Rachel: Hi, everybody. Thanks for being here. If you missed my first intro, we're just doing a quick introduction in our chat box share about who you are, where you're from, and your organization that you're representing today. I have an intro poll rolling in Zoom. So share a little bit about yourself. I'm curious what your expertise is like with grant writing, what your toolkit looks like currently, and how you're feeling about your prospecting workflow, which is one of our topics for today.
We are going to get started in just about 15 seconds or so. So, share your intro, and we'll get rolling in just a minute.
Hi, Pat. Hi, Lisa. Hi, Riley. Thanks so much for being here. I know everyone's so busy. I really appreciate seeing you all in the room. I'm going to go ahead and end our poll and get us started so that we can wrap up our event on time today.
Thanks again for being with us. My name is Rachel and I'm with Instrumentl. I'm going to share a little bit about what we're going to expect with this program today. This is a free grant workshop in our Instrumentl partner webinar series, in our funding focus kind of emphasis here. Our partner webinars are a collaboration between Instrumentl and our community partners to provide free educational workshops to grant professionals and nonprofit leaders. Our goal in the funding focus series is to deep dive on a funding area or sector that our community could learn from, building in support and key learnings to help grant writers get more funding.
For those of you who are new to Instrumentl, we're the most loved all-in-one grants platform for grant prospecting, tracking, and management. We currently helped more than 3,000 nonprofits and grant consultants save time in finding and applying for more grants.
To start us off, just quickly introducing who's putting on this event today. My name is Rachel and I'm one of the newest team members at Instrumentl. My job is to help develop helpful and educational events like this one to share with our Instrumentl community. I have a decade plus of experience in the informal education field, specifically in museums and cultural centers, and I'm based in Los Angeles, California.
Some quick FYIs to get us started here, our event is going to be about an hour long. And this is a partner-led educational session with a live Q&A that I'll moderate at the end of the event. This workshop is being recorded and the slides will be shared afterwards. So keep an eye out on your inbox for our follow-up email where I'll review everything we touched on today.
Again, I know we're super busy and working hard. So, thanks for spending a little bit of time with us today. Make sure you take care of your personal needs. Bring a snack. I've got my water right next to me here. So stay hydrated and take a bio break as needed during the program. But I want to make sure everyone's back here around quarter till. That's when we'll start the live Q&A, and share how to get our freebies for today and enter our raffle.
To make sure you can follow along with our speakers today, closed captions have been activated in Zoom. So, you can toggle those on in your Zoom settings. I encourage folks to read along as well as listen today.
Our partners have generously offered some fun freebies to those who stick it out to the end of the event with us today. So anyone who submits their feedback form at the end of the program will get a copy of Amanda and Kimberly's Go / No Go Decision Guide Checklist, and an opportunity to join their fundraising HayDay Book Club for free for one month for the month of April. So anyone who's submitting their feedback form will get access to that decision guide checklist. And then the first 30 folks who will be emailing Amanda and Kimberly will get a special opportunity to join their book club for this month. It's an awesome prize. Thanks for sharing that freebie with us today.
Plus, if you're newbie to Instrumentl for folks that haven't had a chance to try out the platform yet and you want to give it a try, you'll be entered into our bonus raffle just for signing up. So if you create a free trial using the link that I'll put in the chat box again, before this time, tomorrow, I'll be pulling a random winner for a $50 Amazon gift card. All you'll need to do is sign up in the link that I've just dropped in the chat. And I'll be able to see who will be eligible for this bonus raffle today.
As a reminder of how you can participate, this is your time to learn. So, I encourage you to jot down things that are sparking for you. There's a lot of great nuggets of wisdom that Amanda and Kimberly will be sharing with you. So, keep track of those and think about how you can get inspired in your grant seeking as we go through this event program today. We'll gather your questions for the closing Q&A as we go through the program. To help me keep them organized in the chat, you can just add those three hashtags at the front of your question when you type it into the chat box. That way I'll just be able to see which ones are relevant for our Q&A at the end.
And as a kind reminder, we're going to stay on mute for the duration of the program just to make sure we're creating the best environment for learning. One last thing before I introduce our special guests, I have made a special Events Resources web page just for this event that will have everything that I drop into the chat box reminders about how to be eligible for the raffle and freebies, and links to our slides and our recording after the event. I'll also be going back through our chat box transcript and copying some of those great little nuggets of wisdom and resources shared by your peers. So after the program, you can go back and look at what your peers were sharing in the chat box. I'll drop that in the chat as well. I encourage you to bookmark this page. I will share it in the follow up email as well. Right now, it just has some placeholders. But after the event today, I'll be going through and adding some of those resources in.
All right. I think that's enough of all the housekeeping stuff, and I want to get to the good things. I'm really excited to introduce Amanda Day and Kimberly Hays de Muga, who will be our special guests for today. They actually have a lovely intro that they're going to share with you about who they are and what they do. So, I'm just going to hand it right on over to them. Thanks for being here.
Kimberly: Thanks. Hey, everybody. I was just being really busy and distracted in the chat seeing where everyone was from. Amazing, amazing, including, I believe one person coming in from Hawaii. So, welcome. I have no idea what time it is there. But I'm so glad that you could join us. That's amazing.
