Grant writing is a daunting task and not just putting words on paper. To be successful at writing your grant, you need to start with successful grant research. This will help you get the prospects that have matching priorities to your needs. You need to go out and search for opportunities that suit you and create a plan of how you will write them to how you will manage them. Therefore, go through the procedure of securing grants from identifying their needs, researching, to submitting the proposal. Some of the questions to ask yourself about grants, is what should you consider as you go about grant research? Do you know the steps you need to follow? In this article, are 5 things to incorporate in your grant research process to get the right prospects for your needs.
Table of Contents
A needs list
Having a needs list is vital as it guides you to what you are looking for in your organization. Discuss this with your project staff and create a needs list for the next year. Some of the things that you should write down to discuss can be organizational. What are some of the items that rise to the top? This can be considered as the needs. Importantly, you must differentiate between needs and wants. As the leader of your organization, narrow down the list to what you feel are the needs for your next year. In this way, you can carry on with your grant research.
The total operating budget for the organization
You must know the total operating budget for your organization before you write a grant. As you carry on your research, you need to know that foundations have a limitation when it comes to their operating budget. For instance, some foundations will only support organizations that operate budgets of $350k or less, or those that are operating a budget of more than $1million, among many other offers. Therefore, you need to incorporate this in your research to know the organization’s budget, to help you determine which foundations are a good fit.
When you need the money
After identifying every need, you need to also know when the money has to be in hand for your organization. This will help you in your research to look at grant deadlines and know if you have time to apply. Also, it will help you know when the dollars are expected, and when the grant proposals will be reviewed. In some foundations, they will allow you to pay yourself back after the check arrives from the foundation if you spent some of your own money. Others will not. Thus, in your research, you need to confirm this before you submit your proposal. It will also help you decide whether to go ahead applying for the grant or not.
A declined proposal in the past
In your research, it is vital to know who funded you in the past and who declined to fund your organization, and why. It may be the proposal was declined but you were asked to apply again the next year. Maybe the proposal was a bad match and now there is a better match. Also, it may be that the organization was not a good fit for the foundation. For this reason, learning all this information will help you know if it is vital to reach out to a certain foundation or not. Or if you need to have a follow-up proposal. Research is important for information in most cases is lost in staff transitions and where a group is not working with donor software to track notes.
The geographic focus
As part of your research, you need to consider the geographic focus to help you determine the prospects that will fund your program. Thus, you need to know your service area, whether it is a county, region of a state, a state, or national. Through having this accurate information, it is easier within your research to look for foundations that fund organization in those particular areas. It might seem like a lot of work, but doing research ahead of time will help you be successful in your overall grant process.
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