Rachel: Welcome to our event this morning or afternoon. Double Your Grants: 7 Funder Engagement Secrets For Funding Success. I definitely see some familiar names and faces in the Zoom room. Thank you. I love seeing all these folks saying hi in the chat. For any of our first-timers, this free grant workshop is one of Instrumentl’s educational webinars in our Grantseeker Growth Course, which is a new program I've designed to share with all of you.
Y'all. I had so much fun in our last course session, and the feedback you shared literally brought joyful tears to my eyes. Is that embarrassing to admit? Maybe a little bit. So thank you to those of you who were here last time. I see some of you in the chat who are back again and I so appreciate you, and I'm so glad you had great things to say about last week's course. I am hopeful and I'm pretty sure that today is going to kind of come up there and be as great of a course as we had last Thursday.
For those of you who are new to Instrumentl, we are the most loved all-in-one grants platform for grant prospecting, tracking, and research. We currently help more than 3,500 nonprofits and grant consultants save time in finding and applying for more grants.
To start us off, for those of you who don't know me, 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 nonprofit sector, specifically in museums, and I'm based in Los Angeles, California.
I'm also super excited. I'm bringing on a very special guest today, a VIP guest, who is joining us, one of my colleagues from Instrumentl, and I'm going to have her actually introduce herself today.
Alia: Thanks, Rachel. I'm really excited to join you guys today. The energy here is really good, and I usually don't get to interact with this many nonprofit professionals. So, I'll be the one that you'll see a link to a couple times today to book a strategy call with me. I would love to connect and talk more about Instrumentl. My background is healthcare fundraising and nonprofit event planning. So, nice to meet you.
Rachel: Yey! Thank you so much for helping me out and joining our program today. And Alia is someone who is from the nonprofit world as well. I just love having folks who kind of know that sector inside and out, as I'm sure all of you can relate on some of the things that we experience on our day to day.
So, quick FYIs for our program. This event is about an hour long. It's going to be interactive. It's going to be instructional. I saw some people say they really appreciated the interactivity in our feedback form from the last event. So this one will be equally engaging. I'll invite you to share your thoughts in the chat box, contribute to polls, and you'll have a few moments for independent work time in your workbooks. So I'll drop that link again in the chat if you haven't opened up a workbook yet. This workshop is being recorded right now, and the slides will be shared afterwards, so keep your eyes peeled on your inboxes. I know we're all super busy, so thanks for spending time with me today. Please make sure to take care of those personal needs during the program. But make sure you're back here at the end. I will have some live Q&A and some ways to enter to win some prizes today. Lastly, to make sure you can follow along with me, you can toggle on your closed captions. Those are currently activated in Zoom.
Okay. So, as a reminder of our course materials, we're approaching this like an instructional course. We’re back in school today, and we're going to all be learners. We're going to embrace our learner mindset. So, a couple of key resources that I want to make sure everybody has access to.
The first is going to be that course syllabus. So I want everybody to make their own copy. I'll drop that link in the chat again. If you need the PDF version of Microsoft Word version, let me know and I'll drop that in. We also have an event resource page for today. This is a website that I use to basically compile all the things that I talk about with you today. So that's going to be something that you'll be able to check back on. I'll add the recordings and the slides here after the event. Something to bookmark and reference later. And lastly, we're going to have access to our funder database for our funder evaluation and research portion of this program. So, if you already want to get ahead of the curve and start setting that up now, you are welcome to. I will talk a little bit more about what that entails in just a moment.
For some cool little perks about what you're going to leave here today with, I want to make sure everybody walks out of the Zoom room with a couple of things. So, by taking action in some of the ways I'm going to kind of point you to this afternoon, you're going to leave with a tailor-made list of good-fit funders that are automatically sourced for you. I will show you how absolutely easy it is in about 3 minutes to get to your specific funding sources that will fit for your needs.
You're also going to have access to the best options that are out there. Our database is currently full of 17,000 active RFP opportunities and growing week by week. We have over 100 that are added, usually closer to 200 added every single week for those active funding sources.
And you'll save hours of research. We've heard from folks that they've saved up to 15 hours per week using our database to find and source new funding opportunities with our unique matching algorithm. So, I'll talk a little bit more about how you can access all those things.
