 Anyone who’s spoken with either of our principals lately has probably gotten an earful on the subject of nonprofit sustainability. What is it? How can we measure it? What mistakes threaten it? What practices ensure it? And have expectations around it become a stick to beat nonprofits with?
We have answers. In a series of articles starting here, we’ll give you a good working definition of what nonprofit sustainability is (and what is isn’t), back up our findings with research and expert references, and explain each of the areas we think are important. We’ll also debut a new tool, the Leadership Evaluation for Nonprofit Sustainability (more on that later).
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 When we talk to nonprofit staff, one commonly recurring question is “How can we do better at grant funding?” We’ve decided to leverage our history and experience in the sector to gather materials for a series of articles on this topic. Our in-depth conversations with foundation and corporate program officers and a wider survey of their peers form the basis of the series. In this article, Powering Nonprofits asked program officers, “if you could give one or two pieces of advice to a prospective grantee, what would they be?” Their answers speak for themselves!
In no particular order, we quote their advice, albeit anonymously...  When we talk to nonprofit staff, one commonly recurring question is “How can we do better at grant funding?” We’ve decided to leverage our history and experience in the sector to gather materials for a series of articles on this topic. Our in-depth conversations with foundation and corporate program officers and a wider survey of their peers form the basis of the series. In this article, Powering Nonprofits focuses on the perspective of a corporate foundation program officer. The Corporate Foundation Cracking the corporate foundation is the dream of many nonprofits. It may feel like a quest for the Holy Grail—or one that has chances similar to that of a snowball-in-a-warm-place. But if what your organization’s programs are addressing aligns with what a corporation has prioritized for charitable giving, securing corporate funding partners is possible. Powering Nonprofits had a chance to speak to Michael Devlin, Director of Grants and Initiatives at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation about his thoughts on how nonprofits and corporate foundation program officers can make it work. When Everyone Gets What They Need "First and foremost, the corporate funder wants their dollars to have a measurable impact. They want their brand to be equated with good citizenship."—Michael Devlin, Director of Grants, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation Consider how your organization’s values match up with a corporation’s. In a world where an organization has embraced best practices for nonprofits, the board and leadership should have adopted a policy to clarify what kind of funding they will and won’t seek or accept.
The importance of a corporation prioritizing excellent brand ambassadorship and high exposure shouldn’t be a surprise. This may be a new approach for a nonprofit, and it might feel more like a business transaction than does a gift from a private donor advised fund or a public foundation—but in some ways, it’s exactly the same. Stephanie Eglington, Senior Program Officer at the Maine Community Foundation, encourages grantees to, “think about a grant as a match between the particular interests of a funder/donor and the nonprofit.” When we talk to nonprofit staff, one commonly recurring question is “How can we do better at grant funding?” We’ve decided to leverage our history and experience in the sector to gather materials for a series of articles on this topic. Our in-depth conversations with foundation and corporate program officers and a wider survey of their peers form the basis of the series. In this short take, we share some program officers’ top tips.
When we talk to nonprofit staff, one commonly recurring question is “How can we do better at grant funding?” We’ve decided to leverage our history and experience in the sector to gather materials for a series of articles on this topic. Our in-depth conversations with foundation and corporate program officers and a wider survey of their peers form the basis of the series. The first article in this series focused on the value of your relationship with your program officer. In this article, we go a little deeper on what program officers we talked to say about the ways applicants shoot themselves in the foot.  Three Cringe-Worthy Errors Writing a proposal for grant funding is an investment. Before you picked up your lucky pen and jumped in, we assume you will have looked deeply enough into the RFP to understand what the grant costs you if you win it—to write it, to deliver on it, to report it out—and understand what it costs the organization to have you go through the effort but not secure any/enough funding. You’ve laid aside long shot proposals, and accepted that the odds of getting a rejection letter are higher than you’d like. But what then? We’ve asked program officers from around the country to say more about why proposals go unfunded, beyond the reality that requests exceeded funds available. Three cringe-worthy responses came to the fore: 1. The proposal writer didn't follow instructions Mystified program officers shake their heads on this one—“It’s on the website! They just had to read it!” Consistently, 20 to 25 percent of the program officers we speak with say this is a reason for immediate outright rejection. Research!!!! Who are we, what is our mission and vision, who's on the board, who are the jurors; follow the guidelines, be clear & on time.- Donna McNeil, Executive Director, Ellis-Beauregard Foundation When we talk to nonprofit staff, one commonly recurring question is “How can we do better at grant funding?” We’ve leveraged our history and experience in the sector to gather materials for a series of articles on this topic. Our in-depth conversations with foundation and corporate program officers and a wider survey of their peers form the basis of the series. Successful grant proposals may rest on your ability to develop a relationship with your program officer. In this article, Powering Nonprofits will share perspectives of program officers on how nonprofits can inspire confidence and win mission-critical funding.  We’ve all written a great grant proposal, only to get that slim envelope with a polite rejection form letter. Did you ever learn anything about why you were declined, other than the pro forma “we received far more requests for funding than we could meet” explanation? Did you ask the program officer for feedback or suggestions on how to improve future requests? If not, why not? Asking a program officer to share what they can about why your proposal landed in the “no” pile is a small effort with a potentially big return. Their feedback (and any related feedback from the decision-makers) can fundamentally change your future outcomes. Why “No”? Obviously, not following submission protocol is cause for immediate rejection—granters receive more applications than they can realistically consider, so applications that don’t meet the submission requirements make rejection easy. On a grant application, you must provide the requirements. In the grand scheme of things, this shows attention to detail but also evens the playing field for the number of requests foundations receive. Paul Moore, Program Officer, David Bohnett Foundation  Photo by Adrianna Calvo from Pexels We regularly hear from nonprofits, large and small, that can’t figure out how to get better at collecting and managing contact information for their visitors. These visitors may have seen your exhibit, attended an un-ticketed event, come out for an advocacy day. You know they’re interested because they turned up. But how can you easily gather contact information in order to keep them in the fold? Read on!
Mobile survey or signup Elsewhere, you’ve probably seen staff or volunteers asking people to sign up or take a survey on an iPad or tablet. There’s no reason you can’t do it too! All it takes is:
Old reliable A raffle or drawing is still a great way to give people a chance to hand over their contact information. Check your state’s regulations first; some contests fall under gaming regulations, so be careful. If you collect business cards, you can use an app like CamCard. A quick photo pulls out contact information to store in your database. Saves an awful lot of typing! Give people something By now, most people understand that their contact information is worth something. So why ask them to give it to you for free? Whatever method you use to gather the data, make sure that an incentive (giveaway, contest entry, special opportunity) is built into your plan. Bonus: you’ll be less likely to let all those contact details sit around the office indefinitely if you have to enter them to deliver on your incentives. Get the info into your database No one ever benefited from having a stack of raffle cards sitting on a shelf. If you can’t get the leads entered in less than two weeks, send out a call for volunteers, students, or anyone else you can activate to come in and do a data entry party. Your database, full of up-to-date information about people who want to support you, is an asset like no other. Building it is your best way to expand your stakeholder base. Don’t let big corporations (who use these exact strategies at trade shows and other gatherings) own the lead capture universe. By making lead capture a part of the planning for any event or program, you can ensure a growing stakeholder base and a thriving future. Kara |
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Kara has a lifetime of success in patron engagement and fundraising in North America, and spent two years recently at Birmingham Royal Ballet building systems for engagement. Archives
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