Here's a picture of what we look like standing up. So, there we are. I'm Kimberly and Amanda is my business partner. We co-own HayDay Services, where we do speaking, coaching, and training all around grants and fundraising, sustainability, things that help your organization get more money to do more good things. We are also the co-creators and co-host of Fundraising HayDay. And together, we have more than 50 years of experience raising money and talking to people about raising money and grants and fundraising. And we started as children, because every time I see 50 plus years combined, I'm like, it's true. I am the world's oldest living Gen X-er. But it just seems like a lot. But it's a lot of good experience. We're also both grant professional certified, which means we set for an exam and have a credential that we renew every year to keep us fresh and current.
And in the interest of time, I think it's time to go in and jump into our program. So, what we're talking about is sort of breaking that pattern of analysis paralysis when it comes to getting grants. And I want to start out by saying, I don't really believe in The Hunger Games sort of model of grants in which we almost fight to the death for very few dollars. Exciting fiction and exciting movies, not really a good model for day-to-day living.
So, I just wanted to point out that grant funding is out there. It's a matter of finding the right fit. And it's also a matter of looking at other sources of income outside of grant funding. But today, we really want to focus on grant funding. So Giving USA, they do an annual. They release it in June of every year. Their most recent available data grant found -- I'm sorry, foundation giving in 2022, over 105 billion with a B. So lots of money, lots of money changing hands.
Amanda found this great little data point. I'll jump down to the federal discretionary resources. So, that means federal grants that are not passed through, right? They're not formula. They're grants that an organization if eligible could apply directly to that agency. 1.7 trillion with a T. Lots of money out there. Also, corporate giving coming on in at 29.5 billion with a B.
There is money out there for certain parts of organizations. And we're going to talk about as we get further on into this presentation. It's not just sort of a free for all. I don't think that sending out a single grant request to every single government agency is going to get you what you want. We want to maybe help you help the communities that you're serving by sort of really getting strategic about how you're out there looking for grants and helping people who may be pressuring you out there looking for grants. And so as the next slide will show, this is what it can sometimes feel like when you're searching for grant funding, right? Like, “Oh, shiny! Oh, shiny over here.” Or it could be maybe you as an employee or perhaps as a consultant are getting inbox messages forwarded from well-meaning people who may or may not know how grants work. More like, “Hey.” I live in Atlanta. So it's like, “Hey, do you know Tyler Perry has a lot of money?” Or, “Hey, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, that's a big and old foundation. I think you should go for them.” It's easy to get pulled in different kinds of directions. And let -- you're sort of building in a grant strategy.
Another thing that can happen if you don't build in a grant strategy is, this poor young woman who's being besieged. I tell you besieged by people coming in going, “Hey, I need this. I need that.” If you've ever been the only grant professional in your organization, this will happen because people are like, “Oh, well, we need extra snacks for our after school program. So can you find me money for that?” Or, “Yeah, we really need to replace. We need more transportation vehicles. I need you to hop on that.” So, it can feel like you have everybody coming in wanting everything.
And it's good to have healthy snacks for kids, right? And it's good to have safe vehicles. But without an overall strategy, it's going to feel like you're just being overwhelmed and up in a swirl. And it's going to really get in the way of finding those good fit grants to get you the money to do those good things. So, I'd like to start -- yep, Kathy. Yeah. If you're feeling that, you just say “I'm feeling that” in the chat, and we're here for you. Because I know that there's probably nothing that we're going to talk about today that you haven't maybe experienced in some way when it comes to that kind of that heavy lift that can happen if you don't have a strategy. So, yep, lots of feeling, feeling feelings. Maybe our theme song should have been Feeling, that old, old song from the 70s. But I digress.
What we would like to propose is for you to think about -- I used to preface this by saying an ideal world. No, let's just start with what makes really good sense, right? It doesn't need to be an ideal perfect world because that world doesn't exist. But how about starting first with what your agency really needs. And that may be starting at the board level. I really hope it's starting with the true needs of the community that you serve, which involves asking people what it is they have and what it is they need to make the transformations they're seeking for themselves, for the land they're living on for their children, for whoever it is they serve. And also making sure that if you really understand how grants work, fantastic, let's share that knowledge. And help folks understand that grants aren't an emergency, we're in debt, we can't make payroll kind of revenue.
It's true that they’re disaster grants. We saw grant funding, emergency funding. Gosh, now, almost three years ago, for COVID and other natural disasters. Absolutely, that's there. The majority of grant funding is really not related to those kinds of emergencies. So understanding that grants are there to add to, to augment, to grow, to expand, to buy equipment, to create new projects, or replicate projects. That's kind of how grants work. There's a fixed criteria that you agree to, right, in terms of the change you want to see, that's measured by measuring outcomes against objectives, right? And then you're reporting on the work that you've done.
Again, if you're in an emergency situation, keeping the lights on, feeding those kids, getting those meals out to older adults. And if you don't get money right away, dog, there's going to be a problem. Grants may not be the approach. But if you're able to recognize what pieces of your programming would fit grant criteria and then sharing how that works, like you actually have to use the money the way you said you were going to do, and all those good things. That's the way to really start that educational process to build that kind of grant strategy.
So once you've gotten these things, you understand your priorities, right? You've looked at the needs and assets of the community you serve. You understand how grants work. You've got your funding priorities, and then look for grants. That is my take home message. Then there will be -- then it's a great way to use Instrumentl to search for grants to see what's out there. And I know at the end, I want to just in the interest of time, move on through. But I know at the end, there's going to be a quick video about using Instrumentl in keeping with a lot of the strategies that we're going to talk about today. So, let's see. Amanda, I think it's your turn.
