Grants and nonprofits in general

• What is a grant? Who’s eligible for them?
• What is a 501c3 anyway? How do I start one?
• But wait — SHOULD I start a 501c3?

Types of fundraising for nonprofits

• What are the pros and cons of grants vs. other kinds of fundraising?
• Where can I learn about other types of fundraising?

Can I get a grant to… ?

• Can I get a grant to start my business?
• Can I get a grant for myself, for example, to travel?

Larissa’s services

• Do you do grant writing as a consultant? Can my nonprofit hire you?
• Do you teach your grant seeking system? Can you train our staff/volunteers/group?
• Do you ever volunteer your services?

Other professional grant seekers

• How do I find a professional “grant writer”? Can you recommend someone? How much should I expect to pay?
• I want to be a grant writer. How do I get started? And what do I charge people?
• What other books or resources do you recommend?

The work of grant seeking

• What is the first step in grant seeking?
• What is the biggest mistake you see grant seekers make?

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What is a grant? Who’s eligible for them?

A grant is a single, relatively large donation of money to support a project or organization. The kind of donations that tend to be called “grants” usually come from an organization such as a foundation, whereas large donations from private parties tend to be called “gifts” or “donations.” However, the terms are somewhat interchangable.

Some grants are made to individuals for their projects, but many foundations require that their grants go only to charitable nonprofit organizations (501c3’s),
such as churches, homeless shelters, operas, universities, etc. Our book, Demystifying Grant Seeking, is all about getting grants for charitable nonprofits.

What is a 501c3 anyway, and how do I start one?

While we’re not lawyers, here’s our understanding of it. A 501c3 is a nonprofit corporation that is also a federally recognized charity. Some typical examples are museums, soup kitchens, churches, and so on. Not all nonprofit corporations are
501c3’s — for example, your local softball club might just be a nonprofit corporation, or it might not be formally incorporated at all. However, all 501c3’s are nonprofit corporations.

Most organizations find it desirable or necessary to incorporate in some form — be it nonprofit, cooperative, for-profit, etc. Whether you want to incorporate as a nonprofit and then go the extra step of becoming a 501c3 depends on what kind of fundraising you want to do. Many foundations require grant recipients to be 501c3’s. If you want your individual donors to be able to deduct their donations off their taxable income, then you need to be a 501c3. However, this factor is not important to all individual donors.

For more definitions and advice about how to start a nonprofit/501c3, try these sources:

1) http://nonprofit.about.com/c/esntl.htm?PM=ss10_nonprofit

2) your local library, which may have books especially relevant to your state.
3) a lawyer with nonprofit experience in your state — if you go down the nonprofit path, you’re going to need one eventually

But wait — SHOULD I start a 501c3?

Good question. Just because you CAN start a 501c3 doesn’t mean you always should. It takes a lot of effort to get one set up — realistically, hundreds of hours of forms, documents, and legalisms. Some of this effort could be reduced by getting a lawyer to do major or minor parts of it, but that will cost you money. It’s important to ask if forming a 501c3 is what you really need to do, or if you might make more of a difference for the world by spending that time working more directly on your cause.

If you have a small, short term project that is of a charitable nature, you
might consider doing it by yourself, without legal complications — or legal protections. (Obviously, your lawyer will discourage this. Talk to them before you raise money from others.) Alternatively you might seek to have your project performed under the “fiscal sponsorship” of an existing 501c3 (such as a church, youth shelter, art museum, etc), which might provide the legitimacy and protection you either want or need.

Some efforts really shouldn’t be a 501c3. For example, some athletes and teams that raise funds for themselves are not really asking for charitable donations — they’re fundraising by selling candy bars or (in a more sophisticated mode) they’re angling for corporate marketing money. They can organize as a regular for-profit or nonprofit corporation, or (if it seems appropriate) work as individuals.  Activists heavily involved in lobbying on legislation wouldn’t want to form a 501c3, where political lobbying is somewhat restricted.

Some projects and personalities seem more suited to slightly different types
of organizations than the formal 501c3. Remember it’s always possible to be an individual writer, artist, politician, or businessperson. There are also other “progressive” type of organizations you can join or start — such as a political party, activist group, prayer group, worker or consumer cooperative, or for-profit-but-idealistic-business.

We would suggest forming a new 501c3 only if what you want to do is unique, charitable, and will go on for more than a few years. “Uniqueness” might be the hardest standard to meet. There are thousands of new 501c3’s formed every year, and there might be one just around the corner that has the same idea you have. You should look around for them to make sure you’re not reinventing the wheel.

Forming committees for the common good is a major American pastime, something that was noted as far back as Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. On one hand it seems to be a lovely expression of some ever-flowering will to mold a better world. On the other hand, in practice it can seem like a lot of bureaucratic wheel-spinning. To avoid the latter, keep your focus on your cause. Will forming a
501c3 significantly help your cause, or will it be a major distraction keeping you from making a difference?

If after all this discussion, it still makes sense to form a 501c3, Demystifying Grant Seeking can help you when you’re ready to look for grants.

What are the pros and cons of grants vs. other kinds of fundraising?

Often, the first fundraising idea people get for their project is “Hey, let’s apply for a grant.” That may or may not be the most logical thing to do. Grants have the advantage of being relatively large, but they are rarely quick, involving a wait of months or occasionally years. Moreover, grants are not available for every kind of need.

In contrast, individual donations tend to come in small pieces, but in sum they are your biggest potential source of money. Individuals can give money for nearly any purpose, and you can get responses from them quickly. If the purpose of your work is to publicize an issue or involve people, then your fundraising process can itself contribute to
your greater goals.

Most successful nonprofits have a mix of funding sources. Think carefully when you choose the kinds of fundraising your group will pursue. Every form– grants, individuals, events, etc. — has its pros and cons, but there are very few campaigns which should rely entirely on grants.

Read the first chapter of our book for more discussion of this subject.

Where can I learn about other kinds of fundraising?

See below, under “What other books and resources do you recommend?”

Can I get a grant to start my business?

We only claim to be experts about grants for charitable nonprofit organizations (501c3’s). We’ve heard there are government grants and loans available for specific kinds of for-profit businesses. But we admit we don’t know anything about them.

For information on for-profit fundraising in the United States, you might start at the US Government’s Small Business Administration. Also consider talking to free business counselors at the Service Corps of Retired Executives.

Can I get a grant for myself, for example, to travel?

Once again, we’re only experts on grants for charitable nonprofit organizations. However, there are grants for individuals, or alternatively, it might be possible to find
a charitable nonprofit to be your fiscal agent for a grant — assuming your project fits in with that agent’s mission. The Foundation Center has a page that might help give more information:

• grants to
  individuals

Do you do grant writing as a consultant? Can my nonprofit hire you?

Larissa currently consults with several Portland area nonprofits. She is not able to
take any new clients at this time. In fact, this is one the main reasons we wrote our book, Demystifying Grant Seeking — so we could share our expertise with more people even though we could not take on additional clients.

Do you teach your grant seeking system? Can you train our staff/volunteers/group?

