Getting a Grant

One approach to getting a grant is to write a proposal and then fire it off to as many funding bodies as you can find. It’s the lottery approach, and sometimes it actually results in getting a little money. The problem is that it can cut you off from the larger amounts of cash that you could garner with a more targeted effort.
A targeted effort, however, requires planning programmes, researching foundations and government programmes, and cultivating contacts within those foundations and ministries.

Perhaps the first thing to realize is that you shouldn’t be asking for a grant if you are starting from zero. Very few funding bodies will give money to organizations with no track record, or to untested programmes. The second thing to remember is that grant givers, like donors, want to know what the money is for. And it isn’t to fund your organization. It’s to fund a programme that meets a need in your community. So the first step is to sit down and answer the question, What is the objective of this programme?

Your group likely engages in more than one activity. A group that deals with a particular disease, for example, may want to provide funds to help find a cure, and also to provide palliative care to the people who suffer from that disease. But these are two different programmes and when it comes to grant money, you have to be clear about which of your group’s programmes you are seeking funding for.

Most of the time, you will be asking for the grant-giver to provide continued funding to an existing programme, or you will be asking for money to expand the reach of a programme. If you need funding for a completely untested project, going for a grant right off the bat is probably not the way to go. In this situation, you need go back to step one—asking everyone you can think of for a donation. If you know people who might be willing to provide a large donation, then face-to-face fundraising is the right approach.

Once you have some money, you can put your new programme in place and carry out some of its activities long enough to be able, hopefully, to point to some tangible, positive results. Then you will be ready to ask for a grant.

Contacting Grantors
Once you have compiled a short list of prospective foundations and/or government granting bodies, the next step is to make contact with a real person. This can be as simple as sending some printed material about your organization with a covering letter that mentions your intention to apply for funds in the near future. Simply say that you would like to discuss the programme for which you will seek funding. In the case of government grants, there will be a grants officer to contact.

Wait a couple of weeks, and follow-up with a phone call. Regardless of whether or not you are successful in meeting someone personally, try to get some idea of how interested they are in your programme. If they ask a lot of questions and seem receptive, this is a foundation where your efforts are more likely to be rewarded than one where they seem disinterested and off-putting. In either case, a willingness to meet you personally indicates a high interest level.

Once you have identified the government programs that you think you might qualify for, the first step is to make contact with a grants officer. This person’s job is to determine whether your project falls within the program’s guidelines, and to help you fill out the application properly. Another aspect of their job is to help their department maintain accountability.

It’s important to remember that the money for these programs is tax money. Politicians need to be able to justify the expenditure of these funds, and the primary way they do that is to mandate these various programs to give you money only as long as your project meets very specific criteria. That means that the words on your application have to echo the words in the corresponding legislation. A good grants officer will tell you what the right words are, and how to make your project and their programme’s objectives come together on paper.

One thing to keep in mind as you go through this process is that it will take time. Deciding whether to fund your initiative is a judgment call that has to be made by more than one person as your application works its way up through the various bureaucratic levels. Once it makes its way to the minister’s office, a grants officer will most likely only be able to tell you whether you have been successful or unsuccessful and not a whole lot more since they are required to keep their conversations with ministers confidential. Don’t, however, underestimate the grants officer’s influence since his or her recommendation for approval goes a long way towards improving your chances of success.

Don’t worry too much about the minister’s opinion of your group, even if he or she seems to have an unfavourable opinion of your type of cause. If your application meets the programme’s mandate, the minister likely won’t reject it on the basis of not liking you.

Soon you will have your A-list of potential funders, and it is time, with the help of the grants officer to start writing your proposal.

This is an excerpt from my book The Best of Fundraising 101. To learn more, click here