Amanda: Yeah. One of the things we want to warn you about though is after you figured out all those things Kimberly talked about is beware of confusing eligibility for competitiveness. And this was a phrase I wish I had known way back when I started writing grants. Because I don't know how many times someone would throw a grant at me and be like, “Hey, we need to apply for this. We're eligible.” And it's like, “Yes, we're eligible, but so are thousands of others that maybe are more competitive because they hit all the priority points, or they are much better match to the types of agencies that that foundation normally awards funds to.”
So just because you're eligible doesn't mean you're going to be an actual competitor when it comes to, yes, you have a good chance of getting the award. And that's what we're here for today is to figure out like, we may be eligible for all of these, but which are the ones that, really, we have the best shot at doing. Because I don't want to spend my time writing grants that we're never going to get even though we're eligible.
So what we'd like to do, since it is March and basketball season is upon us and madness is about to be happening soon, we're going to have our own grants version of March Madness. So, you all be ready to participate in some polls. How it's going to work is we're going to give you a quick description of a nonprofit agency and what it is they're trying to fund. Because what Kimberly say we need to know what our priorities were and how grants work and all that good stuff. So we're going to look at a nonprofit. And then we're going to compare a couple of different funders and decide based on the type of organization we are and the need that we have, what would be the best grant for us to apply for. Okay? So, we're going to get you all involved in that. So, that's how it's going to work.
So, let's first look at our nonprofit. Okay? So we've created -- this isn't one we work with, we just came up with. This is a nonprofit that probably does exist, the House of Hope to End Domestic Violence. So their annual budget is $400,000. So, that's how much money they have to operate. They are looking for grant funding to help support a program that's going to cost $185,000 over the course of the year. And they're going to do things like job counseling and training, help support application and interview processes, resources for clothing and transportation, maybe even some childcare assistance. This program was served about 50 to 75 people and you can read there the breakdown of the makeup of the population they'd be serving and specifically to implement all of that stuff. They're going to need grant funding to help purchase -- they're going to have to set up a computer room. They're going to need some hardware and some software and some charging stations and some furnishings and storage and some trainers to teach folks how to use technology and things like that. So, that gives you an idea of what it is we're looking for. Okay?
So now what we're going to do is we're going to look at two different funders. And then you're all going to have the opportunity to vote between these two funders, which do you think is the best fit, the most competitive based on this organization and what little you know about them. Okay?
So first up, we have a US Department of Justice grant opportunity here. They're going to provide training and technical assistance on building effective partnerships with faith-based leaders, including a focus on understanding domestic violence. Your primary focus has to be on addressing domestic violence and sexual assault. And that requires a two to one match. So for every $2 they give you, you have to put in $1. And it's for agencies with budgets under $5 million, and they're awarding $300,000 that you have two years to spend. Okay. So, that's one potential funder.
The second one is a community foundation in your city. They do economic and workforce development grant programs. They award between 50 and $75,000 to support job training programs and underserved populations. Okay?
So, these are your two options. We are going to do a quick poll. So, your vote. Of the two, which do you think is the best fit for this nonprofit?
Rachel: The poll should be showing up automatically on your screen. You'll be able to select between the two and then I'll share the results in about 20 seconds or so. Give folks a moment.
Kimberly: I love watching these polls. It just doesn't get old. I just love it. And special thanks to Rachel for setting this up. We wanted to -- Amanda and I do not believe that learning needs to be boring if -- even though we're talking about serious topics, we don't have to be super dry in how we establish things.
Rachel: I love that. I love turning learning into a game. I think I've got just about everybody responded. Make sure you've answered the poll. Give folks about three more seconds.
All righty. I'm going to end the poll and share the results. Can our host see those coming up for them? It looks like -- do you see that?
Amanda: I can’t see it.
Rachel: Yeah.
Amanda: So, Kimberly, I'm going to need you to -- I don't see it. I think it's because I'm sharing my screen. It won’t let me --
Rachel: Oh, yeah.
Kimberly: I'm happy to report on those poll results, Amanda Day. The winner in this semifinal round of March Madness with no basketball involved is Community Foundation in your City. And they came in at with 76% of the vote, 125 folks voted. Thanks for getting out the vote for us.
Amanda: Okay. We're going to have a quick round two then because March Madness involves brackets. So we need them whittle it down to the final winner. So, semi-final round two, we have the We Care Family Foundation. They support human services in the House of Hope’s county. They award about $1,500 to $5,000. They really don't give you any instructions other than send us a letter and some of those basic attachments, like your 501(c)(3) letter and things like that. So, that's the We Care Family Foundation.
Option number two is the Big Box Store Foundation. They award $500,000 to one nonprofit in each state where the Big Box has a significant presence. There's 12 of them across the country. So the first round, you submit an application and you have to create a video and seek out votes through social media for people to vote for your video and say, “Yes, we think this is the winning organization.” And the most votes, you get the opportunity to submit round two of the full-blown application. So, we're going to go with poll two. So we got the small community foundation and then we got the Big Box Corporate Foundation.
Rachel: All right. That poll is launching. Folks should see that pop up in just a sec. We've got which grant in this round is better, as a better fit, The We Care Family Foundation or that Big Box Store Foundation Community Foundation?
Kimberly: And these, of course, are pivot names, if you will, for the different funders. In the first round of the semifinal, that was the government grant was an actual name of an actual grant. But everything else, we're keeping on the QT. This is a hypothetical --
Amanda: Symbolic.
Rachel: Yeah.