Larissa does provide training on an individual basis for 501(c)3 organizations that want to start or revamp their grantseeking system. However, it takes a commitment to grant seeking from the staff and/or volunteers of an organization to make the most out of receiving training. Grant seeking is an ongoing repetitive process, and being trained and set up is just the beginning. Someone has to consistently work the grants system after it is in place.

If your organization is ready for grants and wants to get set up with individual training, Larissa can provide this. Full-day training for up to four people, resulting
in a grants system in your office, and including three sessions of follow-up coaching online or by phone, costs $2,000 plus travel.

Do you ever volunteer your services?

Yes, for nonprofits we’re closely involved with.  As with her paid work, though, Larissa is not able to take on any new volunteer commitments right now.

How do I find a professional “grant writer”? Can you recommend someone? How much should I expect to pay?

If you are a board member or staff member and you need to find a professional grant seeker in your area, you may want to start by asking your peers. Chances are some of the other nonprofit leaders you know have someone to recommend.

Another avenue to search is through your local development professionals’ membership organization. Ours here in Portland, Oregon is called Willamette Valley
Development Officers. To find one in your area, ask someone who does fundraising in your town or do a google search for something like “development officers oregon”. When you find your local group, contact them and ask if they have a directory of members who specialize in grants. Some may require that you become a member to gain access to their list (which might not hurt your cause) and others will probably share it freely.

How much you should expect to pay really varies with the type of job you need done, what skill level it requires, and how ready you are with planning and prioritizing. For example, we’ve worked for clients who are expert grant seekers themselves and simply needed an extra pair of hands for a few weeks, and for organizations that had never
done grant seeking, hadn’t done any research or planning, and were starting from square one. The latter kind of client is going to require a lot of work before even a single grant
proposal goes out.

Hourly fees in Portland range anywhere from $35 to $170, but most grant specialists will work out monthly or one-time project fees. Some charge more per hour
for shorter projects, such as one day trainings, than for ongoing work (because of the time and effort it takes to get started with each new client). The dollar range is different in each community, and so we recommend you get an idea of your local grants
landscape before settling on a fee with a consultant.

We strongly discourage paying grant seekers on a “percentage” or commission basis. This is a bad arrangement for both parties. The grant seeker might do a great job but have applications turned down due to forces beyond their control. And the organization that hired them can have its prospects for long-term fundraising damaged if their grant seeker gives in to the temptation to apply for inappropriate amounts of money, to apply to inappropriate funders, or to win grants at any cost.

I want to be a professional grant writer. How do I get started?
And what do I charge people?

There are two ways we can think of to get started. One would be to find an entry-level job at a medium-to-large-sized nonprofit, a nonprofit that’s big enough
to have several people in the development department. There you could assist with grant seeking (note we don’t say grant “writing,” because the work is much more than writing) and learn the ropes while your work is supervised by someone with more
experience.

The other would be to volunteer (say 5 or 10 hours per week) as a grant seeker for the development committee of a small local nonprofit. There are probably dozens of these in your area, organizations with a mission you believe in but without enough money to have someone working full-time on grant seeking. These are organizations where the few paid staff must split their time between running the organization’s programs, doing PR, fundraising, and a hundred other things. If you could come on as a volunteer grant
seeker and stick there for more than a few months or a few proposals, you would be a treasured resource for that organization. You would learn a lot because you’d be doing all the work of grant seeking — from strategizing to stamp-licking.

You can use Demystifying Grant Seeking as the guide for your work if you go the volunteer route. While we hate to keep harping on our book, this is EXACTLY the kind of scenario the book is designed to guide people through. It tells you in a step by
step manner exactly what actions to perform, and it explains the principles behind those actions.

After 6-12 months as a “serious volunteer,” you’d have a portfolio of work samples, and the beginnings of a track record. You’d be in a more credible position to apply for grant seeking work as an employee or a freelancer, though after 6-12 months you’d hardly be an expert. And you might well have done some real good for the world in the
process.

As far as what you should charge (as a freelancer/consultant), you’re going to have to learn what’s the standard for your area, and then probably start out on the low end of that scale. See our answer to the previous question for more details about price per hour and for why you should NOT work on commission.

You’ll find there’s a paradox involved in being a grant seeking consultant: the people that most need your help will probably be least able to pay you. They might be (like one of our local heros) waiting tables to pay the rent for their school for homeless youth. You’ll have to find a convergence between a price that’s acceptable to you, a price that’s acceptable for them, and a mission you believe in.

What other books or resources do you recommend?

Among books about grants, you might look into:

• Grassroots Grants : An Activist’s Guide To Proposal Writing by Andy Robinson. Though it’s written from a very particular political point of view which you may or may not agree with, everyone can learn from the way Robinson shows it is not
  necessary to sacrifice one’s idealism to the fundraising process. There are also many examples of well-written grant narratives.
• How Foundations Work by Dennis McIlnay. It describes grants from the funder’s point of view. Though more of an academic work than a how-to guide, it does provide some very interesting perspective about the inner workings of larger
  foundations. Very worthwhile for grant-seekers and grant-makers alike is his description of the ways that foundations can be essentially conservative and unimaginative in their choices.

For information about other kinds of fundraising, check out:

• Raise More Money : The Best of the Grassroots Fundraising Journal, edited by Kim Klein and Stephanie Roth, for no-nonsense advice about all kinds of fundraising for small nonprofits.
• Fistfuls of Dollars: Fact and Fantasy About Corporate Charitable Giving, by Linda Zukowski, for advice about corporate grants and sponsorships.
• Raising More Money by Terry Axelrod, for advice about cultivating major individual donors.
• nonprofit.about.com, for links to reviewed sites about numerous nonprofit issues, including fundraising.

What is the first step in grant seeking?

Demystifying Grant Seeking describes grant seeking as a five-step cycle, where the first step is learning about your own organization, your community, and your potential funders. As a beginner the very first things you need to learn regard if your organization is ready to apply for grants. For example, do you have determination from the IRS that you are a nonprofit 501(c)3 tax exempt organization, and not a 509(a) private foundation? Or do you have a fiscal sponsor with those credentials? And do you have programs planned or in place, with the background and ability to implement them?

If you’re not quite ready to buy the book, you can check out a synopsis of the five steps in a “So you want to..” guide Larissa wrote for Amazon.com.

What is the biggest mistake you see grant seekers make?

Complexity, on many levels. Too many lists, leads, systems, spreadsheets, and too many papers saved in files and on desks. While grant seeking does involve managing a lot of paper and information, organization should just be a means to an end. If you’re spending more time organizing than researching or writing grants, something is wrong. Keep it simple so you can concentrate on your real work. For example, our book recommends using a simple paper form to keep track of your grant applications, rather than a complicated computer database.

Another mistake is writing narratives and budgets that are too complex for potential funders to enjoy reading. A grant narrative needs to establish a compelling
link between your community and its needs, your organization and its abilities, and your prospective funder and its interests. If you’ve done that (and you’ve met the application guidelines along the way), your narrative may not need any more verbiage.

