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Board Development | Leadership Development | Consulting | Budgeting | Strategic Planning | Grant Writing | Grant Research | Development/Fundraising
How to Answer Grant Questions About Funding Sustainability
If you’ve ever written a grant, you’ve likely encountered the dreaded “sustainability question.” How will you sustain this work after the grant term? Well-intentioned funders are looking to be sure the programs they invest in will continue after they write a...
Considerations When Hiring a Grant Writer
If you’re a nonprofit leader, finding a great grant writer is like winning the lottery. These grant writers transform your organization’s programs into written materials that move donors to write your organization a check. All while freeing up your time to...
Free Grant Research Tools You May Not Know About
Grant research tools have become big business over the last two decades. Today, there are several competing paid databases you can subscribe to. But not everyone has the budget to spend on a database and a staff member to navigate it. That’s where free grant research...
Leveraging Grant Funding to Build Capacity
When setting out to build organizational capacity, one of the first challenges nonprofit leaders face is how to pay for it. In the long run, added capacity often pays for itself—whether through greater impact, efficiency, or direct fundraising capacity. But in...
Project Research Success: 9 Expert Grant Research Tips
Grant research is not as simple as sitting down and searching for one keyword, phrase, or type of funding. Just like grant writing is not as simple as sitting down and putting words on paper.
Pro Tips for Successful Direct Mail Campaigns
When it comes to small-dollar nonprofit donors, fundraisers are spending more time than ever developing online giving campaigns. But we’re here to remind you not to forget about direct mail. Old-fashioned postal mail is one of the most direct ways to reach your...
4 Easy Steps to Retain Giving Tuesday Donors
For the last decade, nonprofit fundraisers have spent each November preparing for Giving Tuesday. We write emails and social media posts. We get major donors to offer matching grants and gifts. We create graphics and carefully crafted descriptions of our...
How to Solve Nonprofit Capacity Gaps Without Breaking the Budget
Almost every nonprofit we’ve worked with over the last decade has struggled with capacity gaps. There are so many community needs and never enough staff to meet the demand. Organizations bounce from one all-hands-on-deck crisis to the next, seldom able to carve...
Online Fundraising Trends – What to Know for 2024
Over the last decade, online fundraising has transformed. As a nonprofit fundraiser, it’s easy to feel like you’re in a constant game of catch-up. What are the top ways to give online? Should my nonprofit invest in text-to-give tools? How can I keep my online...
Grant Writing Tips: 8 Lessons I Learned the Hard Way (So You Don’t Have To)
Here at Funding for Good, our team has decades of experience writing grants. Combined, we’ve written hundreds (maybe thousands) of grant proposals and raised hundreds of millions of dollars. And along the way, we’ve learned a lot of lessons about grant writing....
How Sharing Impact Pays Off for Nonprofits
Are you sharing your nonprofit’s impact enough? After working with hundreds of nonprofits, one of the great mysteries is how nonprofit organizations do so much incredible work—and yet all too often fail to regularly share the impact of that work with donors and...
Grant Readiness Checklist
I decided to put together a Grant Readiness Checklist to use for myself and with clients.
A Career In Development – 10 Things to Know
Nonprofit development work can be incredibly satisfying. You’re raising funds for important causes—and honing a diverse and valuable set of skills. Plus, experienced development professionals are always in demand. In many ways, development staff are the backbone of...
Simple Steps to Write an Executive Summary
Today, we are going to focus on a well-written Executive Summary.
How to Begin Developing a Statement of Need
The building blocks of a strong statement of need are why, who and supportive data and/or statistics.
Consistency is the Key to a Strong Donor Communications Strategy
With today’s 24-hour news cycle and stream of social media, many of us have become accustomed to preferring the new and exciting over the stable and consistent. But when it comes to your donor communications strategy, consistency is key. Erratic Communication...
Is Your Nonprofit Ready to Accept a Windfall Grant?
Receiving a multi-million-dollar gift out of the blue sounds like every nonprofit leader’s dream. But it can also pose unexpected challenges. So how do you know if your organization is ready to accept a windfall grant? And what should you do if the hoped-for grant...
Deciding Whether to Pursue a Grant Opportunity
Have you ever been approached by a donor who wants to fund a new project at your nonprofit organization? Sure, the project isn’t on your priority list—or anywhere close. But here’s a donor, ready to write a check! What do you do? We know how tempting it can be to just...
Think People Don’t Want to Help? Think Again
“Let me know if you need anything.” How often have you sent this message to friends, family, or colleagues going through tough times? Every time we write those words, we mean it. We want to help. Yet people seldom take us up on the offer. The truth is, asking for...
What’s the Forecast for Your Nonprofit Fundraising?
Did you know that there’s a right way—and a wrong way—to read a weather app? We certainly didn’t. But Forbes recently revealed four common mistakes people make using weather apps, and now we’ll never read weather forecasts on our phones the same way again. What does...