Nonprofit organizations often face the dual challenges of fulfilling their mission and securing the necessary funds to do so. This article outlines strategies for effectively finding funders and grants that align with your organization's mission and needs.
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Nonprofit organizations have two essential jobs. First and foremost, they are tasked with carrying out their mission. Second, they are faced with finding the necessary funds to do so! Even the best causes need money to be able to carry out their work.
Acquiring funding is a crucial responsibility to ensure sustainability and yet, can be a nonprofit’s biggest challenge. In this article you will learn how to successfully find funders for grants that are a good match for your organization.
Before you embark on a search for grant funding, assess if you're ready to start pursuing grants.
Grant funders will ask for pertinent pieces of information about your organization. This includes mission statements, organizational history, program description, impact data and financial records, among other things.
Below is a checklist of helpful pre-inquiry questions.
Many new or developing nonprofit organizations try to seek funding before they have a clear mission statement, service area, or purpose. Or some may have a well-established mission, but then only have “ideas” for programs or projects which may not be clearly related to their organization’s mission.
Not having a clear outline of your project or program is one of the biggest initial hang-ups for nonprofits before they even get started with the funding process.
Refer to your organization’s strategic plan or engage your Board of Directors in the grant process and get on the same page about your organizational needs and the programs you’re seeking funding for. This will prepare you for the grant search ensuring you use your time efficiently.
Most nonprofits need money for organizational overhead – rent, utilities, staff salaries, and technology. These are all the essentials which keep an organization afloat. The umbrella term for these items is “General Operations Expenses.”
Grants for general operating allow for a more liberal use of funds and have broader reporting requirements.
Some grants will fund general operations, while others will be project specific. Program specific grants will usually have more stringent criteria and will also require more detailed reporting on how dollars were used to fund the project.
Searching for grant opportunities takes time.
The search process will (and should) take time, especially at the onset. Assess how much time you realistically can spend on looking for grants.
Carve out a day and time in your calendar each week. Many organizations erroneously view finding grants as an afterthought – a “nice to have” but not a “need to have.” Acquiring grant funding is an important part of building a diverse revenue stream. Take time to devote to the search process.
While there are many free resources to help find grants and evaluate funders, there are also grant research tools that are much more efficient and accurate in sharing the most up to date information.
Using tools built to make grant prospecting more efficient will save you and your team time and give you a better chance of winning grant funding.
Let’s dive into the grant search process and how to get started.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed when faced with the prospect of finding a grant for your nonprofit. There are so many opportunities. Here are 6 things to look for when assessing which grants are good fits for your organization:
A grantmaking foundation or government grant will usually outline several focus or priority funding areas in their criteria. For example, they might list “economic rights and justice”, “food insecurity”, or “education.”
This makes it easy to assess whether your organization or project fits into their focus area.
When using a grant database like Instrumentl to find grants, you'll use keywords to search for and narrow down opportunities. This will help you narrow down good-fit grant matches.
Like the focus areas described above, many grant opportunities will target specific geographic areas and only those nonprofits serving the specified area will be eligible. Foundations or municipalities will often use a county or a zip code to provide guidance for the service area requirements.
An important note – many times the criteria refer to where clients are being served, not necessarily where the organization has their home office. Or vice-versa! Some applications will utilize the home location of the organization, regardless of where they provide services. Government grants will often rely on census tracts in their criteria. Keep reading below for more information on how you can find and use data on your service area.
Often the service area and the demographics of the service area are closely aligned in criteria. Grant applications may stipulate a nonprofit’s eligibility based on percentage of low-income populations served, percentage of housing insecurity within a given zip code, or income level of a particular census tract.
If you do not know the demographic information about your service area, the Census Bureau website is a great resource. It provides community data on age, income levels, unemployment, and other factors. It will be helpful in finding grant funding to have as much knowledge as you can about your nonprofit’s service area and its demographics.
As mentioned in a previous section, there are many types of grants. Determine beforehand whether you are seeking funds for general operating costs or a specific project. Many grant applications will state explicitly what they fund and what they do not fund.
Some foundations may have several grant cycles: some for general operating funds and others for targeted projects. If you need money for rent and the electric bill, it's best to seek general operating monies. If you need dollars to expand a program or create a new initiative, you may seek project-based funding that aligns with your goals.
Acquiring grant money is often a lengthier process than many new nonprofit workers realize. Even when approved, monies often take weeks to months for disbursement. This means if you have a project slated for spring, applications will often be due the previous fall.
Determine when you need the funds and make a timeline to work on getting grant funding.
Expect for the grant process to take three to six months from the time of application to see a check for funding. Plan accordingly.
While it may seem like a basic concept, it's important to remember that when searching for grant funding, you should search for opportunities that align with your nonprofit’s mission. Also, keep in mind that whether it’s a grantmaking foundation, a government entity, or a corporation, each of these funders will have its own mission and also look for applicants that align with its model and values.
Many nonprofit organizations, particularly if they are struggling financially, get into a mode of “chasing money” rather than seeking out opportunities that truly align with their missions.
If you ever find yourself thinking “Well, we kind of do that” or “We sort of meet the focus areas”, then it’s probably not a good match.
Applications themselves will ask for compelling reasons why you are a good candidate and will challenge you to prove it with impact data.
For example, in the example above, the funder has a clear interest in funding projects related to the environment or education.