Finally, too many people confuse personal friendships for business relationships. To be an effective grant seeker for your organization, especially over the long term, you don’t need a personal “in” with every prominent funder in the state. Rather, you need to create and develop business relationships based on mutual respect and shared goals.

# # #

Chapter 1 of Demystifying Grant Seeking shows you how. It is reproduced here with the permission of Jossey-Bass Publishers.

CHAPTER 1. CLEAR AWAY MYTHS AND FEARS

Perhaps this sounds familiar –
You’re staying late at work the night before the proposal is due — very late. Even the intern went home hours ago. You put on another pot of coffee and slog once again through the 20 pages you’ve written. Then you spend extra money on FedEx to get the proposal in on time. You swear that after tonight you’re not applying for any more grants. You just don’t see how the few grants you get are worth the agony.

Or perhaps you supervise a staff person who handles grant writing, but they just don’t seem to be getting that many checks in… or that many proposals out in the mail, for that matter. Perhaps they’re caught up in other development projects or their time is limited. You’d rather not bug them one more time about a grant resource they’re neglecting to
tap into. You wonder whether you will ever see results.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Grants are part of almost every nonprofit’s world, whether your organization receives dozens of them, or you are just beginning to wonder about them. Grants can be a substantial and meaningful funding source for many kinds of projects and organizations. And they can be a source of great hope and excitement.

At the same time, few subjects in nonprofit management are surrounded by such fear and mystery. Few tasks are faced with such dread as writing and submitting grant proposals. Because you may never know why you do or don’t get funded, it’s common to look at grant funding as an irrational or chaotic process. Grant makers can seem cruel or fickle.

Nonprofits that are agonized by grant seeking act in accordance with these beliefs. When they hear about a grant opportunity, they scramble to design a program that fits the guidelines, or work all night to get a confused proposal in the mail by the deadline. They conduct their grant seeking as an intermittent series of desperate crap shoots, which
we call “episodic” grant seeking. The odds of success are poor. Nationally, only 1-10% of grant proposals are funded, according to a review in Dennis P. McIlnay’s How Foundations Work.

The effective grant seeker believes something completely different — that, for all the hype, grant seeking and grant making are understandable and fairly rational processes. They run a steady, intelligent, fearless grant seeking effort that minimizes work and
pushes their odds well above the average — by targeting the funders most compatible with their organization, by cultivating professional relationships with those funders, and by organizing their efforts for efficiency.

This book gives you simple techniques you can use and habits you can develop to become this kind of grant seeker. But before you try to apply them, you need to free yourself of some common misconceptions about grant seeking, and get a more realistic idea of what you should and shouldn’t expect from the process.

Myth: Grants are something for nothing
Reality: Grants are rational deals between colleagues

Grants are appealing because they look like big chunks of free money. Unlike most individual donations, grants are often large enough to actually buy something: to fund a whole program for an entire year, or to purchase a major piece of equipment. And to get a grant, you just send in an application. The funder sends back a check, and you don’t
need to pay it back. A grant seems like manna from heaven, or a winning lottery ticket.

This perspective feeds some unfortunate practices and beliefs. Buying a lottery ticket takes no skill, so nonprofits that see grant seeking as gambling apply on impulse, without preparation; they assign the wrong people to work on proposals, or they place no value on the work of a skilled grant seeker. Logically, the only way they can increase their
chances of winning a lottery is to buy more tickets, so some organizations practice the “spray and pray” method of grant seeking: sending out scores of identical proposals, hoping a few will “hit” and provide a windfall. Similarly, some nonprofits go “fishing” for funds, returning to the same foundations over and over again hoping to eventually get a “bite.” Worse, some nonprofit staffers become sycophants, flattering grant makers, and hoping this will provide an edge or an “in.”

These methods are recipes for resentment and wasted labor. Rejections of desperate, heartfelt proposals naturally fuel the attitude that grant makers are fickle and unfair. Winning (or losing) a grant on the basis of flattery and connections, rather than on the merits of the proposal, can’t do much but create a malaise that few at idealistic
nonprofits will be comfortable with. And sending out scores of ill-considered proposals wastes a lot of work, not to mention paper and postage, considering that none are likely to be funded.

Grants are not free money. Foundations and other grant makers are organizations like your nonprofit. They have missions and goals just like you do. When a funder awards you a grant, they are not doing so solely out of the goodness of their hearts. Rather, what you plan to do with the money fits in with their own goals, initiatives, and dreams, and often with their founder’s stated wishes.

It makes sense to see a grant as a fair deal between colleagues whose interests are similar, but whose resources are different. Your nonprofit and the funder have similar goals, for example, housing the homeless. The funder has money to use for work toward that goal. Your nonprofit has the capability to do the work, with shelter space, expert
staff, connections with health care providers, and so on. Your organization performs the work in exchange for the money. Your organization and its programs have a value that is equal to grant money.

If you can recognize this value, you will stop praying, fishing, and flattering for grants. You will begin to look for and see matches with funders whose interests and goals are most like yours. You will behave less like a supplicant or gambler, and more like a partner with
funders. You will handle rejection better, too, because you will be able to conceive that it is possible that some other organization had a proposal that fit the funder’s goals just as much as yours.

Acknowledging the full value of your own organization and its programs isn’t always easy. Grant seekers and grant makers are bound up in a status relationship so deeply ingrained it is sometimes difficult to recognize. Grant seekers are accustomed to — even proud of — being poor, fighting for recognition and justice, and having to beg for money. They have a lower status than grant makers, who often play the part of exclusive or “noble” organizations.

This status difference seems to come from a belief that money (or the ability to give it away) is more respectable than expertise, ability, or action. It hasn’t helped that some funders have been willing to take on a superior role, hiding behind unlisted phone numbers or gate-keepers, and making forbidding statements like one we heard recently: “Dr. X prefers not to meet with anyone.” At one workshop we attended, a program officer from a well-known national foundation seemed to admit his organization found ambiguity convenient, when he said “It is the policy of the foundation to not be comfortable with
getting too clear.”

The pecking order is perpetuated every day, when nonprofits flatter and supplicate in their grant seeking. They are just as complicit as funders, coming to believe they are “owed something” for their good work. They attempt to play their low status role to their advantage, appealing to those higher up with their incredible need and devotion, and some grants consultants might advocate you adopt this role. But no matter how we in the nonprofit world martyr ourselves for the good of our causes, funders are free to make their own decisions.

While it is unproductive to demand or expect to be funded just because foundations “have to give it away,” it might empower you to remember that a funder’s money can do little good for the community unless it is invested — for example, in organizations like yours. Funders need nonprofits to spend their money effectively, just as much as nonprofits need funders to pay for our programs.

It’s also encouraging to remember that though grant seeking seems surrounded by mystery, it is basically a rational process. Usually, some or all of the criteria used to award a grant are presented in writing, and if you are not awarded a grant, you may be able to find out why. Often it is because your organization did not fit the written guidelines, or unwritten but discernable priorities of the foundation trustees.

That’s not to say grant making is 100% fair. Even fair deals between colleagues involve some intangible elements, like trust, and any process involving money is open to misunderstanding and corruption. Even at the fairest of trustee meetings, very good programs and proposals can end up as the least important ones on the table.

