Fundraising: A Beginner’s Guide to Locating Grants for Small and Mid-Sized Non-Profits
Locating grants for non-profits is different from grant-writing. Here’s a former track mom’s description of how to do this, and get funds for your favorite non-profit.
I have listed at the end of this article some useful databases to help you find grants. The first is a link to Grants.gov, which is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ database to help you locate a federal grant for your organization. The second is a more general federal database, www.usa.govfor non-profits. The last link I’m listing, npguides.org, is a link to “a searchable database of more than 620000 nonprofit organizations in the US,” which should give you plenty to start with.
When you finally assemble your list of leads (and Microsoft Excel is great for this purpose, by the way, with Microsoft Word’s Tables feature a close second), your spreadsheet should include the complete name, address and all phone numbers for the grantors, as well as a list of the materials they require in order to process the grant request. These typically include such materials as a summary of the non-profit’s history, financials, non-profit status and tax ID number, to which your grantwriter should have access. Make sure you keep a copy of the spreadsheet before you submit it, so if anyone else in the organization needs it, you’ll have it to give to them. Also keep a copy of all of the materials you collect in the process of your search, as those might be needed as well.
One more word – before you begin searching for grants, have a chat with the fundraising staff in place for your organization. They should be able to provide you with a list of the organization’s current grantors (if any) and the institutions they have already approached for grants. There’s no point in reinventing the wheel, after all. If the staff is not keeping track of the institutions they have approached, it may be necessary to let them know that it is important to do so.
It’s also best not to directly contact a foundation or corporation about a grant unless you have express permission from the non-profit’s board of directors or governing members to do so, and you have the knowledge base to represent the non-profit accurately and effectively. Your job is to collect the information and pass it on to the grantwriters.
The payback for doing this research is seeing the look of gratitude on the face(s) of your organization’s grantwriters, watching your non-profit flourish, and knowing that you played a huge part in its success. Good luck!
References:
Personal experience
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