Plus, Alia is going to be doing some very special strategy sessions with you all. So, she's offering these one-on-one grant advising sessions. I know I had some folks who were really interested in taking advantage of that last time. So, if you are interested, she has limited time because we are a small team and we're going to try and make sure as many of the almost 200 people that are on this call have access to this. There are 10 spots available to book a call with Alia. So, I'm going to drop that link in the chat. You'll have other opportunities throughout the program today to get a chance, but I would highly encourage, because there are 192 of you, to book that now while you have a chance. And I'll keep a reminder of how many spots are available as we go through the program.
Okay. Lastly, before we get started, I want to highlight some very special friends who were really awesome and actually highlighted some of their learnings on LinkedIn last time. Karah Brink, who I can see is in the room. Karah, I want to honor you with a raffle prize. We're going to give you $50 to your nonprofit. So thank you for sharing your learnings on LinkedIn. I've added Karah's post here. If you add your learnings from today and add the hashtag #GrantseekerGrowth, I'll be able to find those. I am going to be continuing to raffle off that as we go through the course. So, please share those learnings, and congrats, Karah, on that raffle prize. I'll have a couple more raffles for folks as we go through the program today, but let's get started.
Okay, cool. So, now with all those details out of the way, let's talk a little bit about where I'm taking you all today.
First, we're going to understand a little bit more about our funder perspectives, and do a little bit of background research on what funders might be looking for. We'll then do a quick project brainstorm. I'll talk a little bit more about that. That'll be a guided activity that we'll do in our workbooks. We'll also have an opportunity to dive deep on some funder evaluation and research related to our projects. I'll talk about that as well. And then I'll wrap you up with 7 Secrets for Communication & Engagement with funders. These are sourced from our expert council, and I think they're really excellent tips that some of us may have not thought of before. Some may have, but I think I was pleasantly surprised with the creativity and breadth that our expert council had shared these 7 secrets on. We'll end with a wrap-up and a quick Q&A session.
And as a reminder, this course is CFRE certified. So please stay to the end when you submit your feedback form. That'll just prove that you were here for the program, and you'll be able to receive that 1 CFRE point for initial certification or recertification.
Okay. Last thing before you get into this program, I will host a post-event session. If anyone wants to stick around and join me for office hours, I'll hang in the Zoom room for about 15 minutes. I know we're all busy, so no pressure to stay, but if you have questions or just want to chat with me or share feedback, I'll open up the room for about 15 minutes once we get to the end of the program.
Okay. So, just to give us some context, we want to think about who our funders are. Let's do a little deep dive on understanding funders and what they might be looking for. And I'm going to invite us to step into the shoes of a grantmaker. So for our folks in the room who have had experience maybe reaching out to funders or engaging with funders, winning grants before, I'd love to hear some ideas. When funders are looking at applications, what are they looking for? Share a couple of ideas of things they might be looking for, indicators on your application, that might give them insight to who you are as an organization.
Awesome. I'm seeing the chat start to start to go. Okay. Let me see if I can follow along here.
Leah says, “Innovative projects.”
Caroline says, “Alignment.”
Karah says, “Shared values and mission.” Absolutely. Yep.
Dr. Buchanan, “Matching to their priorities.”
Melanie, “Sustainability of programs.” 100%.
Amber says, “Alignment.” I see a couple of others. Yup. Alignment here too.
Victoria, “A clear message that also relates to the RFP.” So important.
Sarah, “Long-term goal achievement.”
Stacy, “Clear data and outcomes.” These are fantastic. Yes.
Continue to share your thoughts. What are funders looking for? Let's make sure to put those at the forefront as we start our kind of research today and as we think more critically about how we're engaging with funders and what we can do to better improve our applications and increase our success rate with grants.
So to start us off, we've already actually mentioned some of these great things. What are funders looking for?
I'm going to start with that mission and goal alignment. Some of you mentioned this in the chat. This is absolutely true. Funders are typically looking for projects that closely align with their own mission, goals, and strategic priorities. So, it's important for grantees, every time you're writing an application, anytime you're engaging with funders, to clearly demonstrate how your project supports these areas. So, one example strategy I can share with you all. Maybe provide a mapping of your project objectives to the funder-stated goals. So you can make that really clear using direct language from the funder’s own materials, making sure you're mapping those goals to the objectives of your project.
What else are funders looking for? I know someone mentioned this. I think it was maybe Sarah in the chat. The sustainability of your project. Funders prefer projects that have a clear plan for sustainability post-funding. This reassures them that their investment will have long-term impact, right? So, an example strategy here, make sure you're outlining specific plans for future funding, ongoing community support, and the project's self-sufficiency after the initial grant period. Some of you may already be doing that, and I applaud you for continuing to keep your future funding opportunities transparent with your funders.
