As a grant writing consultant, not only do organizations trust me to write grants for them, I'm also tasked with finding grant funders that would be suitable partners. Unfortunately, it often seems like finding a foundation that will fund a particular nonprofit is like finding a needle in a haystack. There are just so many factors to consider like area of interest, geography, the amount of the grant, what it's being used to fund and if the foundation is currently even accepting applications. But I found a way to make my sleuthing just a little bit easier.
My number one piece of advice for beginning to find funders for an organization is to first find a similar nonprofit to the one you're requesting funding for, locate their funders on the website's donor page and start investigating those for your own client. Let's say, for example, that the nonprofit you're working with is a not-for-profit hospital foundation. I use this example because this happened to be one of my clients. The hospital foundation is broadly centered on community health, preventative health measures and patient care. We'll call our nonprofit the ABC Hospital Foundation. Before you begin investigating grant makers for the ABC Foundation, visit the website of the XYZ Foundation – which also happens to be a not-for-profit hospital foundation in the same local community. There you'll most often find a donor page which lists the individuals and grant makers that have financially supported them. You'll want to make a list of these grant makers because these would be a natural choice to begin investigating.
Go to the grant maker's website because getting to know a grant maker is critical in the success of getting a grant from them. Many make their annual reports available online so you can see what is important to them. You'll often find projects they have funded and the amounts the granted. They'll also post individual project success stories – again letting you know what they value. Are the projects they fund similar to the one you want funding for? You can also find out staff names and what program officers are in charge of different funding divisions.
It's important too to get the tone of the foundation from the website. Are they extremely formal or do they appear to be more relaxed? Be sure to match the tone of your application to the tone of the foundation.
There are a ton of other tips to follow in investigating grant leads for your organization – this idea is just a start. What are some other shortcuts you use?
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