Author, coach, copy-writer, nonprofit marketing consultant and political junkie, Pamela is the author of “Five Days to Foundation Grants”  and  the creator of Simple Development Systems, the only online coaching program created for the overwhelmed fundraiser in the one-person marketing and development shop.

Pam segued from six years working in programming and communications at a regional grantmaking foundation to the world of fundraising in 2001.  In her first position as a 15-hour a week development director for an agency with a $3 million dollar budget, she increased individual giving by 25% – while reducing costs by 31% – and increased foundation funding by an astonishing 93%! She’s raised over $10 million in funding since then and has been positioning small nonprofit organizations on the path to sustainable funding ever since  with her “Simple Development Systems” of donor-centric fundraising methods.

With an eclectic 20 year background in politics, sales, marketing and philanthropy, Pamela’s greatest satisfaction lies in teaching the small community-based nonprofits how to, in her words,  “market like the big boys” with limited time and resources.

Six Critical Things to Look For in a Foundation’s 990 For Successful Grant Funding

By Pamela Grow

When it comes to foundation grants, researching prospective foundations is crucial for locating the ideal match. And there is no finer tool for truly observing the inner workings of a grant-making foundation — and whether or not their mission provides a match with your organization — than with a thorough investigation of a foundation’s federal 990-PF form (downloadable at a number of sites for free, including Guidestar and Nozasearch).
What, exactly, should you be looking for?

Let’s take a walk through a typical grantmaking foundation’s 990-FP:

Do take a look at the foundation’s Fiscal Year. Why? Well, here’s a take-away from seven years working at a foundation. If the foundation in question happens to be closing in on the end of their fiscal year, they may have already spent the required 5 percent payout. On the other hand, if they’re fairly new to grant-making, the foundation may have yet to hone their grant-making policies – and you may get lucky if they’re looking to send some last minute grant checks out the door.

Assets: Note, of course, the total fair market value of all assets recorded in Part One for the last year reported. Now take a look back – has the XYZ Foundation’s assets declined or grown over the past few years? Are they a fairly new operating foundation?

Part I, Revenue and Expenses summarizes other sections of the report. If major contributions have been made during the year in question a founder or trustee may have recently deceased – and an increase in giving could be in the future.

Part VIII – Take note – here’s one of your most important resources. Information about officers, directors, trustees, foundation managers, highly paid employees and contractors. You will certainly want to note the names and locations of the trustees. Could members of your board possibly know any of the trustees of XYZ Foundation? Does the XYZ Foundation have staff members or is it entirely family-run? Are the trustees paid?

Part IX-A – Summary of Direct Charitable Activities: Here’s where you find out the exact dollar amount given in grants. If the foundation you’re researching tends to give many grants in the $2,500 to $10,000 range (as opposed to a few grants in the $25,000-$100,000 range) and you are a first time applicant, you’ll want to frame your first ask accordingly. (See How Much Should You Request in Your Grant Proposal?) https:www.pamelasgrantwritingblog.com/269/how-much-should-you-request-in-your-grant-proposal-how-much-do-you-need/

Part XV: This section will tell you how grant applications should be prepared, if there are any deadlines, etc. along with a listing of grantees. Although it’s still a good idea to phone and get grant application guidelines directly from the foundation in question, this section will get you started (and don’t write a foundation off if they specifically note that they only grant to pre-selected organizations – I’ve had success with smaller grants of $250-1,000 with these foundations when there was an otherwise good match in giving!) Are there organizations similar to yours on that listing of grants given in 2003? What is the dollar range in their grantmaking and where would your organization fall?

By performing a little preliminary detective work on the foundation you’re seeking funding from, you’ll dramatically increase your chances of successful funding!

I am very happy to post another article guest author Betsy Baker!  Besty is the President of  YourGrantAuthority.com. She has earned more than ten million dollars in grant funding and continues to be a grant writing consultant for nonprofits.

She is best known for her plain-language instructional guidance and offers both ebook instruction and one-on-one coaching in writing grants and starting a grant writing consulting career.

The #1 Thing Keeping You From What You Want

This is one of my favorite photos of my son Rhodes as he is finishing his first race – which just happened to be at Disney World.  The clay track at the ESPN field where the race took place was packed with excited kids; most holding hands with even more excited parents.  The atmosphere was festive with a live band, balloons, favorite Disney characters and a race director tasked with herding the cats, I mean the children, onto the track for the race to begin.

Anticipation for this day had been building as my husband Norm and I both have participated in several races and were eager for Rhodes’ first.  We explained to Rhodes before the race that while he was to run as fast as he could, what was really important was to just have fun and finish the race.  Rhodes had another idea.

