 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...
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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 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 |
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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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