Still, there are many elements of the process you have control over — for example, which funders you apply to, how you relate to those funders, which information you present to them, how it is presented, and how you organize your efforts. Efficient grant seekers make more money in less time because they take charge of these parts of the
process — the parts they can control — rather than leaving them to vagaries of flattery, hope, or luck.

Myth: Writing grant proposals is an ordeal
Reality: Proposal writing is predictable and simple

Though the specific requirements of grant makers vary, and your proposals should be tailored for each funder, all grant applications involve just one basic activity: responding to a set of questions about your nonprofit organization and its programs. This set of questions varies little from funder to funder. For example: Who and how many
people will be served by program X? How will the effectiveness of program Y be evaluated? What other organizations do you collaborate with? What other funds have you sought?

If you know your organization and its programs well, answering these questions will be a fairly straightforward process. The experience of grant writing as an ordeal — staying up all night, agonizing, and racing the envelope to FedEx at the last second — comes not from the nature of grant seeking, but from predictable situations at nonprofits that are desperate for money but ill-prepared to answer key questions.

Presented with a grant opportunity, some nonprofits try to design whole new projects from scratch at the last second, so they can apply with something that fits the funding requirements. We strongly object to this practice on the grounds of both practicality and principle.

In purely logistical terms, designing a new program is naturally hard work that takes a long time, and must be done before the questions in a grant proposal can be answered. It’s work most appropriately done by an organization’s program staff, who are the experts on day-to-day operations. An experienced member of the development staff, such as yourself, might have skills in spotting good programs and be able to help design a new one, but you will never want to invent a new program without the cooperation of program staff. You could get funded for a program that is not ready to roll, and have serious trouble following through. You might even have to return the money.

Or you might raise the money, your organization might follow through,
and you’d “get away” with it. This can create what nonprofit managers
call “mission creep,” when your mission changes due to external
factors, such as money. Why would you want to be involved in such a
transaction? If you’re like many fundraisers, you got involved in
nonprofits because you really believed in a cause or program. It’s our
opinion that you should hang on to that idealism and use it as your
guiding star, rather than pursuing funding for funding’s sake, or
creating bureaucracies that no one believes in.

A better way to operate is for you, the grant seeker, to ask the
program staff basic questions about your organization and relevant
programs, and use their answers to write grant proposals. If the
program staff have trouble answering the kinds of questions foundations
often ask, they probably need to think out their ideas or document
their experience more carefully before they ask you to write a
proposal. As you become experienced with grant seeking, your role as
development staff should be to help program planners ask themselves the
right questions. Chapter 4 of this book contains exercises to help both
development and program staff collect the answers you’ll need to know
before applying for any grant.

When you know your organization well, and programs are fully designed
and ready for grant seeking, the actual writing of grant proposals
turns out to be easy. After creating a few of them, you’ll notice that
though the order or wording of the questions may vary from funder to
funder, the questions themselves are very much the same.

The requirements of grant applications are repetitive and predictable.
As a consequence, making an investment in preparation and organization
will speed the writing and assembling of all your proposals. Several
chapters in this book describe how you can anticipate needs and have
much of the necessary material ready before you even think of applying
to any particular funder.

In fact, grant seeking involves so much organization, preparation, and
clerical tasks that it is more trouble than it’s worth to apply for one
or two grants. If you make an investment of time in setting up a grant
seeking system, you can easily apply for 10 or 20 grants instead of
one. And if you make a steady, consistent effort, even if it is
low-key, chances are that your investment will eventually pay off.
You’ll be left with more time to spend any way you want — on the finer
points of each proposal, on your other job duties, or on sleep.

Myth: All you need is one well-written grant proposal
Reality: Winning grants depends on pinpointing matches and tailoring proposals

As consultants, we have been approached by many nonprofit organizations
each asking us to write a single “boilerplate” proposal for them — one
they can send out to many funders. This is the kind of job we don’t
take, because a single grant proposal is right only for the funder for
which it is written, and sending it to dozens of funders at once is
usually a waste of resources. Grant makers can tell when they’ve been
sent a form letter, and it likely makes them feel just about as special
as you do when you get a letter from Ed McMahon.

Grant proposals all have similar elements, and a few funders even
accept Common Grant Application forms, which save administrative time
for applicants. However, every proposal — even one submitted on a
Common form — should have at least a cover letter that points out how
the program in question specifically matches with the funder’s mission
and goals. As a grant seeker, you will spend time making crucial
decisions about what we call “matches” — which programs you will
present to which funders, and for how much funding. Sending a
boilerplate proposal skips over the important steps of matching the
potential funder with your program, and presenting the match in a way
that this particular funder will find pertinent and compelling. It also
skips over the brief but essential task of updating your text with the
most recent changes in your program goals and community trends, which
can lend a sense of timeliness and relevance to your proposal.

Myth: You need to “know someone” to get a grant.
Reality: You don’t need to know anyone to start, and relationships can be built as you go.

One Monday morning two years ago, we observed an otherwise rational
program director come into a weekly staff meeting in a state of
tremendous excitement. Over the weekend, he had been best man at a
wedding, where he had met the brother-in-law of a trustee from a big
foundation! He thought this personal contact had won a crucial “in” for
our organization — regardless of the fact that we didn’t even meet the
foundation’s guidelines for grant funding.

Many people have heard relationships are crucial to foundation
fundraising, and in general that is true. However, the crucial
relationships in steady, systematic grant seeking aren’t personal
friendships or “ins.” Instead, they are business relationships built on
confidence and mutual regard — the elements necessary to work together
in a significant way. Consider how you might react if someone asked you
for a dime for their project. You’d probably give ten cents to anyone,
stranger or friend, without much thought or expectation. But if someone
asked you for a thousand dollars, you might reasonably wonder what kind
of track record they had, if you could trust them to follow through,
and how their success or failure might reflect on you.

Similarly, many small grants, and once in a while a large one, are
awarded with zero personal contact and no pre-existing relationships.
We had the experience of starting from scratch with an organization
that had no existing business relationships with foundations, and we
raised 10% of that organization’s budget through grants in our first
year there, working entirely through the mail.

For larger or more significant grants, you will need relationships, but
fortunately they can be initiated and cultivated by you in a
businesslike way. You might be introduced to foundation staff or
trustees through public knowledge of your program’s work, a personal
introduction by a trusted colleague, or a record of successful use of
prior grant funds — for example, small grants you got through the mail.
These elementary relationships can be crucial because they provide an
accepted context to build up positive background information about your
organization before the next funding decision is made. Assuming you
have a good program, it’s likely the better a grant maker knows you,
the more they will trust you as a steward of their funds.

An efficient grant seeker sends a steady stream of good information to
funders, without going overboard. You want to develop an evolving
relationship of collaboration, in which you consistently provide proof
that your organization is a responsible and effective partner in their
efforts. Such relationships can position your organization to be a
serious contender for very significant grants. This kind of
relationship, more than a chat with someone’s brother in law, will
ultimately be your “in.”