Kimberly: Yeah, but representing the real world. Okay, let's see. A hundred and -- and, oh, we have more answering this time. Wait.
Rachel: Yeah, we've got a few more. I'm going to give folks about three more seconds if you haven't answered the poll. And I'll share those results. Kim, really, you can reveal our --
Kimberly: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rachel: Poll.
Kimberly: And then, of course, there's a --
Rachel: All right.
Kimberly: …there’s a final round. So keep those voting fingers tapping because we got one more round, because this is how you play. Not that I know a whole lot about college basketball. But Amanda is your source for sports information.
Amanda: If you’re like me some sports.
Kimberly: Let's see. It looks like we're -- it looks like the poll was completed with 136 voting this time. So I'm hoping that we're all on the up and up in how we're voting, right? I'm kidding. It looks like the 82% of the 136 people voting chose the We Care Family Foundation over the Big Box Store Foundation Community Foundation.
Amanda: I'm just curious in the chat, how many of you have ever participated in one of those garner the votes for a corporate foundation?
Kimberly: It could be another type of foundation.
Amanda: This is true.
Kimberly: Just that we participate in one of those. Just put yes in the chat if you've ever done that, if you've ever done like the getting followers on social media. We're just curious because it is a thing. So while people are thinking about that, I think it's time to move on to almost at Final Jeopardy, which is another game we play for another thing that we teach. But final round. So, we're asking people to choose. You can only choose one. There can only be one. And so we're asking people to choose between the winner of the first round, which was the Community Foundation. Yeah? And the winner of the round that we just voted on, which was We Care.
And, Rachel, can we -- oh, she's already got it.
Rachel: I did it.
Kimberly: She’s that good.
Amanda: Awesome.
Kimberly: Pop in. What are your votes? And I think Alex was like, “Oh, this is too easy.” Alex, it’s just a game. It's okay. It's okay. We feel you. All will be revealed. It's just a simple learning game. But we're watching. This is very exciting.
Amanda: I'm liking all the colorful comments in the chat. Some people just said yes, but some added some color commentary. I feel you because I do have one time in my life done that and never again.
Kimberly: Oh, I have so many thoughts and feelings about that. But we are not here to -- I think we are. We actually are here to hear a little bit about my thoughts and feelings. But, yeah. So, it looks like we've got 132 in the final round 100% answered. And the winner is Community Foundation in Your City.
And so, I would like to officially go on record as part of HayDay Services and say that I approve this message. And that that is what we would have chosen. We're looking -- when you think back to sort of the criteria, we were looking for best fit. This was another huge agency that had some specific needs. So in the first round, it was more -- that government grant sure did look mighty appealing, right? But it was almost their entire budget, and there was a match for that. So you talk about putting all your eggs in one basket. If you have to have a match, you have to commit. So if you were going for $300,000 grant, you would have to commit almost your entire operating budget to only be spent on that one grant. So, that's just one example of, “Oh, grants work in that way.” That is not going to be the best fit.
On the other side of the issue, the smaller Family Foundation was giving smaller grants. So I'm not saying never write for smaller grants. When I worked for the food bank, we did a lot of that. But my primary focus was let's get grants that are going to be the bigger bang for your buck. Right? If I have to raise $300,000 in grants for a program, I'd sure rather write six-figure grants and get that thing done than have to write 30 grants. So, I'm hoping -- and I feel like this was a good test of where people are.
Barbara has a question here that I'll just -- I'm going to answer on the fly. Is there a ratio between the organization's budget size and sensible competitive grants to pursue? So I'm going to -- first of all, great question. Second of all, you often get asked that in the actual grant application. So I'm just going to do simple low level math because that's just where I am today. So let's just say that your budget was $100,000. Okay? Just because it's easier for me. I get it. I get it that that's a super low budget, but just walk down this road. If your budget is $100,000 and you're filling out a grant, let's say it's the Bank of America, right? Maybe it’s workforce development. Chances are they're going to ask you, what is the percentage of your total budget that this grant represents? And if you are asking for $50,000 and your total budget is $100,000, that's going to look like a hard lift for your organization.
In other words, you're asking this one funder to, in this light, in this scenario, to come in and give you money that represents a quarter of your budget. And again, let's move back very quickly to the idea that most grant funds, not all, but most are there for specific programs and projects and not for emergency funding. Or unfortunately, not usually for general operating funding. They do exist. They are out there, but they're far and few between.
Amanda, is there anything that you would like to share anything we need to hold up in the chat about this and about people's responses?
Amanda: No. Well, I would just say too, a lot of people in the second one, even though they went for the smaller foundation grant knowing, “Okay, we have to write a lot of these,” but you do have to weigh the time and effort, right? Because if you're writing, if they're a small foundation and someone had put in the chat, if they're local, they possibly know your organization may be more likely to fund you. If you've got that relationship built, you may have a much better shot of being able to get several of those versus that Big Box retailer. Even though it's a lot of money, the amount of time and effort to go through to get it is most likely going to be more than even you writing 10 small family foundation grants.
And so in some of these things, you don't know until you've done them. There's been plenty. After I've done them, I'm like, “Oh, that wasn't worth it.” I didn't think about doing this early in my career. It wasn't until a boss suggested it because he's like, “You're salaried. We don't have to know what hours you work on what grant.” But he goes, “Sometimes it may be wise for you to kind of keep a track of your time to understand how much time and effort you're putting in this grant.” But once we get it, managing it, and then figuring out like, “Hey, that grant was only for $10,000. But it took you 30 hours to write it. And then every quarter, you were spending 20 hours managing it. Let's do the math. That really wasn't worth it.
