More is Not Always Better
To expand their grant seeking, clients often ask for more funding prospects — but more doesn’t always mean better. Applying to every possible grant opportunity, even ones that aren’t a good fit, wastes time and money and risks alienating funders. I’d much rather present a smaller number of opportunities that are well-aligned with clients’ programs than a long list of opportunities for which the client won’t be competitive.
Tools such as Instrumentl, Foundation Directory, GrantStation, and even AI chatbots make prospect research easier, but it is a time-consuming and nuanced process to use them effectively. If you don’t take the time to research each potential funder thoroughly, you end up with a list of 100 dubious prospects, like one I received when working at a public library. Mixed in with a few viable funders were many prospects that confused me. I found a grant only PTAs were eligible for and one for a program to encourage dialog between citizens of the U.S. and Japan.
To narrow down lists like that, I look for the following:
Eligibility: type of organization, geographic restrictions, any funder-specific guidelines
Funder’s specific programmatic priorities: e.g. if housing is a priority, targeting rural or urban areas, for specific populations such as veterans or people living with HIV
For national funders, is there something truly compelling about the client’s mission or location that would make the funder particularly interested in this client?
Finances: How much money does the funder have to grant? Do they appear to be spending down their assets?
The application process: If it is invitation-only, I put the funder in a separate section to let the client know that an application first requires building a relationship with the funder to secure an invitation, which takes intentional effort and time.
Funding history: Does the funder have a history of funding the same, specific geographic area? (This is different from eligibility, because funders will often state that they fund all over the US but have only ever funded in Georgia, or say that they fund in Georgia but have only ever funded in the Savannah area.) Does the funder have a history of funding organizations with similar missions? In the past five years, how many new organizations have been funded? How many grants did they fund per year?
This process takes hours of diligent work. In the end, I narrowed down that original list of 100 to a list of 17 closely aligned funding prospects for the library’s MakerSpace for teens. Despite the time it took to narrow down, it would have taken a lot more hours to apply for all of those 100 original prospects. This process provided a much better return on the client’s investment, and the thoughtful approach demonstrated that they were reliable partners to the philanthropic community.
What else do you look for when evaluating funding opportunities? What tools do you use to make this process easier?