Myth: Grants are too inconsistent to deserve the attention of fundraising staff
Reality: Grants are consistently useful for certain projects and needs

It is true that foundation grants make up a relatively small percentage
of overall giving in the United States. In 1998, they accounted for
slightly less than 10% of all gifts to charity, according to the
American Association of Fund Raising Counsel. (In contrast, individual
donations accounted for 77%.)

In addition to grants being a small piece of the pie, there are a few
disadvantages to relying on them. For example, if you are balancing
your organization’s livelihood on one big grant, your organization
could fail if that grant gets used up or withdrawn. Having a large
grant early in its life cycle can catapult an organization through all
the difficulties of a slow grassroots start-up, but it can just as
easily lead an organization to delude itself about the kind of
fundraising it needs to do. Several times, we have been contacted by
organizations that were founded with a single large grant, asking us to
seek new grants just as their founding money was about to run out. In
one case there was less than six months before their entire bank
account would be emptied, but their experience led them to believe that
a foundation would swoop in from out of state and pay for everything,
including the heating bill.

It is difficult to bear bad news, but you will find that one of your
most important jobs as a grant seeker is to educate people about the
reality of grants — how long they take to get, what they’re good for,
and how they should fit in with other kinds of fundraising. Large
grants, especially from national funders, can take over a year to
prepare and receive. Given current foundation giving patterns and
initiatives, there are fewer and fewer national foundations even
accepting unsolicited proposals, and there are many things they simply
won’t pay for.

Under current foundation practices, grants are most often given to:
start up new projects; make major expansions to existing projects;
replicate successful projects in new locations; meet one-time capital
or program needs; build an organization’s internal capacity to carry
out its mission; and fund innovative community-wide initiatives and
partnerships that join several nonprofit organizations or sectors.

This means there are important areas of need at your organization that
will not, under normal circumstances, ever be paid for by a grant.
These may include administrative staffing, maintenance of buildings,
insurance on your events or your volunteers, and ongoing expenses for a
successful program that is not changing, expanding, or spinning off in
any way. In addition, foundations rarely fund conferences,
publications, or programs that benefit only a few individuals. Applying
for grants for these items on their own, without their being an
integral part of a larger project that fits current foundation giving
guidelines, will nearly always be a waste of time.

With a few exceptions (such as “small grant” or “mini-grant” programs),
foundations do not want to be the sole funder of a program or project.
They prefer to see you seeking a base of support that includes a range
of sources, from other foundations to individuals.

Similarly, funders do not want your organization to become overly
reliant on them over the long term, and they tend not to make
commitments beyond some two or three year grants. In fact, many will
not even consider a grant request that goes beyond one year. Each grant
you receive will likely be made for something temporary — a new
beginning, significant expansion, new building or van, renovated roof,
or one-time special project. (This is another reason why we advocate a
regular grant seeking effort, to ensure that when you do have new
projects and specific needs, you have a system to bring them in front
of your foundation donors, asking them to “re-up” their giving by
focusing on something new.)

Even when your organization is a good candidate for grants, they can rarely, if ever, be all the funding you need.

In many established organizations, grants are less than 10% of their
total income, excluding years when they have special campaigns, such as
capital building projects. For many organizations, having a large
number of individual donors is especially important. Individual
donations tend to be unrestricted (you can use them for whatever you
deem your highest priority) and the process of getting an individual
donation can be relatively quick — a phone call or a letter. We’ve
assisted in a few phone bank efforts for struggling arts organizations
and have been impressed with their effectiveness, as thousands of
dollars were raised by a small team of volunteers in just a few hours.
In contrast, a grant can take six to twelve months to come in after a
proposal is mailed. So you won’t want to seek grants for an emergency
need or program that is slated to start in one month.

So what is the point of spending time on grant seeking? Even given
their limitations, grants can be a significant source of revenue for
your nonprofit. There are most likely several projects or outstanding
needs at your organization that do fit foundation giving patterns and
for which you need substantial funding. Your strategy will be to focus
on these — recommending that other needs be supported by other kinds of
fundraising.

Myth: Grants are few, huge, and national
Reality: Grants are most often small, numerous, and local

Media coverage of grants might lead anyone to believe that grants are
few and far between, but that when they happen they are tremendous. So
if grants are gigantic pieces of money that are given by well-known
foundations, and that only touch your community once in a blue moon,
why would you want to launch an organized, year-round grant seeking
effort?

The reality is that for most organizations, grants are medium-sized
gifts that come from the same local and regional foundations every
year. When we started grant writing, we were surprised and excited to
learn that there were more than 280 foundations — unsung family and
corporate foundations as well as major philanthropic institutions — in
our home state of Oregon.3 It turned out that we could conduct an
entire grant seeking effort, appropriate for a regional nonprofit,
without once thinking of applying to the Rockefeller, Carnegie, or Pew
organizations. After a few years, we began to identify times when it
was appropriate to approach national funders, but they were never our
primary focus as grant seekers for small nonprofits with local programs
and budgets under $1 million.

We have found it useful to divide grant opportunities into two general
types: bread-and-butter grants, which are recurring (often annual)
opportunities, usually from local or regional sources; and
icing-on-the-cake grants, which are large, often one-time opportunities.

Most nonprofits are small or medium-sized organizations that operate
local or regional programs. There are likely to be an abundance of
bread-and-butter local and regional funders available to them, and with
rare exceptions this is where they should concentrate their grant
seeking. Similar to the effect of expanding the list of individual
donors, this approach moves your organization toward a broader base of
funding; if one or two funders are lost, your organization will still
have many others, and you won’t be scrambling to raise money when your
one big grant runs out. Bread-and-butter grants also provide an
opportunity to increase grant income year after year. As long as your
proposals are well thought-out, you may be able to apply to the same
local foundations year after year with different projects and requests.
This way, you slowly build relationships of collaboration and trust.

Icing-on-the-cake super-grants should be approached only occasionally,
when you fit the guidelines and the opportunity seems very strong. For
example, a major computer company might send out a special Request For
Proposals, announcing the giveaway of millions of dollars in equipment
for organizations exactly like yours and in your geographic area. Or
you might have a truly innovative project that deserves the attention
of a foundation with a national scope and mandate. If your request fits
the guidelines and your program has elements which make it stand out
among the hundreds of proposals that are received each week at a
typical national foundation, you may rise to the top and be given
serious consideration. You may be asked for a site visit, and might
even ultimately receive a grant. But this scenario is very rare for a
local or regional program.

Myth: Taking grant funding means “selling out” your program
Reality: You control your programs, and you can select donors that fit with your mission.

As we mentioned, the ill-prepared or episodic grant seeker may struggle
to create a program that fits the guidelines of a specific funder when
a big grant opportunity arises. Or an organization might approach grant
seeking only when it’s financially desperate and willing to take any
and all suggestions from funders, hoping that if they comply they’ll
get funded. It’s not surprising that anyone who goes about grant
seeking this way, or has seen others do so, might believe a nonprofit
has to sell its soul or corrupt its mission to accept foundation
funding.