So, these are some things sometimes that you don't know until you know, or somebody on a session like this tells you like, “Hey, these may not be worth even though it's a lot of -- the big dollar.” So, it can be easy to chase the dollars. But that's not what we're trying to get you to do today. So I did a good job selecting our poll. So, nicely done.
Kimberly: Nicely done. You should feel good about your choice.
Amanda: Yeah.
Kimberly: So to take it away from the game, although that game was fun, if you are in a situation where you're like, “Okay, I have -- I did a search on Instrumentl and I used their fields to narrow down my search. And this is great. And now I have a list of 30, 50, 12,” then I -- sometimes what I see is a lot of organizations go, “Okay. Well, this is clearly what we're sending out. I'll use the 30. We've got 30 grants, so we're sending 30 grant opportunities. And we're sending out 30 grants this year.” So gone, right?
A guy would say no, I would say that that's a great strong research supported place to begin. And then it's going to really help you sort of breakthrough that analysis, paralysis of, “Oh, we're just going to write 30 grants.” I don't know if you've written 30 grants ever before in a year. And depending on the size of the grant, that could be a huge undertaking. So, the option is not all or nothing. The real option is what are the best fits. And we want to take you through a series of questions to help you get there so that when you do have your list of really good, strong for you strong fits for your grants, that you're ready to roll. And it's also going to help you when you're getting those super well-meaning, often annoying, emails into your inbox about, “Hey, I just saw this grant. Hey, there's a federal grant that's due next week. Maybe we should look into it.” Maybe. Probably not. It depends.
But having a system to go through -- and so people feel listened to for sending you these things. But you have a sort of a list of questions that can help you narrow down what works and what doesn't work and why. And then you'll have something that you can use repeatedly. And you'll have records of things so that when people do go, “Hey, Bill and Melinda Gates,” and you'd be like, “Hey, we looked at that last year, and they still haven't changed their focus areas. And we're still not a really competitive fit. Here's why.” Or, “Hey, thanks for telling me about the brand new ABC Family Foundation. Yeah, that is a really good fit based on my analysis.” So you are, again, you are the expert, right? Even if you may not feel like it right now, you're the subject matter expert, or you're going to be, in grants. And so, that's one way of sort of codifying it, right? Documenting it and making it work for you.
So, I'm going to get us started. We sort of positioned these questions in buckets, if you will, of priorities. And it's also a sneak peek into the way my mind works when I am looking at a grant opportunity, which if you know me, might be a little scary to think you're going to be in my head. But you're really not. It's going to be fine. So why don't we get started with the very next slide? So the first bucket of questions, and these are by priority that I would suggest. And I know that Amanda also follows this as well is, is the deadline feasible given the status of the program? Let me take you back to that email. Yeah, Dimitri, you're here to see through my eyes. I don't know. I don't know. But you all are spicy in the chat. I'm here for it.
So is the deadline feasible given the status of the program? And a good way to think about status is, “Hey, do we actually have a program? Is there a budget? Have we had outcomes? Do we have that information ready?” If the deadline is in one week and it's all about collaborating with a local school district and you've never had the first meeting with that school district, that is an example of a program status that is not feasible given the deadline. Although, as Amanda alluded to earlier, do you have enough time to do a really good job on the grant? And when I first started, it was like some weird badge of honor to go, “I stayed up all night to get that grant done.” As the world's oldest living genexer, I am. That is no longer an option for me. It probably never should have been an option. But do we reasonably have the time to put together a competitive grant? The more complex the grant, a larger foundation, United Way, state or federal funding, the larger that grant, the more time you need to prepare.
And you're going to know that because you're eyeballing this RFP, or NOFO, or OPHA, or whatever alphabet soup. Different agencies give to the name of the instruction guide for grants. Right? You're looking through the grant. And these questions are coming up top of mind. Also around deadlines is, do you have enough time to put together all that extra documentation that they're requiring? This is not the webinar where I'm talking about my thoughts and feelings on, is that information really necessary? But do you have enough time to gather every little shred of thing that they're asking you to gather? And I'm saying that because, again, if they're requiring signed memorandums of understanding MOUs, or sometimes they're called memorandums of agreement between you and a collaborating partner, then if you have to get this done in a week or a month, and you've never even had the first meeting, that may not be enough time because people gotta look at stuff. Maybe there's a lawyer involved, certainly there's going to be senior leadership involved looking at this kind of stuff. That's not enough time if it's a brand new program or just an idea of a program in your head. It's probably not enough time.
If you're writing state grants, I know that Amanda said that she -- Amanda, you used to have to get grants approved by your council. Right?
Amanda: Yeah, it has to come from our city council. Yeah. So, that was part of my lineup of figuring not only can I get the grant done, but can I figure out how we're going to use it and what our budget is going to look like and what our match needs to be in time to submit an Agenda Report 10 days before the next council meeting? And is that happening before the grant is due? And that planning became my best friend. Yeah.
Kimberly: So in the interest of time, Amanda, I'm going to ask that we move ahead to money. And I know you're keeping it lively in the chat. I won't have time to respond, but I'm digging all the action in the chat.
But in the interest of time, the next big -- so we got deadlines and our questions around deadlines, right? Then we got money. And we just played that brackety game about money. So, I feel like this should not be an alien topic for you, especially the first item under money, the grant award amount or range. Again, if you've got a big old program and the most that you can get from this funder is $2,000 or $1,500 and you're the only person writing grants. I would go for a larger amount from another good fit, right?
