the entire list of state funding links provided because GrantStation not only lists state agency grant programs, but also quasi-state grantmakers such as the arts council, humanities forum, children’s trust, and housing finance agencies.
Once you have done local and state government research, it’s time to review federal opportunities. If you are a Member of GrantStation, begin by going to the Federal Grants & Loans section of the site. As you can see, the federal funding opportunities are organized by deadline date. The main menu gives you a brief 12-month overview of upcoming deadlines, and there is also an "Ongoing" section that summarizes programs that have multiple deadlines. You can do a "word search" in any one of these categories using the key words you identified on your Project Description worksheet.
The next step is to dive into researching U.S. Charitable Giving grantmakers using Advanced Search on GrantStation. This database profiles grantmakers that are actively participating in the grantmaking process. This research should help you identify a solid set of potential grantmakers for your project.
As you compile a list of potential grantmakers, government or private, save or print the basic information, including deadline dates for letters of inquiry and full proposals, descriptions of the program, average grant amounts, and any specific requirements (some programs require a non-government match, a collaborative approach, comprehensive evaluation component, etc.). Be selective as you develop this list, only adding grantmakers whose funding guidelines fit your project.
If you are a Member of GrantStation you can review a step-by-step tutorial on how to do funding research by logging in and selecting Search Tips.
Target the Right Grantmakers
At this juncture you will be making lots of notes about each grantmaker such as where they give, how much they give, who they generally make grant awards to, etc. For private grantmakers, most of this information is available in their record in the U.S. Charitable Giving in GrantStation. You can uncover more information by digging deeper into grantmaker websites, annual reports, etc., or you can request the most recent guidelines and reports. I prefer to review annual reports, as opposed to IRS Forms 990, because the reports provide a better “feel” for what the grantmaker is trying to accomplish. It gives me a sense of their priorities during the past year, and what their vision and objectives are for the future.
For government funding you should carefully review the complete grant announcement or Request for Application (RFA). Once you’ve read over the application guidelines, you might also review the enacting legislation that allocated funds to this particular program. This should give you a fairly complete picture of what they want to fund and what outcomes they expect.
Once you have done all of this preliminary work, it is time to start making phone calls or sending out email inquiries. You should double check each potential source to make sure the objectives of the grantmaker reflect the objectives of your organization or proposed project. Phone calls will help you eliminate grantmakers that don’t quite fit your project. Narrowing your approach to a specific set of grantmakers is the set up for developing your grants strategy and grants calendar.
In addition to looking for cash grants, be sure to identify product donations, technical assistance, or donated in-kind services that will help you move the project forward. In the example used in Part Two (a small conservation organization in Arkansas establishing a Watchable Wildlife Area to serve a tri-county region) the preliminary research identified the National Park Service Assistance Program to help with the planning process. This technical assistance program, while not a cash grant, will provide the organization with a planning document that can then be used to secure cash grants.
What’s your next step? Run each of the grantmakers remaining on your targeted list through the Decision Matrix (developed in Part Two of this series). Eliminate those that don’t meet your basic criteria, whose deadlines may be too close, or their requirements too much for your organization at this time.
After you have come up with a final list of the best possible grantmakers for your identified projects, it is time to draft the grants strategies. Each project that requires funding (even general operating support) will have its own strategy which will feed into the comprehensive grants calendar.
Other articles in this series:
Main Page
Part 1 – Adopting a Process
Part 2 –Developing a Decision Matrix
Part 3 – Identifying Needed Funding
Part 4 – Generating a Grants Strategy
Part 5 – Establishing a Grantseeking Calendar