If you are wondering who is funding nonprofits like yours, whether it is nonprofits that you currently partner with or even your competitors, you can use Instrumentl’s “Recipient Profiles” to reverse search these nonprofits to complete the following:
If you currently use Instrumentl, we are assuming you have already created your project and have set up your matches. If you have not done this, you can follow steps 1-3 here to set up your matches and tracking in Instrumentl. Then you can complete the steps below to find funders.
Now that you have set up your matches, you can begin reviewing your grants, which are divided into three categories:
You can see all of your matched grants on your main page in Instrumentl, which resembles an email inbox. To begin your reverse search, you will click once into the “Quick Find” box on the left.
Now that you clicked the “Quick Find” box, you can look up the nonprofit that you want to search so you can see what entities gave this nonprofit funding.
You want to make sure you filter your search to only “Recipients” so you don’t also get a list of funders. In our example, we first looked up the “Central Pennsylvania Food Bank.”
Now you can click on the recipient’s profile and scroll down to “Past Awards Received” to see who has given funding to this nonprofit.
Our example shows past awards received from 2017-2023. We clicked on 2022 for the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank and found an impressive 136 potential funders!
Instrumentl will give you the following information in your “Recipient” search:
You will see the above data in all of the respective years that the nonprofit filed their 990 report.
If you want to learn more about a particular funder, click on their name for more information on them.
You can click on any of the links to immediately go into the funder profile to see if there are any active opportunities, along with important information from their 990 insights.
The first thing you want to look for in this section is whether or not the funder has “Active Opportunities” because these are active award opportunities in which the funder is accepting applications.
NOTE: If there isn’t an “Active Opportunities” section, that means this funder doesn’t have any at this point in time.
The “FUNDING OPPORTUNITY” section will give you valuable information about the grant, including:
If you are interested in a funding opportunity, you can save it to your “Tracker” section directly from that reverse search by clicking the red “Save” button.
You can then choose which project you would like to save it to (if you have more than one) and also whether you are “Researching” the grant or you are in a stage of the “Applications” or “Awards” processes.
You can still analyze a funder’s 990 reports even if they don’t have any active award opportunities. In this way, you can review the following information:
If you would like to save this funder, you can bookmark them to your “Tracker” using the purple “+Add New” button.
Just assign this funder an opportunity name, assign it to the respective project, choose the status, and then click the purple “Save” button. That way, this funder will be saved ad hoc to your tracker.
You can repeat these processes by researching different funders listed in the “Recipient” section who have opportunities, and who you would like to save for later.
How To Find Invite-Only Funders For Your Nonprofit
Now we’re going to show you how to find invite-only funders for your nonprofit. These could be smaller family foundations that may be invite-only or foundations that don’t even have a website.
When you’re in Instrumentl, review “Funder Matches,” which are funders who have given to your specific field of work and have a history of giving in your counties. However, they may not have posted a funding opportunity. The main difference between “Funder Opportunity Matches” and “Funder Matches” is:
“Funder Matches” don't have public opportunities with a grant portal open on the Internet, but you can find them using Instrumentl. That way, you can find matches that have given to your field of work in the past or in your counties.
If you click on the Filter area, you will see where Instrumentl allows you to filter “Invite-only” funders.
By using information from the funder’s 990 report, Instrumentl will show you why you have matched with these funders by showing:
These funders are always going to be private foundations or public charities, so they’ll always have 990 insights available.
This is where you can also find the funder’s key people to see if you or your board members have any connections. You can also see if they accept applications.
You can use the search bar to look up a state to filter matches that are only based in your state. For our example, we searched “Pennsylvania” and found that 59 of our 108 Funder Matches were based in our state.
You can save any Funder Matches directly to your “Tracker” by clicking the Save button.
Then, you can choose the appropriate project, and the status of the funding opportunity, write in any notes, and document the funding opportunity deadline.
Because these Funder Matches are not active RFPs, you will want to focus on relationship-building and look into how to build connections with these funders.
Wrapping Up: Finding Funders for Grants
Now that we’ve broken down each step to find funders for your nonprofit, we hope you see how much easier, faster, and more efficient Instrumentl is to use compared to alternatives in grant research. In particular, our database will show invite-only funders that are hidden from other search options.
And, with the 14-day free trial, there is no risk. Try it out and see if Instrumentl is right for your nonprofit. That way, you can use Instrumentl risk-free to identify solid grant prospects by following our step-by-step process.
Once you land a potential funder, find some grant writing tips and best practices by checking out this article: How Many Grants Should I Apply For?
The initial steps involve conducting thorough research to understand your organization’s mission and objectives, and then aligning them with funders who share similar goals. Using grant databases and networking within your field can also help identify suitable funders.
To evaluate a funder’s fit, review their past funded projects, eligibility requirements, and funding priorities. Ensure that your project aligns with their mission and expectations.
Grant databases like Instrumentl, Foundation Directory Online, and GuideStar are valuable tools for finding detailed information about potential funders, including their grant history and funding focus areas.
Networking is crucial as it helps you build relationships with funders and other organizations in your field. Attending grant-related events and connecting through professional associations can increase your chances of finding the right funders.
Your outreach should include a concise introduction of your organization, your project’s goals, and how they align with the funder’s mission. Highlight the impact of your project and express your interest in collaboration.
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