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....
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Grant Readiness Checklist
I decided to put together a Grant Readiness Checklist to use for myself and with clients.
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.
Foundations – How to Start the Conversation with Program Officers
Whether you are new to grant writing, or you have been doing it for years, a critical part of your success lies in the relationships that you establish with the foundations to which you are applying.
What are Evaluation Methods?
Evaluation methods are the criteria for evaluating the success of a program or project.
Where to Find Grants
Knowing where to find grants takes practice. Grant research is one of the main components of grant writing and sticks out to me as difficult for many people, like learning a balance pose in yoga, especially for a novice grant writer. Much like balance poses, grant...
Rejected: What to Do if Your Grant Proposal is Denied
No one likes it when their grant proposal is denied. If your organization just received a grant denial letter, you might be wondering, “What next?” Rather than toss the bad news into the trash and move on to the next proposal, it is essential to complete due diligence...
What to Do After the Grant Award Notification
You researched, you wrote, and you submitted a stellar grant proposal. After what seemed like a lifetime of waiting, you received an award notification stating, “Congratulations! Your proposal was selected for a grant award.” After the initial excitement of an award...
How to Communicate with Foundations: Clarifying Questions
Are you researching foundation prospects for a program, project, or organization? Have you discovered questions that you can’t find an answer to on the foundation website, 990-PF, or another research platform? These are typically the questions that make for great calls to program officers and really help clarify if your organization is a good fit for their current priorities or upcoming grant cycle.
Pre-Program Design Sets Grant Writers Up for Success
Your grant writer can do everything else right: develop relationships with foundation officers, present comprehensive financial reports, craft a beautiful narrative to highlight your organization’s history and prior successes, check all the right boxes, but that isn’t enough to secure dollars.
Grant Writing Facts Every Board Member Should Know
Grant writing is more than simply putting words on paper. The next time your board proposes grants as a solution for short-term fundraising needs, take into consideration the following facts every board member should know.
Unsolicited Proposals and Pre-Selected Orgs
We get a lot of questions about how organizations could access private foundations that operate on a “by invitation only” funding model. It is quite common for private/family foundations to pre-select organizations they are interested in supporting.
How to utilize 990s in grant research
Before you get worried that you are going to have to pay a fee or get a subscription to starting incorporating 990s into your research process, you can access 990s for free online.
Grant Research Questions to Find Ideal Prospects
While research and building relationships are both time consuming, the return on investment for both is unparalleled.
What are Matching Grants | How to Create the Match
For those of you new to grant writing, guidelines vary from donor-to-donor and agency-to-agency. As grant writers often say, “If you have seen one application, you have seen one application.” Keep this in mind as you read through guidelines.
Grants Management: Often a Trial-By-Fire Experience
Several years ago, I started a job as a grant writer on a development team for a large nonprofit in North Carolina. Grants management was new to me even though I had worked in and around nonprofits for years. While I’d responded to RFP’s and RFI’s (requests for...
The Skinny on a Matching Grant
Let’s look at the ins and outs of a classic matching grant.
Beyond the Warm, Fuzzy Feeling of Philanthropy
In this episode, her dynamic teaching style brings so much infectious enthusiasm to the discussion that every listener will feel empowered to go out and find a grant for their program – even if they never considered it before.
Where To Start On The Grant Writing Journey
Regardless of where you are beginning, grant writing is a journey on all fronts.
Developing Your Development Director
If there is one thing that can be universally agreed upon by nonprofit organizations, it would be this: raising money is hard.