It is not necessary to work that way. If you conduct a steady,
year-round grant seeking effort, you gain control over the process. You
select who you will approach as a potential funder, based on any
criteria you wish, and you select how much funding you’ll ask them for,
and when. Since you don’t wait until you’re financially desperate, you
start from a position of more power, able to decide whether a funding
opportunity is worth any requirements it may come with. Proceeding with
integrity, you protect your identity and ideals. You also come across
as a more stable organization, ready and able to handle grant funding.

When you do receive grants from the funders you have chosen to work
with — and for programs that make sense given your mission and goals –
you may find you have little to worry about regarding “selling out.”
What we’ve found is that foundations most often require little more
than a good, solid program. They don’t often ask for (or sometimes even
desire) broad recognition of their grants, unless they are affiliated
with corporations. Local or regional foundations that are smaller than
the Pews and Gateses usually leave program evaluation up to the grant
seeker, asking that you report to them once per year using your own
criteria for program success.

The key to maintaining the integrity of your programs lies in your
choices about who you apply to and how you work. If you seek grants and
other funding consistently, you won’t need to twist and turn your
organization just to get money.

What to expect from grant seeking, and this book

Now that you’ve dispensed with some of the most pernicious myths about
grant seeking, you are ready to jump start an effective grant seeking
effort. To get started and get grants, you don’t need to stay up all
night and write like a nonprofit Shakespeare. You don’t need to
introduce yourself to the entire civic elite of your town. What you
need is not fortitude, connections, or eloquence — it’s a system. Along
with a new attitude about grant seeking, a system will carry you
through months and years of productive grant seeking. This book will
show you one system that works. Think of it as a road map for your next
few months. Its exercises and worksheets will point you on your way.

Don’t be surprised if you feel frustrated at first. Like most skills,
effective grant-seeking has a learning curve, and there are not many
substitutes for putting in time reading and writing. You can expect to
make a considerable investment of your time in research, and in filing,
before you ever write a single word of a grant proposal. (This is why
it isn’t worth it to apply for just one grant!)

Fortunately, our philosophy is about minimizing work through
consistency and simplicity. Stick with us, and you will only have to do
many of these activities once. Other tasks are repetitive, but will
become easier and faster as time goes on. By the end of the book,
you’ll have more than a few grant proposals out in the mail. You’ll
have your own complete grant seeking system, to speed and enhance all
your future work.

# # #

* * *

What earnest young nonprofiteer, outwardly cynical but inwardly flush with idealism, wouldn’t secretly tremble at the semi-godlike prospect of judging proposals and directing resources? In fact, the “secret tremble test” is probably a pretty good evaluation of whether you have any dreaminess left in your nonprofit soul.

If a call to serve on a committee that judges proposals and awards
grants makes you raise your hand, even ever-so-sheepishly, then you
probably still believe grants, and your passion for the community, can
make a difference. If your hands don’t move a millimeter, you’re either
burned out or one cold fish.

It is surprisingly easy to get involved with the dark side. Indeed, it
seems like the devil waits at every street corner, ready to whisk you
into the woods for a shameful debauch. My local United Way has funds
distributed by volunteer committees, and the federal government has
numerous opportunities to score proposals for agency grants. You’ll
find a little time on the dark side will give you savvy — and
hopefully, sympathy for the devil — when you’re back in the light.

Young Goodman Stimson

The first time I served on a grant evaluation committee was a shock. I
can’t be too specific due to confidentiality obligations, but I will
say it was a federal grant competition and the proposals came from
nonprofits and educators. The topic was “The Big Issue.”

There were two other reviewers on my committee, but we met only by
conference call. “Stimson” sounded like a guy who wore a tie over a
short-sleeve polyester shirt, and “Josie” had a luxuriant Southern
drawl. Everyone was serious. No proposal was ever dismissed for
personal or political reasons. This was yet another grant seeking
situation where “who you know” didn’t matter.

As the grant review cart drew us into the murky woods, I had some
charming, naive expectations. There were twelve proposals to review. I
planned to study the basic logic of each one, evaluating how well each
applicant knew their community’s needs regarding The Big Issue, and how
realistic the proposed plan of action was as a way of addressing those
needs.

That illusion was immediately smashed, and its shards left to decay in
the fallen leaves. At least three of the twelve proposals were so badly
written it was literally impossible to determine what actions they
proposed to take. Sometimes sentences ended in mid-run. Sometimes
bullet points appeared without a header. Once a whole section was
missing.

It was exhausting to read this kind of work. In desperation I started
examining the budget first. Since the budget expressed how grant money
would be utilized, I reasoned it would help me understand what the
applicant truly planned to do. But often budget items had no obvious
relation to the narrative.

It was sad to score these proposals poorly, because these applicants
seemed to have an authentic need for help. Mercy on these rustic grant
writers, who stayed up all night before the deadline, or lacked even a
friend to give the proposal a quick read! They had used the cathartic
mode of grant seeking, and that is generally a ticket to disappointment.

Catch-22 ad infinitum

By this point something else was shaking my faith. The confusion in those proposals wasn’t entirely the applicants’ faults.

Applicants were required to provide information in an order that was at
best awkward and at worst illogical. It made little sense to, say,
describe project evaluation before describing the project itself (since
project activities would inevitably be mentioned in the evaluation
section). As a result proposals were either confusing or redundant, the
textual counterparts of dogs chasing their tails.

While the general goal of the grantmaking program was admirably clear,
the published scoring criteria formed an Escher-esque maze of
contradictions. Each criterium had its own baby sub-criteria, and each
level of the hierarchy was constrained by the next. It was like being
asked to judge a boxing match by looking only at the footwork, to judge
the footwork by looking only at shoe style, and to judge shoe style by
looking only at the tips of the laces. A proposal that scored perfectly
on all the subcriteria would be extremely unlikely, in my opinion, to
strongly meet the general purpose of the grant-making program.

This situation produced stomach-wracking agonies for conscientious
reviewers like us. It was worst for Stimson, who was a stickler for
detail, and could not resolve the logical quandries, and easiest on
Josie, whose reviewing style was more emotional. But we all had to
adapt. There was soon an unspoken subtext to our discussions. We were
evaluating proposals based on our own impulses, and using the scoring
system to express conclusions we had already made. It was technically
improper, but it was the only way to stay sane.

The miasma of irrelevance

Another three proposals gave some relief. They had obviously been
written by professionals, and expressed comprehensible needs and
actions related to The Big Issue. However, it was painful to observe
these same applicants hadn’t really thought their situations out.
Instead, they were just trying to sound impressive.

One rhetorical gambit was grandstanding. “Our community is at maximal
risk regarding The Big Issue,” a proposal might say impressively, then
fail to provide equally impressive evidence, such as “79 percent of our
population are at risk, according to An Important Journal.”

Grandstanding was often mixed with bureaucratese. “Under the grant, we
plan to implement a task assignment to supervise an implementation
scheme,” a proposal might say. Such sentences made it unclear
meaningful action would take place. “We will hire a full-time project
manager,” would have scored better with me.