On the flip side, if it's a huge amount of money, and you're a smaller agency, there may be a scope issue, right? Also, if you remember from the first round of our game, the match required. Most government funding does require match, right? And sometimes it's one to one. Sometimes it's a combination of cash and volunteer time. It depends on the grant. But do you have the operating capital or operating funds, excuse me, for that match? Is that the multiyear grant award? If it's a good fit and it's a multiyear, that kind of puts it up higher for me because then the burden is going to be on grant management true, but you're not having to spin those wheels and reapply year after year.
And a final question to consider in this is how is this grant awarded? For most private funding, your corporate and family foundation, it's usually sort of, “Here, we're transferring the funds or we're sending you a check for the entire amount, or maybe half the amount and then it's multiyear at the end of year while we’ll send you the other half.” Sounds good, right? But if you're going for maybe a larger grant from state or federal, or I would say mainly government funding is mainly all on reimbursement, then you're going to have to run the program first, pay the expenses of the program and then get reimbursed.
And spoiler alert, sometimes the money doesn't come right on time like it should. So, it's an important consideration. Can you handle a grant that is reimbursement or should you just look for -- and not just, should you look for advanced payment? And there is no shame in that at all. It's just an important consideration that you can knock right out of the way.
And my final round of questions for this would be, as Amanda brought up, eligibility versus competitiveness. Are you just making the bare minimum? Can you apply simply because you're a nonprofit, and the geographic area this foundation serves? Or are you closely meeting all their focus areas? And, again, are there -- you can't always tell with private funders. But thanks to Instrumentl, you can look at 990s and pull that information and see. They may not talk about it, but you can see through Instrumentl in their 990 search, the grant awards. If it's a foundation that gives a million dollars a year. And 990,000 of that is to a particular college and then the other one is to the local animal shelter, that may not be the right -- that may or may not be enough of the money going out enough of those grant awards to make it worth your while.
And people are saying, “I wish my board could see this.” I think they could see this. I bet that when Rachel tells you where to find all that information in this -- and you could roll this and buy them perhaps pizza or some chocolate and have them listen. Amanda, right?
Amanda: I think lunch and learn is a brilliant idea. Yeah.
Kimberly: So in the interest of time, we're just going to keep it rolling.
Amanda: Yeah. So, I'm going to talk about the grant management side of things, which your grant management mileage is going to differ. You may have -- I remember the very first time I did a target grant, just a small like local target grant. And literally, I wrote the grant a week later, the cheque appeared with no award agreement. And when I called and asked them like, “Where do I send the things?” and the guy was like, “What things?” and I'm like, “Like a final report.” And I have like, I'll have pictures and I've got documentation and numbers. And he was like, “Yeah. No, thank you. Just have a good event and let us know next time.” And I was like, “Wow, I really liked this because you've got that.” And then you all have all the way up to these federal grants where you have monthly narrative reports, you have financial reports, you may have the thing called the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, several sub award reporting system that you have to report in. Then you could have Davis-Bacon Wage Act to follow. There's so much work when it comes to federal grants.
And so, the thing to understand before you even apply is what are we getting ourselves into? Because if you are a smaller nonprofit who maybe has never dealt with a federal grant before and you think, “Hey, this is great. We can get a million dollars in one shot.” But you don't understand all the time and effort it's going to take of your grant professional, of your finance team, of your program people. You may suddenly be biting off more than you can chew. And so, it's one of those things that you have to weigh the odds.
And there really is no magic number of, “Oh, if it's this much money, then it's worth it.” Because it depends on the size of your organization. It depends on your capacity. It depends on your program and how complicated it is, right? So, it's something only you can answer. But you need to think about that as you're applying for things is what is it going to mean on the back end? Because getting the money is not, “Oops, we’re down. We got the money.” It is just the beginning of what you've got to do. Because you've got to do all the things you promised within that grant and you've got to track that information, and you've got to share that information with your funder and how much you're sharing. Again, depends funder by funder.
So as much as possible, understanding what those requirements are to make sure that you're able to follow through. Because what you don't want to do is get the grant, not be able to manage it and then lose the grant. Because two or three years from now, when you really need some more money from that funder, they're going to be like, “Yeah, we tried that once and you didn't do so well.” So, you don't want that black mark on your name.
So you want to make sure that you're paying attention, and you are following and doing the things that you're supposed to do. So you want them, your funders to love you and be like, “Oh my gosh, you were a dream. You managed it so well. So, yes, we want to give you more money again next year.”
So ultimately, what we've been talking about here today is that it's not about writing all of the grants. It's not like, “Hey, I'm the grant manager and I wrote 80 grants this year.” It's about finding the right grants for your agency and putting your focus there so you're likely to be more successful. Because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how many grants you wrote. It's are you able to fund the programs and fund the mission of your organization. That is what matters. So, you want to make sure that you do that.
So, we're going to turn it over to Rachel because she's got a great way to show you how to use Instrumentl to do just these things we talked about.
Rachel: Thank you both so much. I had so many little gems of wisdom that I was keeping track of in the chat and from what you were sharing. So, thank you.
This will be super quick. I am going to show you basically about 60 seconds how we do some of this evaluation. Alex had a question in the chat about kind of narrowing down your perspective, opportunities, and funders. And I'll show you how I do that in Instrumentl.
