Researching Potential Funders: Tools for Prospect Research
January 01, 2017
The last post focused on the resources you should assemble before you start researching potential funders.
In this post, we’ll move to the next step. Once you are clear on the project or activity to be funded, know how much funding you need, and have identified who will do the work, you are ready to start researching potential funders.
When you start to research funding opportunities, ideally you'll have the budget to subscribe to a funder database. There are free options for funder research. However, paid tools are the way to go if you want access to the most comprehensive listings.
Below are profiles of six databases for foundation research plus one government-sponsored database for U.S. government grants.
The funder databases range in cost from free to more than $1000/month. The databases contain similar content, but vary in their focus: some target an academic clientele while others are oriented more toward nonprofits. Which database will work best for you depends on your budget, whether you want to be able to save your search results, and if you are interested in grants from all sources (foundations, corporations, government), or only foundations.
PROSPECT RESEARCH TOOLS FOR FOUNDATIONS
If you want to research private foundations, subscribing to a funder database is going to be the most efficient way to conduct prospect research. Depending on the database, you'll find information on private foundations, corporate philanthropy programs, and sometimes even government agencies. The databases usually include descriptions of foundations and their funding interests as well as funding eligibility requirements. Many databases also provide links to each foundation's recent IRS filing (form PF990).
If you decide to use free resources for your prospect research, some options include using a search engine such as Google. If you go this route, you would plug your project keywords (project type, geographic location, etc.) and words like “donor," “funder,” “philanthropy,” or “foundation" into your chosen search engine. Next, you would need to visit the website of any foundation that comes up through your search to see if it might be a good fit for your project.
The advantage of a subscription database over Web-based research is that a paid database will often give you enough information to allow you to determine whether a foundation could be a good fit, which means you can skip a visit to the foundation's website.
In addition to funder databases, you can also identify promising funding sources by examining the annual reports and IRS filings of nonprofits that do similar work to your own to see where they get their funding.
Six Funding Databases to Consider for Foundation Research
Foundation Center's Foundation Directory Online: The Foundation Center offers both free and paid content. The free content includes brief profiles of approximately 90,000 foundations. The profiles include the foundations' funding interests, year-end assets, and total giving. The free version is helpful if you have the name of a foundation and you want to get a quick idea of what it funds. The paid version of Foundation Directory Online is what you'll need if you want complete profiles of foundations and the ability to conduct searches and store data. FDO offers several subscription tiers, with the least expensive one being the FDO Essential Tier ($49.99/month). The Foundation Center says in its promotional materials that the Foundation Directory Online is the only resource you'll need to find foundation funding, which may very well be the case because it is one of the largest databases on the market. However, there are many other options, including the four databases mentioned below.
Foundation Search: FoundationSearch is similar to the Foundation Center's premium version of Foundation Directory Online. The FoundationSearch database contains approximately 120,000 foundations and includes the funders’ areas of interest, giving trends, and past grant recipients. FoundationSearch does not list subscription prices on its website, so it is not possible to compare its pricing plans with the Foundation Center's. To find out about their pricing, you will need to call FoundationSearch at 1-888-538-2763 for more information.
GrantSelect: GrantSelect's database includes government funding opportunities and foundation grants. GrantSelect advertises its searchable database as appropriate for "nonprofits, universities, research institutions and community organizations." GrantSelect offers two subscription levels. For individuals, the rates are $150/3 months or $495/year. For institutional subscriptions, you will need to contact GrantSelect for a quote. It is worth noting that GrantSelect markets its database to public libraries, allowing library patrons to access it for free from library computers.
Grant Forward: Grant Forward has been around since 2012 and targets academic institutions. It lists funding opportunities from both foundations and government agencies. Some of its features include a well-designed, attractive interface and the option to have new opportunities delivered to your email inbox. Grant Forward updates its database twice a week, which makes it one of the most up-to-date grant databases on the market. Subscriptions range from $19/mo. for individuals to $1500–$3000/mo. for institutions.
GrantStation: GrantStation is an affordable donor database that typically costs about $200 a year. However, through a partnership we have with GrantStation, you can purchase an annual subscription for just $95/year. To access this deal, you’ll need to create a free account to access our member area. Once you are in the member area, click “discounts” to see the GrantStation link. For a free way to access GrantStation, if you subscribe to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, you can access GrantStation as a subscription benefit. GrantStation lists both private foundation and government grant sources (US and Canadian); in addition to information about federal agencies, the GrantStation also includes information about state-based government agencies. GrantStation is one of the least expensive funder databases we’ve come across, making it a good choice for nonprofits on a tight budget. Another plus about GrantStation is that its interface is easier to navigate than some of the more “premium” options.
PROSPECT RESEARCH TOOLS FOR GOVERNMENT GRANTS
If you are interested in U.S. government grants, the only website you really need to visit is www.grants.gov. Grants.gov is a U.S. government website that lists grant opportunities from 26 federal agencies. Because it is a government-sponsored website, grants.gov is a free resource. Be aware that if you type “government grants” into Google, you’ll see ads for non-government affiliated websites that claim they are the resource for government grants, when in fact these are websites maintained by private companies offering fee-based services. To make sure you land on grants.gov, type "grants.gov" directly into your search bar, or, if you are using Google, make sure you land on a ".gov" website.
Grants.gov allows you to look up funding opportunities a few ways. You can look up opportunities by federal agency, by category, or by eligibility. You can also set up alerts to have opportunities that meet your search terms emailed to you.
Once you identify the federal agencies that are a good fit, it's always a good idea to visit each agency website in addition to looking at their postings on grants.gov. Although many times the agency websites will direct you back to grants.gov, sometimes the agency websites post additional information about grant opportunities and application guidelines.