They also are going to be looking at your organizational capacity and your organization's track record, right? So, you want to have evidence of strong management, success of past projects, and positive outcomes. Funders are going to use this history of your organization to gauge the potential future success that their funding might provide to you. So, example strategy here, highlight past achievements with data and testimonials. I saw someone mention that as well. You should be using really clear data and testimonials to showcase your organization's capacity and reliability.
All right. And our second to last one here, they're looking for detailed, realistic budgeting. I don't know if we mentioned budgets in the chat. Maybe someone dropped that in there. But they're going to be looking for those clear, comprehensive, and realistic budgets that reflect well on the applicant’s planning and organizational skills. So, funders will analyze these budgets really, really closely, and we want to make sure that we're proving that they can assess the feasibility and financial prudence of the proposed work. So, example strategy here, make sure you're providing that detailed budget that includes maybe justifications for each line item, showing how your costs contribute to the project's goals.
Okay. And lastly here, we want to talk about our impact and our measurement. Again, something that folks mentioned in the chat. I love to see that folks are using all of these when they're thinking about what funders are looking for. So, funders are going to be, I think, increasingly interested and focused on measurable outcomes and not just the outputs of your organization. They want to know how the project is going to make a difference and how that impact will be measured. So you want to make sure that you're developing and describing really robust methods for measuring your project’s impact. Maybe including those short-term indicators versus long-term outcomes, including an evaluation plan. Getting that work prepared ahead of time will prove to the funder that they will have a successful impact and that you're thinking ahead in the post-award phase.
So now I'm thinking, okay, we're taking all this in. We've thought about maybe what the funders’ priorities are. What about for us? What information do we need to make sure we know about funders before we apply? We're thinking about what are those priorities they might be wanting to know about us? What do we need to know about them to make sure we actually should apply?
Yup. We've got focus areas.
Jose says, “Goals.”
Jacqueline says, “Giving history. Knowing their reputation.” Absolutely.
Mary says, “Timelines.” 100%. I’ll talk a little bit more about that.
Yeah. Farrell says, “If they're well-aligned.”
Renee says, “Reviewing 990s.” Absolutely. Renee, I'd maybe even dial down on that more. What in their 990s would be the most relevant information that we might want to find from them.
Yeah. Jay Porter has some great ones here, “Total assets, focus areas, geographic giving, recent giving trends.” It's almost like you're reading my mind.
So what information should we know? We've got some ideas in the chat. I'm going to go through a couple of ideas here and kind of narrow us in, so we can make sure we're prioritizing the right types of funders.
The key info on funders that we always want to be looking for. Number one, the grantmaker's mission. Some of you mentioned that in the chat. You should make sure this is clearly demonstrated and aligned, that you fully understand what the grantmaker's mission actually is.
The second here, understanding key stats on giving patterns. Someone mentioned giving patterns in the chat. That's something that will give us some indicators of past giving and potentially what their future giving might look like. We want to have a holistic view of their giving patterns.
This kind of goes hand in hand with the second one here, but three, they're giving trends and cycles over the years. So we might want to be looking at things like NTEE codes that they've been giving to, what are their trends in these areas, are they giving to a certain sector more than others, does that align with our sector, and how it's looking for potential future years of giving?
We want to look at data on past grantees and funded projects. This will give us a great indication of if they might be interested in funding an organization like ours, if they've aligned with past grantees that have similar missions to your organization.
We also want to know geographic areas of focus. I saw this mentioned in the chat too. This is not something to ignore. You want to identify areas that funders are giving in currently. It's going to give us a higher boost on our success rate if we are in an area that they already are focusing on or they're giving on.
And lastly, this seems like a no-brainer but always a good reminder. The overall grant eligibility requirements, we need to make sure we're actually eligible for the opportunity that we're applying for, right?
So these are, I'm thinking back, you know, this is the context we need to have when we're looking at funders. We start with what our funder priorities are. We're thinking now about what are our priorities when we're looking for funders. We're going to use this information to guide a little bit of our learning today, and I will come back to this and touch on this information as we go through our program.
But first, I want us to do a little brainstorming because we don't get a lot of time to be creative in our day-to-day adult lives. And we're going to think a little bit about our organizations and the missions that we're currently working on, the goals we currently have.