If you want to click to the next slide, Amanda, and then just kind of roll the tape. I think if you click the screen again, it should bring up that video. Awesome. And then see if you click and it'll start playing. I have a little screen share of what I do in Instrumentl.
Amanda: Is it over here?
Rachel: Let’s see.
Amanda: You know what's going on? Hang on, let me stop share, because it opened up in my other screen. So, give me one second.
Rachel: Oh, that's okay. Do you want me to pop it up? I actually have it right here.
Amanda: Why don't you go ahead and do that? That will make it easier.
Rachel: Yeah, that might be easier. Okay. Hold on one sec, folks. So, yeah, one -- a couple questions that came up for people was just kind of this, how are you evaluating? And one thing that we do an Instrumentl -- can everyone see that now?
Amanda: Yes.
Rachel: Yeah. Awesome. Okay.
So this is an example of a tracker in Instrumentl. Right here, I've got -- this is for a history museum that I made up in my local neighborhood. And so, I was looking for a lot of arts and culture grants specifically. I have saved them in my tracker. Up here I have 15 opportunities that I've saved. And I have over 100 matches that Instrumentl has used its algorithm to essentially source all of the funding opportunities that could be relevant for my organization.
What I'm going to do is start looking at an opportunity and evaluating, “Should I actually be applying for this grant?” On the first page here for this DEW Foundation grant, I can look at eligibility, things like fields of work that they've funded in the past, when they think the LOI and the full proposal will be due. For this example, this is a predicted deadline. So Instrumentl has taken historic data on this opportunity and given me an idea when they think the deadline will be due. It will be updated once the foundation releases that information right here in my tracker. And then I can go over to the funder 990 report.
This is some of the information that Kimberly was sharing, where you can look at things like -- and actually I’ll back up in a sec so you can see here. Key people. I've got the directors, folks on the board that maybe I have a mutual connection with, or someone on my board has a connection with. I can take a look at key financial stats, like they're giving over the years, the giving average and median, the number of grants that they've given, and their assets.
So this might give me a good idea of when I should be going for something. This is also one that I highlight a lot too is how much money are they actually giving. You might be looking for opportunities that are not in the $2,000 range. Maybe they actually are like, oh, this is a great opportunity for a program to be funded if it's giving about $20,000 on average, right? So, that can give you a good sense of how much they are giving and the average grant sizes year over year here.
You can also take a look at past grantees. For example, I'm based in California. I noticed they've been funding a lot of folks in California. That's great news for me. It might be a little bit more of a stretch if I'm in something like Louisiana, right? Where they haven't had any funding history in the past. So, you can take a look at those. You can actually dive deep on all of the organizations that have been funded by this funder.
And then this is probably the most important stat here. I was taking a look at this one and I said, “Oh gosh, their Openness to New Grantees,” which is a stat that we haven't been Instrumentl. It says in the most recent three years of data, 5% of awards have gone to new grantees. I'm curious in the chat, who thinks that this opportunity is one that I should go for given that information if I've never been funded by this foundation before?
Kimberly: Should we hone the Jeopardy theme song?
Rachel: No. Yeah, huge pass. Right? I read through this whole thing. I was like, “Wow! Great. This actually looks awesome.” And then I went, “Hang on. No way. I would never spend time on this,” unless I felt like I had some other like a Hail Mary situation where there was someone that was guaranteeing like, “You know, you should really go for this. I have a connection,” blah, blah, blah. This is a very competitive opportunity.
And I would say anything under -- what do we say? 30, 20%? Pretty darn competitive for new funders. I think it depends on the funder. But Amanda and Kimberly might have an idea of kind of that metric there.
Amanda: Well, I like that. But this might be one of those, like I kind of usually keep the like, yes, these are perfect. We're definitely going for them. Then these are the “Maybe” and then the “Absolutely not.” So this might be one I put in the maybe that's like, okay, if I have time to do all the other better fits and still have time.
Rachel: Yeah.
Amanda: Then I might start diving in because I'm like, “Well, we're never going to be a funder if we don't have a try.” But I just I don't want this to be my focus though.
Rachel: Yeah, that's a great point. So when you're kind of ranking your priorities, right?
Amanda: Yeah.
Rachel: And using that list of questions that Kimberly was sharing. This might not fall into the high priority list. But if you match every other aspect of the program, maybe it is a good match.
So I decided to pass on that one for this example. But you can see how Instrumentl easily curates that information for you. So in one pass, you can look and say, “This is maybe some worth my time.” Or, “Actually, I'm going to decide not to opt for that today.” And if you want, you can actually check that out for yourself. If you haven't used Instrumentl before, you can use the link that I'll actually drop in the chat in just a sec.
Thanks, Alex, I appreciate that.
I think it's just a good way to breeze through. And in about 60 seconds, you can see if a funder opportunity is worth your while. So, I'll drop that link in the chat. Let me get my links up for you here. And then I'm going to transition us into the Q&A because we had some really great questions from folks, and I want to make sure we have time for those before we wrap.
Here's that link there. Okay. Cool. And actually, I might stop my screen share so we can just have the three of us chatting.
Kimberly: Perfect.
Rachel: And roll into some of these. Awesome. Okay.
So the first question I wanted to start with. Jasmine was curious, how do you align research with specific programs when an organization wants grants for all and every program? So kind of how are you balancing priorities there when you maybe got grants for every program? But you're trying to maybe narrow down your research with specific programs?
Kimberly: Amanda, can you -- I’m happy to start.
