Thinking about apply for grants for your non-profit organization  in 2015? Stop thinking and start doing!

Most grant makers have several deadlines throughout the year. If possible apply for the early deadlines, for one obvious reason: this is when they have the most money. Most community and corporate foundations allocate a certain amount of funds for their fiscal year — some allocate set amounts to disperse in each quarter or semester, others will disperse their funds as they receive compelling proposals. Translation: always apply for the earliest deadline possible.

Applying in January will give you a better chance of receiving funding from certain foundations. How can you further improve your chances of success? Here are a few pointers:

1. Conduct thorough research to identify funding prospects before you write anything. You won’t get every grant you apply for and in order to conserve your time and financial resources, apply only to those prospects where you have a decent shot at success.
2. Once you have identified the prospects, write up a 1-year plan which includes a calendar of all the funding sources you want to apply to, their deadlines and their requirements. It is helpful to also include, in this plan, a ranking and narrative assessment so that when you refer to it a few months later you understand your initial insights.
3. Don’t rely only on the information you see online. If after reviewing a funder’s guidelines, whether it be a government funding source or foundation, it seems like your program is in alignment, make personal contact. Call and speak to a program officer to get a better sense of whether your initiative is in alignment with that funder’s current goals. Do you really want to spend 20 hours writing a proposal based on something you read on a website and then find out that funder already spent all their funds for the year, or doesn’t fund startups, or no longer has the same priorities? Quite often foundation websites are not current.
4. If all signs point to go, craft your proposal from the perspective of that funder. Boilerplate proposals can be a good start. But always tailor your proposal to the interest of each individual funder. If your organization runs after school programs that focus on educational enrichment, physical fitness and lifeskills, and you are writing to a foundation with a focus on STEM, then you are an academic enrichment organization committed to raising math and science scores among your service population. If you are writing to the NFL’s Play 60 foundation, then you are a youth development organization which is committed to the developing the whole child from academics to healthy living. You don’t need to change who you are. You DO need to be very aware of your audience.

If you need help getting started, call me. I have helped scores of emerging organizations get off on the right track by starting with a well developed plan informed by research. I have helped many established organizations and businesses to refine and improve their development plans, especially those in the process of some kind of transformation, influenced by internal and external factors.

Happy Holidays!!

— Aaron