Even professional grant writers forget the basics. A quality proposal
will nearly always make a logical, compelling connection among three
subjects: the community’s needs, the applicant’s abilities, and the
funder’s demonstrated interests. Language that obscures those
connections is worse than dull: it suggests there aren’t really any
connections at all.

The flaunting of the guidelines

Despite the spiritual buffeting, I still had some faith left. So far I
had given applicants low scores because of their poor plans or
arguments; I had never doubted the decency of their intentions. Then
three wicked proposals zoomed out of the darkness like flying buzz saws.

One thing about this grant competition was clear and consistent through
the whole rat-maze of guidelines and criteria: grants were not
primarily intended to purchase equipment. Any equipment had to be part
of a comprehensive plan for treating The Big Issue.

These three proposals broke that rule. While the narratives described
people-oriented work, the budgets had 50-90 percent of grant funds
allocated towards equipment purchases which were largely unexplained,
and certainly unconvincing as part of a comprehensive plan.

These attempts to slip equipment through didn’t fool anybody. Worse,
they revealed the applicants saw themselves more as potential lottery
winners than as equal partners in the common cause of treating The Big
Issue.

My head spun. I was robbed of my last illusion, and fell into the blackness of denial.

The short list

How I got home I don’t know. But when I woke up, laying forgotten on
the floor were the final three proposals. I paged through them dumbly.
They weren’t necessarily the longest proposals, or the ones that served
the greatest number of people, or the ones with umpteen professional
advisers. Still they demonstrated a clear understanding of the
community’s needs regarding The Big Issue, had a logical plan of action
for addressing those needs, and made a request within the competition
guidelines.

In short, these three were worthy of being funded. I checked back a few
months later and found one of this short list had indeed received
hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I breathed a little easier. As a grant seeker, I learned once again it
wasn’t that hard to make the short list. All I needed to do was avoid
dumb mistakes typical of 75 percent of the competition.

My faith in grantmaking, as a curiously American way of making the
world better, was returning too. But my hair showed a streak of gray
that has not left it since. I may keep my hands under the table for a
while.

#  #  #

Whether you are writing grants yourself or you have a staff member
doing so, you can make grantseeking an efficient part of your
development effort. To do this, you or your staff person in charge of
grants will need to create a system that keeps the grants process
moving, guards against missing important deadlines, and helps you to
develop relationships with foundation and corporate funders.

You will need to create a system that is best for you and your staff.
But whatever system you choose, it will most likely be based on
anticipating needs, deadlines, and questions, and being ready to act
efficiently when opportunities arise. To get started, you can
incorporate several simple but essential habits — listed below — that
will help you get the best value out of your grant-seeking time.

It’s true that taking these actions, and setting up a grants management
system, will take time — which is usually scarce for not-for-profit
staff. However, investing the time now to set up a solid,
understandable system of grants management will save you untold time
later, and may significantly increase your income. If you handle grants
yourself, it can help wake you from the nightmare of complication. And
if you have a staff person who handles grant writing and follow up, you
can end the nightmare for them, by working with them to develop a
system that incorporates these actions:

1. QUALIFY each potential grant-maker the way you would a major donor.
What is their capacity to give, and their average grant amount in
dollars? Have they given to causes or projects similar to yours? Does
anyone on your board know someone on theirs? Why did you think of them
in the first place? What is your best approach? Create a form to use
every time you work on qualifying a foundation as a potential donor.

2. MATCH the right program with the right funder. Research on the
funder’s past grant-making, and your own creativity, are the tools to
do this effectively. With practice, this will become the most exciting
part of grant-seeking (next to receiving those checks in the mail!)

3. POSITION yourself for success by only asking for grantworthy
programs. Ultimately, that means those that match well with a
grant-maker’s purpose, guidelines, and capacity to give. In general, a
grantworthy program is one that can be visualized as a finite program
or project.

A grantworthy program often serves many people or makes a major
difference in the community, involves partnerships with other
organizations,and has some tangible component. It is most often limited
in scope — it can be viewed as a whole, distinct project. Grantworthy
programs may include new projects or services, direct services, special
one-time expenses, major expansions of existing programs, buildings, or
technical assistance, such as needs assessments. Grants most often do
not pay for staff time, conferences, travel, or general operating
expenses, unless they are part of a larger, more interesting project.
Resist the urge to waste time asking for the latter. Zero in on what is
most grantworthy, then propose it.

4. ANTICIPATE information you will be asked for over and over, so you
don’t waste time writing the same thing over and over. Create base
documents that literally form the foundation of every grant proposal.
These documents most often include:

��� * a one-page resume on your organization (described below)
��� * board list, with affiliations and phone numbers
��� * one-page bio of each key staff person and volunteer
��� * your 501(c)3 letter
��� * your current organization-wide budget
��� * your current financial statement
��� * your last two audited financial statements
��� * your anti-discrimination policy
��� * any great letters of support
��� * important newspaper clippings
��� * stories about people you have served

You or your appropriate staff should keep these materials up to date and have many copies ready all the time.

5. SUMMARIZE your organization on one page. I call this your resume, and it should include all these things:

��� * your mission
��� * a list or short description of your services
��� * your geographic service area
��� * founding date and major milestones in your history
��� * name of CEO, with phone number
��� * name of board president, with phone number
��� * total annual budget
��� * where the money comes from
��� * where the money goes (small pie charts are an excellent way to provide these money statistics)
��� * how many paid staff and how many volunteers you have

Use your Case Statement to help you in writing this one-pager. And yes, you can get this all on one page!

6. LIMIT the number of people who participate in the proposal
writing/editing process. You will definitely want yourself included at
some point, whether it be throughout the process or just at the very
end. You will also want key staff and volunteers involved. But grants
need not go to your entire development committee and board, unless the
funder requires a board resolution (very few do, and it will be in
their instructions).

7. INFORM people of their part in the process. Offer it in writing, so
that problems won’t arise later. Reiterate the process at management
meetings. No one should misunderstand when and how they will be called
on to participate in grant writing. Use forms to remind people when
their input is needed, for instance when you need some stories from a
program director to include in a follow-up letter to a funder.

8. ASK targeted questions of yourself and your program staff, to get to
the information that is key about each new project for which you are
writing a grant. Develop a list of questions to use every time.

9. SEGMENT your grant seeking time into blocks. Rather than working all
over the place, have a specific time for grants each week, and have
specific times to work on research, writing, follow up, and filing.

10. ACTIVATE yourself with a mechanism to remind you of deadlines. If a
funder does not have a deadline, create one for yourself. Create
deadlines for follow-up reports as well as for the initial proposal.
Keep each deadline on an index or rolodex card, so you can keep it in
front of you as you work, and put it away for next year once you mail
off your proposal.

11. CHECK everything twice. If a funder does not provide a checklist of
what should be included in a grant, read their materials carefully and
create one for yourself. Make sure that paper is bound, hole-punched,
or assembled according to their instructions.

