Tips for Successful Grant Writing

On Wednesday, January 19, 2011, I’ll be teaching my introduction to grant writing class for Opera America as part of its Making Connections series. Cost is only $15 for members and $20 for non-members.

In March 2011, I join the faculty of New York University’s Heyman Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising. The first class I’ll teach there is “Fundraising for the Arts,” which will examine how to make the case for support of the arts, arts education, and artists. Classes are Monday evenings, March 7 through April 4. Then on Tuesday evening, April 5, I begin a six-session course on grant writing. I’m looking forward to covering in depth what necessarily goes by very quickly in my one-session workshops.

It’s not enough to describe your project — you need to make a convincing case for why the funder should support your project rather than one of the other hundreds (or thousands) of proposals it receives. “Making the case” should be the primary focus of your proposal, and everything you write should support your case.

So what’s your “case?” In fundraising, we use “case” to mean the reason or argument that states convincingly why someone should support your cause. If your charity is a food bank, your case would involve why your charity is uniquely equipped to distribute food to the needy. It’s not enough to state how many people you feed. You must go beyond that to explain how your food bank works efficiently or reaches hard-to-reach populations, for example.

Organizations offering arts education frequently reply on secondary effects of the arts to convince funders to make a grant. One of the most common arguments for providing arts education is that many studies have shown that studying the arts helps students perform better on standardized tests. Other studies have shown how the arts improve specific life-skills, like critical analysis and empathy with other people. It can be dangerous, however, to quote general studies that use programs that differ in the details from your own. Always assume the funder has read the entire study and don’t quote findings out of context. (Check out my reference links for making the case for the arts.)

Whatever your “case,” you need to state it succinctly and convincingly. It should not contain unsupported assertions or leave unanswered questions. When the funder reads it, you want him or her to think “yes.” That “yes” will hopefully lead to another “yes” at the end of your proposal and result in a grant for your charity.

Martin Teitel’s Thank You for Submitting Your Proposal is a must read for anyone who is serious about receiving grants. He describes how many proposals are discarded immediately, largely because they are for a type of project the foundation doesn’t support. And because your proposal or letter of inquiry will only be scanned the first time, beware of including any extraneous facts. He gives as an example, if the foundation supports the alleviation of hunger in the U.S., and in scanning the proposal he sees the names of foreign countries, the proposal might be immediately rejected. (Of course, it’s possible an agency works to alleviate hunger in the U.S. and abroad, but the foreign work is of no interest to that foundation and should not be mentioned in a letter of inquiry or cover letter least you trigger the “eject” function.)

Keep to the point and make it easy for the first reader of your letter or proposal to understand what you do and what you want from the foundation.

In the world of grant seeking, who you know can be as important as what you know. Before beginning research on who funds similar organizations, make sure you throughly research your board members and major donors. You’ll check to see if they serve on foundation and nonprofit boards, and you’ll also note what other people are on those boards. Recent research I was doing revealed that a board member of my client was on a board that also included the CEO of Macy’s, which was one of the potential funders I had been thinking about for them. With this connection, the application will stand a better chance of serious consideration.

The most popular article on grantadviser.com is about freelance grant writing. That’s not surprising, given that today many intelligent, talented people are out of work and no doubt looking for new ways to earn a living. And since competition among nonprofits for grant funds has never been stiffer, really good grant writers are definitely in demand.

The second and third most popular articles on my site concern corporate sponsorship. This is a bit more surprising, given that corporations are, to put it mildly, conserving their resources these days. Very few are making grants to new organizations. Those making significant grants are more and more doing so for social services, education, and to help businesses and individuals recover from the recession. That’s not to say organizations in those areas are seeing the money roll in, it’s just that arts organizations and others are seeing corporate money evaporate before their eyes. Connecting with a corporation’s brand/mission/identity is even more important than in the past, as is proving that supporting your organization will help them financially or with public relations.

Research has never been more important: directing your grant proposal to the best prospects is the only chance for success in such a competitive environment. Check out The Concentric Circles of Prospect Research and Finding Grants through Online Databases.

What, you might ask is a “big sore thumb” in a grant budget? If there is a line item in your budget that is substantially larger than all the other expense items, it probably will stick out like a sore thumb to someone reviewing your proposal. See the big number I outlined in red in this example.

Big numbers can provoke questions, and you want your budget to answer questions, not create them.