So, let's think for a quick second, we're going to kind of step into a reflective moment here. What are some of the things that you dream for your organization? Think about maybe some of those big picture goals, or maybe you have a really specific project that you're currently working on. What do you dream for your organization? What are the successes for your organization going to look like in the next six months, the next year, the next two years?
Yeah. And for some of the folks that were with us for our grant revolution, I asked a similar question. I loved seeing those dreams that you have for your nonprofit organizations.
Dominique says, “Long-term sustainability,” and I see someone did a thumbs up for that. Yep. Leah says, “Creating more relationships with funders for longevity.” That sustainability piece is so crucial.
Jose says, “They're updating their senior center.” I love that.
Kelsey, “Would love to see a well-organized grant writing department.” I'm sure many can relate to that dream too. I fully support that dream.
Mary says, “Large, unrestricted gifts to support full realization of our current strategic plan.” Wow. Yeah. That's amazing.
Carolyn says, “Multi-year funding.”
Oh, and another, Carolyn says, “More families in homes with support services for success.” I'd love to see that. So many amazing organizations doing incredible work.
Oh, I hope so too. He says, “I hope my boss will purchase PRO.” I think that might bump you up, might elevate some of the work that you're currently doing. So, fingers crossed.
Keep sharing ideas. I want us to kind of step into that dream space, think big for our organizations, and hopefully that's going to double our funding opportunities. And I'm going to kind of show you how we're going to get there.
First, let's pull out our workbooks. I'll drop that link again in the chat for anyone who's had trouble accessing that. I'm going to invite you to reflect on one project or program that you are currently working on that might be a little hard to narrow down. So, take a second, think about a project. You're going to fill out on page 3, there is a table listed there that has a couple of bullet points. I'm going to give folks about 2 minutes to fill this out. You'll start with a quick kind of scratch note there about your organization. I've asked you to just briefly describe your mission using a few keywords. And then maybe a couple of funding goals. So, think about your funding goals for the year, including maybe key areas of need. Just jot down a few ideas there.
And then in the brainstorm section, you're going to see, I'm going to focus you in on one program or project you're currently working on funding. For those of you who are grant consultants, maybe think of a client that you're currently working with. Identify one of their projects that you're working on. Detail that one project that requires funding. So, just like quick notes there. And then I'd love for you to also come up with some notes on your ideal funder profile for this specific project. And I've written here for you to consider different grant types that you might be narrowing in on, the location of the project, and funder interests that you need to have in order for this project to be successfully funded.
So I'll drop that link again in the chat in just a second. For those of you who already have this opened up ready to go, go ahead and start, and I'll play a little music while we reflect on our first project here.
Awesome. Okay, I'm seeing enough folks are wrapped up. So, I'm going to keep us moving along. I'm going to share just a quick example for folks that might need some prompting and some ideas for theirs. So, for this particular example, I have shared the mission statement and funding goals for the Highland Park History Museum, a fictional museum I have created in my neighborhood. And so, I've included a couple of keywords about the mission statement of this organization, empowering community to connect with rich local heritage, engaging exhibits for education and accessible archives for the public and researchers.
I've also added in some funding goals, and the specific one that I'm working on for this example is building out our museum education program, which I estimate will cost us about or require us to look for funding at about $50,000. For the program or project, I already kind of specified this, but I've indicated that I'm working on a museum education program. So that might include curriculum development, staff training, and evaluation.
And then ideal funder profiles. This is going to be really important for the purposes of our next section here, so I want to make sure folks are being really specific with what they're looking for with their funders. I am looking for this example for grants for arts and culture organizations or museums/informal education or out of school time, giving in California, maybe even specifically Los Angeles, with a focus on education, community, and history.
So I'm going to invite us to think about those keywords that we're using to find our ideal funder, and I want us to do a little matchmaking exercise. This is going how we're going to feel when we find our dream funders. We're going to matchmake today.
So, as a reminder, we're going to be looking for this key information on funders. We talked about this a couple of slides ago. The mission of the grantmaker, those key giving stats, giving trends, data on their past grantees, those geographic areas of focus, and the grant eligibility requirements.
Now, I want to ask in the chat, because I love hearing from folks and hearing about their experiences. How do you feel when you're doing funder research, when you're looking for all of those key stats or key info that we need about funders? How does it feel? You can share an emoji if you don't have words to describe it. Kind of give me a sense of what you're feeling with that.