As the starter pistol shot rang out, I was holding hands with Rhodes because he was only three at the time and I didn’t want him to get lost in a sea of strangers.  But as we ran, Rhodes began pulling away from me and trying to wriggle out of my grasp.  It was obvious – his eye was on the prize and he was there to win that race.

I can’t help but compare his enthusiasm to some of the organizations I meet with that seek my help in teaching them to write grants that will win them money.  Or with folks that want to begin their own independent grant consulting business and seek me out for guidance.  These are the people near and dear to my heart that I want to help because I know of all the good things in store for them.

For the organizations desiring grant money, I know what can be accomplished with receipt of grant funding: children fed, disaster victims housed, terminal diseases cured, babies placed into loving arms.

And I also know what a successful, freedom-based grant consulting business can bring: personal accomplishment , time at home with children every day, the ability to participate in field trips, catching up with friends over a long lunch, the excitement of landing a new client and the capacity, when needed, to care for aging parents a state away.

I’ve been on both sides.

So, I talk with people that have the desire to make a needed and wanted change but here’s what separates them from being able to say “I Did It!” And it’s so simple – they never took the action required to accomplish that desire. Don’t let any of your perceived or very real obstacles prevent you from taking action.  Very rarely is there a straight path to what you want accomplished – my path continues to be a zig-zag every day!  The trick is to just keep moving forward.  Action.

I think Gandhi says it best, “Action expresses priorities.”  What is your priority and what is the action you need to take – today?

Grow Your Consulting Business with clubGRANT

I recently had the opportunity to review grants for the WI Department of Instruction (DPI). Reading grants is by far the best professional development available for grant writers. For me, it revealed the secret to good grant writing. For those of you who have never had a chance to do so, I’d like to share what I learned with you.

The grant reading session stretched over two days. The first morning we sat as a whole group, listening to the folks from DPI go over the history of the grant, the funding priorities, the grant application, and the review criteria that we would be using. We went through the information very thoroughly, page by page. If every grant writer were to do such careful reading before they started putting together their application, they would put themselves ahead of the competition.

We then broke off into smaller groups and were told to read one grant application as a “trial run.” We read individually, rated the grant on our own, and then came back together. As a group, we had to find consensus and decide whether the application was strong, above average, average, below average or weak. This is the process we would then use for each application.

For the next day and a half, we read grant applications on our own and then came together as a group to reach a consensus rating. As we read multiple applications, it became clear which ones were the strongest. Put simply, they were the ones that answered all the questions clearly and made it easy for us to find the information we needed. Remember this: your job as a grant writer is to make it easy for the reviewer to find the information that he or she has requested. Do not worry about impressing them with fancy prose, big words, or irrelevant data. The secret is this: give them what they want.

Here are a few ways to do that:

1. Organize your proposal in the same way that the application is organized. Answer the questions in the order that they are asked. If the reviewer criteria are provided with the application (they always are for state and federal grants), structure your answers in a way that makes it easy for a reviewer to go down the benchmark list and check them off. The moment a reviewer stats flipping back and forth between pages is the moment they lose faith in your application.

2. Follow directions. This particular grant specified that applicants should not include attachments or go over the page limits. Still, several applicants did one or the other. As reviewers, we were told to ignore any attachments and information that came after the page limits. This was in fairness to those who had followed the instructions. Those applicants who included vital information in the attachments or extra pages suffered greatly because we were not allowed to consider them.

3. Keep your tone positive. There were a few applications that talked about how desperate they were for funding and said that if they did not get this grant their program would cease to exist. I don’t know about you, but I would give money to any venture that appears to be going belly up. You may be in a desperate situation, but do not let that tone come through in your grant application. Mentioning how many other grants you have applied for and failed to receive only weakens your credibility. Instead, focus on how this money will help you accomplish your mission. Keep a positive tone. If it is too hard for you to do this, you may need to reevaluate the viability of your program altogether.

4. Include your partners in the planning of the grant application. This was a surprise to me, but it was very clear whether or not applicants had worked with the partners they listed in designing the program and writing the grant. If not, the descriptions of partners’ roles were vague. If they had included them, their specific role with a list of duties and responsibilities were in the application. This cannot be faked. Planning with partners beforehand will set you apart from other applicants.

5. When character/word limits are tight, a list is a great way to convey a lot of information in an efficient way. For proposed activities or lists of duties, narratives can get wordy and cloud the information. Lists, on the other hand, are a great way to present the information clearly. As a bonus, you use much fewer words.

Once again, I think reading grants is the best professional development out there for grant writers.

Learn more about grant writing in Katie Krueger’s online grant writing class.

This post is part of the Grant Writing article series:

1. 8 Keys to Grant Strategy Success by Robert P. Stewart
2. 20 Free Grant Writing Resources for Non-Profits by Sandra Sims
3. Building Relationships with Foundations by Sandy Rees
4. Secrets From A Grant Reviewer by Katie Krueger