12. KEEP only the key information, and keep it accessible. Files need
not include all your notes and phone conversations — only the ones
that contain vital information for later use. Once you have reduced all
your grant files to only the essentials, they won’t take up so much
space, and it will be easy to keep them readily accessible to yourself
and others. Filing alpahbetically by funder is best, since it
eliminates wondering about where something might be. Codes or separate
areas for different stages of proposals can only lead to confusion if
someone is looking for a grant file when you’re not there. You don’t
want to be the only one who can find these things!

13. TRACK the status of all the proposals you send out and answers you
receive. Keeping this information on a single sheet is extremely
helpful when it’s time to apply to the United Way, report to the board,
recognize donors, or create an annual report.

14. COMMUNICATE early and often with key others. They may include the
person who opens the mail, the bookkeeper, the person who handles donor
recognition, the program staff, the board…anyone who plays a role in
the system you create. Brief reports to the board can keep them
informed of received and pending grants, in case they receive phone
calls from potential funders. Brief reports, or copies of your tracking
sheet, can keep the donor recognition person from sending a form letter
to a foundation.

15. SCHEDULE your follow up activities. Once you have received a grant,
create deadlines for yourself to send the funder quarterly reports,
holiday letters, “What a Difference” letters, stories about people
whose lives have been touched by their generosity, and any other
materials you may find appropriate. Also, whether they require it or
not, schedule a final report at the end of the grant period.

16. LISTEN all the time for stories about people whose lives are saved
or changed by your organization. Also be alert to unmet needs. These
will become ideas for grant proposals or follow-up reports to funders.
Ask your staff to keep photographs of people working together –
volunteers and those your organization serves. Include stories and
photos in all grant proposals and follow-up reports.

17. ACKNOWLEDGE grants more often, and further down the road, than you
might think is necessary. Funders are impressed when you write to them
five years after a grant was made, and tell how tremendously your
organization has grown and benefited from their investment over the
years. Remembering their role in your success just might encourage them
to get involved with you all over again.

#  #  #

1. Where do I fall on the continuum from big picture to details?

As a one-person shop, or member of a very small team, you need to be
able to move fluidly between big concepts and little details without
getting stuck at either extreme. Think about where on the continuum you
feel most comfortable working, then challenge yourself to also work
outside your comfort zone.

For example, drudge work can be misleadingly satisfying. It feels good
to stamp the mail or enter 20 names in a database. As a solo worker,
you need to protect at least a small amount of time each day for your
creative, big-picture time. It may be spent staring out a window,
wandering in a bookstore, or in a park. Don’t feel guilty reserving
this time; in all likelihood it’s when your breakthrough thinking will
occur and elegantly simple solutions will come from deep inside you.

2. Am I best utilizing people who’ve offered to help me?

Think about all the things other people can do for you. Think on all
levels, from big picture tasks like strategic planning, to details like
emptying the recycling bins once a week. Then think about which tasks
would be worth your time to manage, given the level of supervision each
might require. Evaluate how volunteers can really help you.

As a solo practitioner, volunteers can be an awesome resource. They can
also make more (and different) work for you. You become a delegator,
supervisor, and facilitator. You place your trust in people who may not
do things the way you would. If you grow your volunteer team, this can
be a big change for someone who is used to working alone, so get help
with the transition. Talk to your peers in development who have been
through the experience.

3. Who are my advisors and supporters?

Because you don’t have other development staff in your office, you need
to stay in special contact with other small-shop practitioners. You can
find them through professional associations, online listservs, and
through one-one-one calls and visits.

Family and friends are important to your job, too, giving you a fresh
outsider’s response to drafts and ideas, or reacquainting you with that
strange and wonderful world outside your office walls. When your job is
difficult, ask yourself who provides your support system. And who can
you support to return the favor?

4. Are my work systems simple?

Getting organized in your office, in a way that makes sense to you, is
critical. But solo practitioners warn: don’t let organizing itself
become a crutch, or a delaying tactic that keeps you from requesting
donations or completing other central tasks. When you create or revise
a new form or procedure, ask yourself, Is this the simplest way this
task can be done?

5. Do I do too many things at once?

You may have simple work systems, but still do too many things
simultaneously. In the Idiot’s Guide, Davidson calls multitasking “the
false economy of attempting to do two things at once.” He urges readers
to slow down and give their full attention to one thing at a time. This
can be very difficult for the heroically overworked. Davidson advises
practicing by giving short bursts of your full attention to a single
task for 10 to 15 minutes. By full attention, he means no radio or TV,
no automatic email notification, no phone ringer, no lunch at your
desk, not even a coffee in hand.

It may be part of your job to be available to the public, but every job
has some room for focused time spent working alone. If you are worried
about missing calls or contacts, consider instituting open “office
hours” that take up no more than half of each day.

6. What is making me feel bad because I’m not getting to it?

As the grants director at a large nonprofit, I once had a vast reading
pile that I always meant to get to. By the time I left that job, I’d
raised more than $2 million and had hardly read half that pile. It
turned out reading everything wasn’t critical. In fact, the worst
result was I wasted a lot of time suffering and worrying about how I
should be reading.

Reconsider your “shoulds” if they seem to be getting the best of you.
Maybe by not completing something, you’re telling yourself it’s not
important. On the other hand, you could find you are avoiding something
very important and you need to ask for help or recommit to a stalled
project.

7. What tools do I have to help me, and am I fully utilizing them?

Take an informal inventory of the aids you have at your disposal,
including computer software, such as word processor and spreadsheet
programs. Are there functions – such as distribution list dialing on
your fax, merging in Word, or querying your donor database – that you
don’t fully know how to use? Invest some time learning how everything
works, so you can use your tools to speed rote tasks.

8. What time marks the end of my work day?

Since both big picture work and detail work can seem infinite, you can
feel guilty and incomplete no matter how late you stay at the office.
But if you set (and stick to) a quitting time, you can direct yourself
and have more productive days – even if they are shorter. Try it for a
certain period – perhaps a week or month – to feel the profound
difference it can make in your life and energy.

9. How do I know how I’m doing?

In a one-person shop, doing “a good job” can quickly become abstract in
the absence of anyone who might notice. So it is critical to set up
measurable goals and evaluate yourself based on those goals at regular
intervals. Setting a realistic yet challenging financial goal is the
least you can do for yourself. You should also set nonfinancial goals,
to provide a sense of progress and satisfaction while you wait long
months for results to specific asks.

10. What would I miss out on by taking an entire day’s retreat?

In a workshop on burnout, I once saw a woman break down in tears,
claiming she could not take a single day to get off her hamster wheel
and rethink her work life. She felt too busy to invest the time to
renew her motivation and energy. She believed if she left her job for
even a day, the organization she headed would… I guess, she thought it
would disappear! But her organization was likely stronger than she
realized, and it would have benefited most from her being centered and
effective.

What would you miss by taking a whole day to evaluate your personal
mission and how your work habits help you achieve it? A day during
which you do not enter your office, pick up a single call, or do a
single errand? If you’re like most people, you might miss several dozen
spam and listserv emails, a batch of mail, and several voice mail
messages – all of which you can answer the very next day! Invest some
time in getting grounded and renewed. It will pay off big time. Take a
day, protect it, and use it to think about what you do, and why and how
you do it.

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