Preparing to Search for Funding Opportunities
January 01, 2017
Finding funding opportunities that are a good fit for your organization involves a few steps. Before you begin your search for potential funders, you first need to take an inventory of your project's needs and resources.
Your inventory should include:
The current financial picture for your project/organization: Knowing how much money you need to support your project/programs will help you to plan your grant strategy. If you need $100,000, you might target 4-6 mid-size foundations that offer grants in the $40-50K range. If you need $500K or more, you might prioritize applying to government grants over private foundations.
Detailed descriptions of the projects/services you want to launch or maintain: If you are the project director, you'll know the project details, making this easy. If you are a freelance writer and have been hired to write grants for a nonprofit, this will require more work but will be worth the time. Knowing a project's details will help you identify the keywords you should use in your research to find relevant funders. Examples of keywords include the geographic location where the project is based (country, region, state, city); the target population (women, veterans, etc.); and the focus issue (homelessness, disease prevention, mental health treatment, etc.). If you are new to the organization and its work, you may also want to develop a list of terminology it uses to describe its work. These terms will also be useful as keywords in your search for funding opportunities.
Who can work on the proposal: With very few exceptions, writing a grant proposal requires the efforts of multiple people. If a grant application is very simple — short, limited details, a basic budget — one person might be able to complete it on her own. If you are the head of a project/organization and know the project details intimately, you can probably write the proposal narrative on your own. From your experience, you'll know the who, what, and where. If you have been hired as a consultant to write a grant proposal, you can put the proposal pieces together, but you'll need help with the content. To get details on the project's history, who runs it, and how it operates (or will operate, if it is a new initiative), you will need to interview staff or have them complete written questionnaires. You will also want to establish who can (and who must, depending on the expertise required) assist with the proposal writing. Once you know who you need to work with, you should get copies of their schedules. Having their schedules on hand can help you evaluate opportunities. You'll want to make sure that the people you need to consult with will be around when you are working on the proposal.
Who can work on the project: Before you start looking for opportunities, you will want to know who can work on the project should the proposal result in an award. The people working on the proposal may not be the same people who will work on the project. You should prepare two lists: One with the names of everyone who can help with the proposal and a second list of who can or will be working on the project. If you have a list of project staff and their expertise, you can consult it as you read the descriptions of potential funding opportunities to determine whether there is a good match.
When you want to find grant funds for a project, it is hard not to jump right to the research step. However, if you jump in without doing the preliminary work, it will be difficult to determine whether an opportunity is a good fit and whether you can apply for it with the resources and expertise you have.
If you know the project well and have a history with the organization, you may be able to assemble everything you need in a few days.
If you are new to the organization, plan ahead and give yourself a couple of weeks to gather materials, become familiar with the project, and assemble the proposal team.
Most grant writers have been asked at some point to “massage” unfavorable facts into preferred ones, or have seen their fact-based prose reworked by others into something that has the essence of truth but is not strictly true, or is at least less transparent. To some, this may sound like business as usual and what you need to do to win a grant. However, these little acts of truth-stretching, which can take the form of exaggerations, omissions, and misrepresentations, can exact a cost.