Patrice says, “Overwhelmed.”
Oh, I like Carolyn's emoji with like the little eyeglass thinking.
Maura said, “Lost and hopeless.” It can feel that way, yeah.
Ooh, Kelsey says, “Electric. I love finding matches.” Oh, I get that way too.
Some folks saying frustrating, overwhelmed. Some folks saying hopeful, motivated.
My colleague Nadine says, “It feels exciting.”
And Arnold says, “Feels good, but can be very challenging.” Yes, I have heard that with other folks as well.
So finding all this info can be exciting, but it can also be challenging. And when I have searched for this information in the past, I sometimes feel like this emoji right here. It's one of my favorite recent emojis.
So, where can you find this information?
Now, I'm a little biased. I think the easiest way is using Instrumentl, and actually, Alia will be able to take you really to the next level, and I'll show you how you can kind of get access to that with Alia. She's got those 10 spots for strategy sessions. So, that's my approach. Definitely I'm going to show you the easiest way you can do it.
There are alternatives however. You, of course, can be looking through your Google pages. You can be looking through those funder websites that you have bookmarked. Maybe you have funders that you are constantly keep an eye on and waiting for those RFPs to be released. You can look through 990 forms through GuideStar or the IRS. I know Renee was saying that that's something they do and they are researching funders using 990s. And then there are other paid databases that you can look through to find this information.
But I want to show you how easy this can be. And so, we're going to dive into the funder eval and research side of our session today, and I'm going to show you how easy and fun. I want to build on that electric feeling, that hopeful feeling and excited feeling you all get when you're researching funders. So, in order to make sure that everybody can leave here with those three things, we're going to kind of take a moment and make some accounts in order to access that information. So, if you already have one, great, you can log in. For those of you who have not logged in here before, I'm going to drop that into the chat. This is a special link. You won't have access to this link after the event, so I want to make sure everybody accesses this right now. I'm going to drop that in the chat in case you missed it as well. This is the only time during the event that I'm going to share this specific link, and I'm going to tell you why in just a second. And I want you all to be able to go to your boss after this event and say, hey, I found like five new good fit funders right away, and I'm going to show you exactly how you can do that.
You're going to be able to, in about 3 minutes, set up your funding parameters, and I will show you how truly easy this can be. I promise you will leave with a tailor-made list of good-fit funders, you'll have access to all of those best options, you can view the entire database of 17,000 opportunities, and hopefully you'll save yourself hours of research. As I mentioned, some folks have mentioned it saved them 15 hours a week, which is pretty amazing. I know you all have a lot on your plate. So, as much as we can save time, we appreciate that, right?
So if you click that link in the chat, I'll drop that in again. Yes. If you already have an account, you can go ahead and log on.
Awesome, Karen. I appreciate that.
Lisa. If you are like Lisa and you have an expired trial, you can go ahead and DM me your email address that you used to sign up or you can use a new email address. During the event or after the event, I'll make sure you have access, and I'll open up your trial again for a few more days, so you can explore exactly what we are doing in our workbooks.
So, you click that link. And while folks are doing that, I know some of us are already in Instrumentl. So, great, I will catch up with you in just a moment.
Awesome, Miranda, Michelle, Melissa, I'm seeing your notes, I will keep track of all of these, so that you can make sure you have access.
For those of you who are signing up for the first time, you can follow along with me right here. I'm just adding in my name, my email address, I'm making a password, adding in my phone number, and I'm indicating what type of organization I am. For this example, I'm using that same museum that I was using an example prior. Sharing a little bit about my organization, what the annual operating revenue is and if we have 501C3 status. The last question it'll ask you is how many grants you've won in the past year. And then you'll start your trial, you'll click try 14 days free.
Awesome. Yeah, I see these emails from folks. I will definitely get to that in just a second. But to make sure that folks that are already logged in are moving forward, I'll come back to you in just a moment. So, we're going to go ahead and fill out that link, you'll get to this page. And I'll be giving you a direct way to book. Because we're actually getting the perk of having Alia in this event, and she's going to be your grant advisor for anyone that's in this program, we can skip this now and you'll get access to book a strategy session with her if you click her link in just a sec.
And then you're going to go ahead and pause once you're on this page. If folks can give me a thumbs up or indicator in the chat that they are here at this point, that they are ready to start making a project, if it’s their first time or if they're already in the platform because they are already a customer, you can just go ahead and give me an indication. Thanks everybody.