So what should you do?
(1) Add a footnote to the budget explaining what went into determining the number, or
(2) Break it down into smaller numbers, but in doing this you might create additional questions (why is there a line item for sheetrock in an art budget?), so you might instead
(3) Create a subschedule, that is, a separate mini-budget that breaks down and explains the big number.

In this example, the exhibition costs are by far the largest single expense. By breaking it down into several lines in a subschedule, you’ll show the reviewer how much you have allowed for shipping, building out the exhibition space, fees to lenders, and marketing specifically for the exhibition.

In December I’ll be giving two grant writing seminars.

December 7, Arts Council of Rockland, Garnerville, NY. Grant Writing: Beyond the Basics, will explore specific ways to create strong proposals that are competitive in today’s economic climate.

December 14, New York Foundation for the Arts, Brooklyn, NY. Introduction to Grant Writing, includes all the aspects of the process of creating a grant proposal from initial research to follow up after submission.

Both seminars are open to individual artists and arts organizations. Contact the specific organizations about registration.

One of the responsibilities of every board member is to help provide for the financial stability of their nonprofit. Part of that responsibility is helping you make connections with funders. Passing around lists of the trustees of prospective foundation funders to your board can help turn up connections that your board members might not know they have.

Of course, some board members are better connected than others. As a group, lawyers who specialize in trusts and estates (T&E lawyers, for short) often have the most connections. Part of their law practice involves helping clients set up trusts and foundations, and many of them serve as foundation trustees themselves. Additionally, through professional networking, they tend to know the other important T&E lawyers in a city, who sit on other foundation boards. So when your nonprofit board is looking for new members, point them toward T&E lawyers and make your potential network of funders grow.

Want to research T&E lawyers in your town? Try the free directory at Martindale.com.

Researching prospects is certainly about gathering information about the prospect’s interests and giving history, but it’s also about eliminating bad prospects to create the best possible list for positive results. You can read about how I go about this in my article in The NonProfit Times [http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/npt/npt091509/#/18]. You’ll need to sign up for a free subscription to read the article, but it just takes a minute to do so.

Reporting to a funder on a successful project is the first and most important step in receiving a second grant. When a foundation or other funder makes a grant, they want it to make a difference and for you (!) to make a difference. A job well done is a stronger endorsement of your nonprofit than any letter for reference or brilliantly constructed rationale for funding. So, what makes a good grant report?

Your grant report will have all the elements of good writing that you use in a proposal: clear, jargon-free language, positive language, and a well ordered narrative. Heading and sub-headings will make your report more readable. It may be helpful to the funder if the topics in your report follow those in your original proposal. So if you wrote about method first and then execution of the service you offer in the proposal, proceed in the report in the same format. And if you promised any specific measurements of success in your proposal, be sure you include them in the report.

Many funders require, and it’s always a good idea, to create a table showing your proposal budget and your actual income and expenses side by side. Any discrepancies of more than 10% should be explained in note to the budget. It’s inevitable that there will be differences, but there should be a concrete reason for them.

“What,” you might ask, “if the project did not turn out as planned? If the number of people served was greatly different than expected or the project wasn’t completed on time?”

Well – first of all, don’t let yourself get to the point of writing the report and to discover this. It is your job as a grant writer* to keep in touch with the people running programs so that you will know well before the grant period ends if it has progressed as planned.

If you find out that problems have arisen that will prevent the project from ending as expected and/or on time, you must first work out with the program people how you can make a success of this (for example, by working on the project longer) or how you can explain to the funders why the project ended differently and what you learned from that experience.

Secondly, you need to contact the funder to let them know what has happened. This is best done with a phone call rather than in writing. You want to be able to judge the funder’s reaction to the problem before going into unnecessary details.

Remember that funders want you to succeed, so if you need more time, ask for it, but do so before the end of the grant period. Also, when asking for an extension, ask for the maximum you think is needed. You don’t want to have to ask for a second extension, which may not be granted.

Sometime, projects just don’t work out. If you can explain clearly what went wrong (or just differently) and demonstrate that you learned lessons from that experience that will make your future programs stronger, you can still use the report to pave the way for another grant.

For more on grant reports, get my book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Grant Writing.

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*I refer here to grant writers who are employees of a nonprofit or work on an ongoing basis as a consultant. If your relationship ended with completing the proposal, you’re off the hook for the report.