What to do before the grantwriter comes?
Summary:
Preparation is needed to make the most of help from professionals in fundraising.
Answer:
Presidents Drum and Bugle Corps wrote to NONPROFIT in April 2001:
"We are a 501-c-3 youth organization and we need someone to write grants
for funding. Also to work with work with charitable foundations would be
very good."
Tony Poderis (http://www.raise-funds.com) responded with this advice:
As you search for a grantwriter, I believe you will find that accomplished
and experienced grantwriters will more likely be interested in serving
your organization if you initiated a number of steps in the grantwriting
process yourself, in advance of their writing effort.
- Determine what it is you wish to have funded. Set your priorities for
seeking grants from foundations for projected new programs and services,
to support on-going programs and services, or to provide annual operating
funds. Those priorities must come from your Long-Range Strategic Plan in
the furtherance of your basic Mission Statement. (And be aware that you
must have "life after grants" with campaigns to other funding sources ---
such as to individuals who almost always give the most money.)
- Through your area's public library, the Foundation Center's information on where
foundations in your area now give their money, from your Trustees, and
from other people who know your community --- get to work to identify the
foundations having interests relating to what your organization
does, and be sure that you are located in whatever geographic limits the
foundations require. Check with your State Attorney General's office to
see if that agency publishes a foundation listing. Of great value is the
fact that you can obtain other organizations' annual reports and easily
see which foundations give how much to them from their printed donor
listings. Then be sure to contact as many foundations as possible to
secure their annual reports and giving guidelines. This is how you
develop your prospect list.
While most experienced grantwriters will know such information about
foundations if they operate in your area, it will serve you better --- and
it will cost you less --- if you do most of your own research ground
work. It is not hard to do and it will establish a process and routine
you can follow for well into the future --- and it stays within your
organization.
- Be certain that you have reasonably determined in advance the scope,
intent, and the "case" value to the community of the project you wish to
have funded before you engage a grantwriter. Again, this will save you
money and give you a sound head start --- as opposed to someone outside
the organization doing it. It is very important to have you --- on the
inside of the organization --- be in the best possible position to fully
know your own organization and its needs. That will be especially
important when you have face-to-face meetings with foundation officials.
- With all of this in place to some degree, you are better prepared to
hire a grant writer. But you do not want a grant writer to be working
directly and personally with your charitable foundation prospects. That
would put the grant writer in a solicitation position. You want to hire a
qualified and talented grantwriter, not a paid solicitor to engage
prospects for you. That's your job. That's the job of your Trustees.
You want your organization's officials to develop long-term and personal
relationships with foundation officials, and you cannot accomplish that if
others from the outside are so occupied on a project-to-project,
short-term basis.
Posted 4/25/01 -- PB