Amanda: Go for it.
Kimberly: All right. So, I think it's a matter of -- yeah, I mean, that's true. They're probably everyone wants grant funding and grants will all we need of grants and grants are great. I think it's a matter then of looking at which pieces of those programs are best suited for grants. And I want to take it back to the top of the hour when we were talking about things that are being -- programs that are being augmented, programs that are expanding, programs that need new equipment, or new training are going to be more grant friendly. Then if your overwhelming need is, we have got to have an office manager. We have got to have an accountant. We've got to have a bookkeeping service. These are essential services.
And I'm not denigrating that need. That is not what I'm saying. I'm saying grants may not be the solution for that need. So I think it's a matter of educating up and saying, “Here's how grants mostly work.” There could be funding for capacity building that might allow us to do things, like getting more sophisticated payroll system or something like that. And I'm not -- they're out there, but they're more that are out there around program and project funding.
So, I would say that's a good place to start is looking at the needs within each program. And it is 100% not good enough if I was an employee. It's 1% good enough to come off and go, “We need you to fund this program.” I'd be like, “Let's all take a breath and let's talk about what specifically and how much does it cost.” And all these other things I used to joke about like being a grant writer or development director, I was up in everybody's business, right? Because it was my job, because I needed to understand that.
But more seriously, helping people understand what grants won't fund is often the way to determine what is the best fit. So, that's my take on that.
Rachel: Thanks, Kimberly. We probably have time for two more. So, I'm going to jump into another one here. Denise was asking, is there an optimal approach when applying to a brand new foundation? As in should we request funding for general operating or more specific programming?
Amanda: I think the answer is -- I mean, it depends because it depends what that funder wants, right? If they only fund general operating, obviously, you're doing that. They're only funding program. You're only doing that. If it's either way, then it's kind of your choice. I think more so than what you're asking for is just making sure that you are really giving them a good description of your organization's mission, the people you're serving, the needs of the community that you're focused on. I think ultimately, that's more important than what you're asking for the money for if they fund programming in general operating.
But, Kimberly, you feel differently on that?
Kimberly: Yeah, I'm always on team general operating, if it makes sense. But I would be so answering everything in the order that they asked it in a clear and compelling way, and doing all those things. I mean, I would say -- I mean because that's the hardest money to find and it's what's most needed. But it's not a whole path to go, “We are great. We help and do many good things. Please give us money.” You still got to go in and ask for that. As a super quick example, when I worked at the food bank, if it was a program grant, well, our program was increasing access to food in this community all across North Georgia, or whatever.
It also happened to be our core operating mission. And I'm not saying, “Oh, look at me. Playing hard and fast.” But it was like, “That really was our program.” And so within increasing food, then there were many different aspects, how do you do it, what kind of food, all those types of things.
So, there are different ways to cut it. If you have an opportunity for general operating, I'm going to lean toward that. But you still have to back it up with the hard facts about what you're doing in the community.
Rachel: Thank you both. You're such you're such a wealth of knowledge. And also --
Amanda: We’ve been doing it a long time.
Rachel: And you also make it fun, which I think is an important part of supporting the grant seeking community at large. So thank you, Kimberly and Amanda. This is so much fun. I really enjoyed having you both here.
Amanda: Well, thanks for having us.
Rachel: I'm going to wrap us up because we're just about at the hour, and I want to make sure folks can get on with their busy days. I did drop the feedback link in the chat. This is how you can access those freebies that we'll be sending out probably by tomorrow afternoon. You can also scan the QR code if you'd like. But I did drop that right on in the chat for you. I'll drop it again in case you missed it. They'll take about two or three minutes to fill out. And I really do read every response. So, I appreciate everybody sharing their thoughts with us.
If you submit your feedback form, you will be getting these freebies from our partners the Go / No Go Decision Guide Checklist, and an opportunity to join the April book club. The first 32 email folks at hello@haydayservices will get free access to that. And I can add that to our resource pages file so you remember how to gain access to that.
And for --
Amanda: …book club, I'm just saying. It's not a book club about grants. It's just a fun book club if you'd like to read.
Kimberly: Yeah.
Rachel: I love that.
Kimberly: And someone is asking for the QR code again, Rachel. Maybe you want to go back and share that?
Rachel: Absolutely. Yeah. And the QR code goes to the same link that I've dropped in the chat here. So, I'll drop that again. You can just click right through there. Or if you're on your phone, you can use the QR code. I'll also send that in our recap email, and you can click right through there.
Awesome. Susan, I'm so glad to hear that.
Last thing before I let you all go. We have some fun events coming up. I'm super excited to bring in Geng Wang from Civic Champs who will be talking about how to use your volunteer metrics in grant seeking. He's a really awesome presenter, and I think we'll get a good turnout there. So, I encourage you to sign up.
We also have our spring virtual summit coming up in April. We'll be announcing some really fun product updates, and also bringing in some special guests for highlights on some of our grant seeking challenges and wins. So, please join us for those. I encourage you to sign up while you're thinking about it. So, do it right now. Make sure you don't miss your chance to join these events.
And I think I'll close with a thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thanks for spending time with us. I really appreciate being with everybody today. Thanks, everybody.
Kimberly: Thanks.
Rachel: Thanks, Mary. Thanks, Dimitri. I look forward to seeing your feedback. I’ll go ahead and close this event. Thanks, everybody.
Kimberly: Thanks again. Bye.
Rachel: Bye. Bye, everyone.
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