Oh, thank you, Alia, for helping folks get back in. I appreciate it.
Awesome. And to anyone that's having trouble that needs to get access, do not stress. I promise I will address every one of your emails and make sure you all have access.
No, Susan, we'll spend the next about 10 minutes doing this, maybe even only 5, and then we'll get back to the content.
Great. All right. I think we've got critical mass here. So I'm going to go ahead and move us forward. For those of you that haven't created a project before, this is just going to be a quick overview of how you set up the funding parameters. This is going to make sure that you're narrowing down your focus to funders who actually should be showing up in your funding searches. This is really important for you to set up the first time. So I want to make sure to show you how to do this. For those of you that are experts in the room, I've already done this before. Don't stress. You can hang tight for another two minutes or so while I explain this part for newbies. You're going to start by indicating where your organization is based. For this example, I'm in Los Angeles County, and I'm indicating my fiscal year. I've kept it to the calendar year for this example. You can of course change that depending on your organization.
And then you're going to go into the overview section. You're going to create your project name. This is the project that I've invited you to brainstorm on today. So, I'm working on that history education program. I've gone ahead and set up that. For the applicant type, I've indicated that I'm a nonprofit, and for this example, I'm a museum. You also want to indicate any organizations that you might be partnering with on funding. So, for this example, I thought we might partner with maybe school districts or a school. So, I've included public schools to see funding opportunities for them as well, if we do a community partnership for this program. I am not a faith based organization, so I'm indicating ‘no’ there. And I'm indicating where the project area serves. Again, we're talking about geographic location of funders, right? So we want to make sure that we're actually aligning with where funders are funding. I'm doing Los Angeles County. This will show me opportunities that fund LA County and also on a national scale. Anything that's not location specific.
And then this is probably one of the most important parts of setting up your project. These are the fields of work. I'm starting with five different fields of work. I recommend doing two to five, not going less or more than that. And I've picked a couple that fill into my museum education program. So I've got arts and culture access, history, museums and cultural institutions, youth involvement in the arts, and art education, because I feel like those will be the best ones for this project. I do want to see grants for professional art and culture organizations. And I'm looking for grants at least $10,000 or more. I don't want to waste my time on anything less than $10,000.
This last question here is going to ask you what you're going to use the funds for. I've indicated education and outreach. Maybe we're doing an exhibition related to this project, so I've included that as well. This is a project or a program and maybe some staff training because I mentioned that as part of my funding goals. Lastly, I'll indicate the types of funders I want to see grants from. So you can get really granular here. If you want to, you can just pick state or local government or federal government, or you can look for literally any of those opportunities.
And then the last thing it'll invite you to do is add someone to your team. If you want someone to get access while you're in this 2-week trial, you can go ahead and invite them right now. I invited my sister. She'll probably be like, why am I getting this email. I'll have to explain that later. And they found 316 grants in about, what was that, 5 seconds for me.
So I'm going to go ahead and have us pause again. I know it's probably really tempting to start looking through those. And for those of you who are already in your projects, I'm going to get you set up on your funder eval research in just a second. But again, I'm going to ask folks, when they get to this point, when they've set up their first project, you can just give me a little thumbs up in the chat. I want to make sure I don't lose anybody as we continue on, and I'll move forward from here.
Yeah, great questions in the chat. I will make sure to reach out on some of those questions that are coming in.
Let's see... Great. I see some thumbs up from folks.
Thanks, Barbara, for indicating that you're ready to go.
Yulia, I'll make sure you get access. I'm going to give folks a moment to get into the platform, and then we'll get you access. Thanks.
No problem, Maura. I'll double check on this for you and make sure you can get access.
Okay, cool. All right. So before we do our funder evaluation, I'm going to do a quick pop quiz for everybody, just to get us back into our like, what are we learning about today. A reminder of what we're focusing on, so we can really narrow down our searches.
Pop quiz. What should we know about funders? I'm going to go ahead and launch this poll. I am hopeful that everybody is going to get this one 100 percent correct. What should we know about funders? The mission, key stats on giving, giving trends, data on past grantees, geographic areas of focus, the grant eligibility, or all of the above?
