When you first try to juggle, you initially wonder where to look. Do you watch the ball leaving your hand, or the one you’re about to catch? Neither, I have learned. Nor do you dart your eyes across the whole array of flying objects, which was my instinctive approach.
Instead, you fix your gaze at the top of the trajectory, which provides balance. By training your eyes on that changeable apex, you allow the objects behind it to flow.
Professionally, that highest ball is your aspirational funder. When you keep your eyes fixed on your major grantmaker, the benefits spill over to the other grants—and even to the rest of your development efforts.
Juggling Act
You shouldn’t ignore 99 percent of your foundation portfolio to focus on a singular prize; but, if you approach your work with your largest funder or prospect in mind, it becomes a focal point. The preparation you do in relation to your largest prospect will inject a range of benefits into the rest of your work. Granted, some funders are more idiosyncratic than others. So, if your very largest funder doesn’t give you a model worth applying to others, set your sights on a more ideal example.
Going back to the juggling metaphor, when you move from watching the parade of balls to keeping your eyes trained on the peak, you can create the practices, rhythms, and standards to enhance the rest of your portfolio. What does it mean to juggle a growing portfolio of grants and keep your eyes fixed on those at the top?
Here are a few examples of how that can play out:
Thinking Big
Your major prospects force you to confront all those vague conversations around growth or strategy or innovation.
I helped one organization build out and price the platinum version of its signature program. The discussion around this had previously dragged out for years, during which time modest grants had funded tweaks. It took an opportunity that would quadruple this program’s annual budget for staff to commit to its potential.
No matter the size of your largest grants, you are likely to chart your course more diligently than you do for smaller ones. You can infuse that work into solicitations of all sizes.
Leadership
The larger your grants, the more investors need to feel confident in your organization’s leadership. They want to know how long the executive team has been in place, what qualifies the organization’s chief executive to serve in that role, and if the organization’s C-suite and board are diverse, especially in light of the demographic the organization serves.
This information is sometimes mandatory. But when a client and I incorporated it into all major grants, then all grants, and finally solicitations of all kinds, we noticed an uptick in the number of supporters that specifically mentioned their confidence in the organization’s leadership.
Messaging
You spend so much time choosing your words. That’s especially the case with your aspirational projects. Once you’ve got a major solicitation or two that make you proud, use your finely crafted language to revise your organizational messaging. You can even repurpose your work in places beyond grant applications.
I worked with one client to pull text out of a major-grant proposal that would speak to supporters of all kinds. We took it to the communications director as a starting point for a donor-centric awareness campaign, a first for this nonprofit.
Organizational Development
The fruits of your major-grants planning can trickle down and fertilize all of your grantseeking. One nonprofit created a theory of change for the first time—not for any foundation requirement, but so that they could better rationalize their work. The resulting infographic made its way into the hands of all potential investors. That visual depiction of a complex mission helped the development team refine its positioning, which in turn helped generate a doubling of philanthropy over three years.
You can move from a mindset where your major grants are just major grants to one where they drive all kinds of organizational development. As your nonprofit matures, you have more substantive work to fund. You can encourage this virtuous cycle of creating a robust nonprofit and funding its momentum. All this comes more easily when you find success generating new revenue and reminding colleagues that the act of seeking those grants forces organizational excellence in order to compete.
Eye on the Ball
When a nonprofit pursues grants that stand to make significant change, it can eventually cause an evolution in the whole organization. Rather than treating that major-grant work as a one-off, consider it a chance to reframe or reenergize your other efforts.
Many of the wealthiest grantmakers are also the savviest. When you set yourself up to respond to their interests and questions, you are prepared for more that comes your way.
It’s not always easy to make this work a priority within your organization. If you’d like to learn about how to elevate major grants within your nonprofit, register for my upcoming GrantStation webinar on May 11, 2023.
Treat your major-grant opportunities as north stars, and you greatly expand your funding universe.