Tips for Fundraising from Foundations

27 Aug Tips for Fundraising from Foundations

27 August 2024

By David Allen, Development for Conservation

I looked back and saw that it had been more than seven years since I last wrote about fundraising from foundations. To a certain degree, it’s because grantwriting has never been an area of particular expertise for me. And I suppose some of it is that grants have always been such as small part of the overall philanthropic picture.

Giving USA will tell you that 18.6% of all the money given away in the US in 2023 came from foundations. What they don’t tell you is that about half of that money comes from family foundations and donor advised funds. In other words, half of the so-called foundations are just giving vehicles for individual funders. You can and should approach such foundations as if they were individual funding decision-makers – because that’s how they function.

The foundations most people think of? Like Mott, Carnegie, Lily, and Hewlitt? Collectively they give less than 10%.

I’ve often thought that it would be a lot more fun to be a grant maker than a grant seeker. That may be true for a while, but we shouldn’t get carried away with envy. I’ve talked with grant officers who are overwhelmed with requests. For every dollars’ worth of grants they are able to make, there are anywhere from $2 to $10 worth of requests.

It may very well be that some of the rejections are made due to technical problems with the grant proposal or projects that lie outside the foundation’s priority focus areas. But many – too many – worthy projects are not funded simply because the foundation does not have enough money to fund all the worthy projects. Think about how hard that would be. If you’ve ever hired someone and made the rejection calls first, you know what I mean.

Enough of the excuses. If you want to raise money from grants, this post is about tips and approaches I have found useful. If you have a different experience, or want to pile on with additional material, please feel free to use the comments section.

There are several important things to keep in mind before you get started:

• Many foundations regularly go through their own strategic planning processes. Their mission might stay relatively constant, but their granting priorities might change as the world changes and as new people come onto their decision-making boards.
• Most foundations want to help you write an appropriate proposal. They publish guidelines, deadlines, grant evaluation procedures, areas of emphasis and program priority, range of grants made, and even sample grants from previous years. It’s all out there for you to easily find.
• Most foundations do not want to be “the funder” of a specific program or project. They might help you get started. They might provide bridge funding. They might be interested in being one of many funders. But as a general statement, grantmakers are looking for projects they can help with over a short period of time and then move on.
• Most foundations are as interested in whether you learned something as they are that you succeeded.
• Many foundations will allow up to 20% of the grant money to be used for administration, understanding that it costs the organization money to draft, receive, administer, and report on the grant money. You should build in an administrative component into the grant request.
• One person – it could be a staff person or a project volunteer – needs to be designated as the point person for any successful grant. Especially when your organizational relationship with a funder is in its early stages, you will want to get news and reports delivered ahead of time if at all possible. They should not need to chase you for timely information. And if the foundation doesn’t require regular reporting, or even reporting at all? Send regular updates anyway.

So, with these realities in mind, here are some tips for your planning:

First – do your homework! Set aside a week or so, early in the year to devote to foundation research. (This lends itself to a specific Board member or an intern project.)

• Start with the Foundation Directory. The Foundation Directory is a searchable tool that accesses information about large regional or national foundations as an online subscription service. You can pay for just one year and then drop it. I have also known several organizations that subscribe collectively. You can usually access the Directory at a library, but you might have to go to a university library. Look also for smaller directories that include all the much smaller family foundations, trusts, and community funds.
• For the foundations that seem promising, record and save guidelines for submitting proposals, deadlines, and sequence of submissions needed, board trustee names, and names of key personnel.
• Visit each foundation’s website. Verify the information you think you already know and record contact information for grant officers and other key personnel.
• Share the list of foundation trustees and key personnel with your board members. I usually just list the names in alpha order without indicating their affiliation with a particular foundation or trust. Then I ask board members to circle anyone they know personally.
• Request a copy of each foundation’s most recent Annual report.
• Pay special attention to the organizations that have received grants from these foundations. Take a look at those organizations and look for who else funds them. You might find that several funders like to work together.
• Call the grant officer or see if s/he will accept a meeting. Keep the appointment, being prepared to describe your best guess as to a program or project in which they might be interested. Follow their advice!
• Keep good notes and keep good files.

Second, get real about how many proposals you can handle in a year. Ten would be a lot for many organizations! Map their deadlines onto your master calendar and build in enough time to get a proposal written for each one. Keep in mind that this task can be shared. It is often more efficient for a program person to write the actual grant, while the fundraising person keeps track of deadlines, filing procedures, and so on.

Get real about your chances with each proposal as well. A $10,000 grant request from a foundation that has made grants every year for some time and who invited this one might warrant a 90% (never 100%!). A proposal to a new foundation might only warrant a 10 or 20%. Use the percentages to forecast income from foundations for the year.

Third, when you sit down to write the proposal write it EXACTLY as the foundation’s guidelines specify. No more than 3 pages means no more than three pages. 12 pt type means 12 pt type. List the names of your board members before outlining the financial need means list the names of your board members before outlining the financial need.

Actually write the proposal as the very last step – gather all the necessary materials first. Things like copies of your strategic plan, budgets, maps, photos, and so on. Then write the proposal in such a way that matches up with the materials you are providing.

Write it. Let it rest for several days. Then go back and rewrite it. Use a writing style that is not stilted – one that is easy to read and understand. I recommend 8^th grade level at most for foundation grants. Remember that the person reviewing the proposal may not be an expert in your field. Spell things out to help them understand. Last, give it to someone else to read. Error-free writing might not save the day, but obvious misspellings and bad grammar that a second set of eyes might easily catch could make the proposal look like it was not seriously written. Remember that this is a competitive process.

Fourth, take some risks, but not too many. Definitely cover the bases with foundations with whom you have built a relationship. But save some room to venture out and get to know some new ones every year as well. Remember that foundation trustees and staff are people, and many of them know each other. If you are hitting home runs with every grant request, you are probably not taking enough risks. (And if you’re completely striking out every year, there are probably better things to do with your time!)

Last, as a general statement, foundations won’t be too excited to support operations or land acquisition over a long period of time. In both cases, it begins to feel endless – not innovative, not exciting. I remember one TNC project that we were raising money for every year for decades – tract by tract. It takes a special funder to understand that aspect of the business. Instead, look for opportunities to cast operations and land acquisition as seed money, capacity building, research, environmental education, access to recreation, quality of life, and so on. Project funding a) creates something that wasn’t there before, b) eliminates something that was, or c) moves a needle somewhere somehow. Grant requests that can be cast in one of those three ways may find additional traction.

One more thing about foundations: Grant money is “soft” money. Staff members whose salaries are supported by soft money are limited-term employees almost by definition. They only have a job as long as the grant money holds up, or until the organization begins to support them with more sustainable money. They deserve to be told that.

Got a different experience? Other tips, tricks, and best practices? Feel free to pile on.

Cheers, and Have a great week!

-da

PS: Your comments on these posts are welcomed and warmly requested. If you have not posted a comment before, or if you are using a new email address, please know that there may be a delay in seeing your posted comment. That’s my SPAM defense at work. I approve all comments as soon as I am able during the day.

Photo by hartono subagio courtesy of Pixaby.