Oh my gosh. You all are doing amazing. I am hoping I didn't trick anybody. This is maybe kind of a trick question. I'll give folks another second or so to respond. Yes. Seven. I see some answers in the chat. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and end that. Look at these results. This is so great. Everybody passed my pop quiz. I'm so impressed with you all. You all are paying attention. You get gold stars for your course participation. All of the above, right? So let's talk about how we're actually going to identify those.
My next step here, I'm going to do a quick demo of how I look for this information in Instrumentl at the funder and then you can do it on your own. I will invite you to actually jot down some notes in your workbook and I'll show you where to do that. But first, just watch me do this. You can follow along in your own platform, and then you'll have a chance to try it out yourself. For this example, I am literally looking at a real foundation, the Dreyfus Foundation, for my history education program.
So, we're going to go through and look at this kind of example here. I found this in my matches. This is the matches tab up here. You'll see I have a hundred plus of those, and I'm just doing a quick scan. I can see the mission of the organization right here. It looks like it's pretty aligned with my project. And I can see the eligibility. Wow. This looks like a pretty good opportunity for this history education program that I'm working on. I'm going to be able to see their total assets, information about the key people, which is one of the things we want to know, the key giving stats, the super important information we want to always make sure we're looking for, and I can see the grant amounts. This median is maybe a little low for what I'm looking for, but I'm going to still keep this in my pipeline because it's pretty darn close to my minimum.
We can also see the grant locations that are being given to. So, I'm just going to back up real quick so you can see that. First, I noticed it was mostly New York, and I was like, hmm, okay, I wonder what California looks like. 189 grantees in New York. But then if you look at California, 121, that's pretty good. That means they are giving in my state as well. I can look at those organizations and actually dive in deeper. Maybe I even recognize an organization that I might be able to reach out to and ask them about their experience with the funder. And I can look at how many of the awards have gone to new grantees. This is actually a great stat to use in that kind of go or no go decision making. 35 percent is actually really kind of good stats for me. So, I might be more likely to get this grant since they are giving 35 percent of grants to new grantees.
The last thing here that I want to highlight is these NTEE codes. It looks like their majority of giving goes to arts, cultures, and humanities organizations. Wow! How perfect is that? So I'm going ahead down here. I'm writing in some opportunity notes. I'm just indicating, hey, this could be a really great fit, but I might need to do a little more research. That was a real cursory review. I'm saving that into my tracker. I'm putting it as a status of researching because it needs to have a little more info.
And now I'll show you how it's in my tracker. So, it's right over here. I actually saved another grant as well when I was doing a little research here for this program. You can see my opportunity notes are saved, and so is my status of this project. I'm also going to add in a task while I'm at it because I noticed that the deadline is coming up. The deadline is May 10th for this. So I might want to just say, hey, I'm going to write this draft of application really soon. And I want to make sure I have a deadline listed in Instrumentl so that it reminds me. If you have added people to your account, you can assign them tasks too, but I just assigned it to myself to keep it simple. And now that's all saved.
So that was obviously a quick, quick pass-through. But I want us to do our own chance at this. Okay. So, it's your turn to do a little research. Some of you might already be in there looking at funder opportunities. But what I want you to do, your mission for the next 3 minutes or so, you're going to find one potential funder in that matches column. You're going to review the funder profile in Instrumentl. So that funder profile was an example when I was looking at the opportunity and then I went over that other tab and looked at the funder, went into essentially their 990 information and was able to look at that quickly at a glance. And then I want you to score this funder in your workbook.
So, you'll see exactly what I'm just asking you to do on page four of your workbook. Some of you may have already jumped ahead to that. Totally cool. You can use these next 3 minutes or so to find a funder, jot down information and score them here, and add in any thoughts. You can actually score them at the bottom. I've added kind of like a tally board. So, you can see if this funder is a go or no go. And I'll give folks another, yeah, 2 minutes or so to practice in their workbook.
If anyone has scored their funder. Awesome.
I see M. Park Hill said a 7. Okay. I love that. I'll add our points up here too as a reminder of what kind are my emoji feelings when we're looking at these funder scores.
Wow. Mary said 9. Awesome. That's for sure a go, right? I'd love to hear, Mary, if there's thoughts about that funder you want to share with the crew.
Yeah. So, if you're in that 1 to 3 points section, you might be like, uh-uh, that is going to be a no go. I've got this emoji. This is a no. We don't want to spend our time working on that unless you have a really, really good reason to pursue that funder. The 4 to 6 points. This is kind of a gray area. You might find like, hey, this actually will be helpful or, hmmm, maybe not. And then that last bit, the 7 to 10 points, that is awesome. That's someone that's pretty darn aligned to your organization, your mission, and I'd say you should go for it.
