• Home
  • Services Offered
  • About Us
  • Blog
  • Resources & Tools
MAPs Grant Professionals

Why Deadlines and Funding Cycles are Vitally Important

7/31/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
You've spent hours researching possible funding sources for your program, and you've found a few that seem to be a match.  You look up the deadlines and find one of these situations: either the due date has passed, is a week away, or is six months from now.   Should  you jam and go for the short deadline or take your time and wait for six months?

If you've taken the time to develop your goals and objectives, need statements, organizational history statement, and budget, you might just be able to turn the grant application around in a week.  Otherwise you may have to wait until the next funding cycle.

How can you determine the foundation's funding cycle?  You may have to do a bit of investigation to find out what a foundation's cycle is--look at their IRS Form 990, annual reports, and past grants awarded.  You can call the foundation and ask for its funding cycle.  It's a great question to get a conversation started and begin developing a relationship. 

It's pretty obvious why deadlines are important.  Deadlines mitigate procrastination. They motivate us to get something done.  They promote focus and  productivity. Deadlines and funding cycles are your friend.  They help you stay on task and plan for the future.  



0 Comments

The Right Kind of Ask

7/26/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
 It does not make sense to develop and submit 100 grant applications asking for $10 each to fund a program that costs $100, just as it doesn't make sense to submit a grant application to a foundation for $100 when the published grant award range is between $25,000 and $50,000. You may think that you are being nice and "saving the funding" for other applicants but you would be better served by being strategic about the amount you request in your grant applications.


Foundations that are required to give away 5% of their profit by the IRS, often state the amount of money they expect to give away in individual grants. If the grant maker provides a range, make sure your project budget is presented within that range. Your proposal runs the risk of being tossed out if it does not meet those basic criteria. 


If you take the time to conduct research  on the funding agency, especially looking at their IRS 990 Tax Forms,  you can see what past funding levels were made by the grant maker. If your request is too low, your project may be seen as less deserving;  while too large a request may tell a funder that your organization does not have the capacity to carry out the work. Use the information gathered from your research to frame the application and budget for specifically to each funding agency, based on its past awards and published grant award amounts.


0 Comments

Look to the Past

7/3/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
In life we learn from past mistakes and successes.  It’s no different in grant development.  If your organization has requested grant funding in the past, find those old proposals and glean any information that is still relevant that you can use.  No need to reinvent the wheel:  instead of starting off on a new track each time you develop a proposal, why not reuse and recycle?  Even if a proposal was not funded, there is good information to be found.

When recycling, make sure you update statistics, organizational accomplishments, and program descriptions each time.  AND remember to make changes necessary to respond to the funding guidelines, and ‘speak’ the funders’ language. 

Although we encourage recycling, DO NOT send the same proposal to several foundations without customizing it to the specific funder.  Each funder publishes its own unique guidelines that you must follow, otherwise your grant application could end up in the RECYCLE BIN!

It’s also useful to find out who has funded your organization in the past. There could be several reasons why your organization is no longer receiving funding from a foundation, and it may be that you can re-establish the relationship with them.  Make a contact and find out if your program is still aligned with their funding priorities—it’s worth a try!


0 Comments

    Author

    Marti Hess
    Aly Evans
    Pat Fitzmorris
    The MAPs Team is a group of professionals who have years of grant development experience.

    Archives

    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012

    Categories

    All
    501(c)(3)
    Budget
    Clarity
    Collaboration
    Collective Wisdom
    Deadlines
    Fiscal Agent
    Foundations
    Funding
    Grant Development
    Grant Planning
    Grant Writing
    Influence
    Learning Group
    Logic Model
    Non Profit
    Non-profit
    Nonprofit Developmenteca867ae78
    Nonprofiteeef73172b
    Objectives
    Outcomes
    Research
    Value Of Volunteers
    Vision
    Volunteering
    Writing Clarity

    RSS Feed

Home

Services Offered

About Us

Blog

Resources & Tools

Copyright © 2015
Photos used under Creative Commons from Frontierofficial, Art Of Backpacking