Farrell, that's great. You already vetted this particular funder. You had a bit of a leg up on that one.
Awesome, Barbara. I love to hear it. 9 points and ready to go for it.
Oh, Mary says, “I recently updated my fields of work and the first funder is a perfect fit for the project based on mission, size of funding, eligibility, and timeline.” Yes. Snaps for that. That is great to hear.
Okay. Continue to add your scores. I hope that felt empowering and exciting. I know for folks who are saying that there are some challenges with funder research, and I want this to feel a little more fun. So, I hope that was fun. I hope that was exciting to see some of those matches come through.
And I actually shared a little quote. Piper, who's one of our customers, shared that her organization really loves the funder matches. They've already found new funder relationships through Instrumentl, which you can see maybe already you've found some ideas for those relationships today, and just cutting down on that time finding those new funder opportunities.
Okay, folks, we've covered so much today, but I need to get to a really important aspect of this course today, which is talking about ways we want to be communicating and engaging with funders. So, this is kind of our wrap-up section here.
I've pulled some really great tips from Rachel Grusin. She is from the Legal Aid Society of San Diego, and she's a member of our Instrumentl expert council. She essentially says that adopting these strategies, that we're going to talk about in just a second, can take a season grant team to transform a basic funder relationship into a robust partnership, fostering mutual respect, understanding, and a shared commitment to achieving impactful outcomes.
That sounds great, right? We want to make sure our organization has that opportunity. So I'm going to show you how to do that with these 7 secrets to get to a funder's heart.
Starting on our communication side here. We want to make sure we're always developing customized engagement plans. Gosh, I know this is so hard and this takes a lot of work, but tailoring your approach, just like you would with a resume for a new job, you tailor your resume for that specific job posting. You're going to use keywords that that job posting is going to list the same thing for your communication and engagement with funders. Tailor your approach to each funder based on their communication style, their expectations, and consider the unique characteristics of that funding relationship. You want to provide regular updates on the impact of funded projects, share your success stories, your outcomes, and maybe even challenges that you've overcome, that their support could be making a difference in. So, developing those custom engagement plans is our first secret.
Our second here is moving beyond generic updates and reports. I thought this is a really neat tip. Essentially just diving into more sophisticated engagement is going to help deepen our relationships with funders and elevate their strategy. So to do this, you want to make sure that you're sharing stories and data that resonate with their goals. That personalized communication goes into kind of our previous secret here. It shows that you value the relationship and you understand their perspective. We're talking about what funders are really looking for from us, so making sure that it is going beyond generic and into a more personalized connection with the funder.
Yeah. Susan says, “Highlight how your work is helping them achieve your goals. 100%. And I have a tip related to that as well.” I love to hear that.
Show funders that you value their input. It's important to keep them in the loop. So, offer those regular updates. And when things don't go according to plan, being transparent about those setbacks can help you build trust with funders. Ask for their feedback on your programs or strategic direction. They might actually have valuable insights that you want to consider, and that shows that you see them not only as funding sources, but as partners in your work.
And finally, I want to make sure that you are remembering, a lot of you are great about this, but acknowledging and appreciating your funders. Regularly thanking them in your publications. Make sure your events team knows to include them in the program of an event, for example, and in other public forums, maybe on your LinkedIn or your social media. That can go a long way towards maintaining a positive relationship. And after all, of course, recognition is a very crucial part of building any strong partnership.
For the engagement piece here, I want us to kind of think again about the perspective point of view. You want to help a funder meet their goals, right? But we can go even deeper than this. Help the funder’s representative, like the program officer, meet their goals by being a resource for them. Your nonprofit might not have all of the answers. So you can obviously, you know, for specific issues, you can direct them to someone who will, but be the person that they call for trustworthy help. Maybe they need specific resources for their community and you are the organization that can provide that. Be that resource for the funder, and make sure they know that.
Encourage multiple levels of communication. Oh, Melissa, I love to hear that. Multiple levels of relationships, sorry. Don't just limit your connections to the grant manager, or the person that's sitting in the Zoom room right now, as the primary contact. Make sure your board members, your executive staff, and your program leads also build relationships with their counterparts in the funding organization. And that might require the grant team from the organization to train their executive directors or governing board officers about that relationship building and why it's so crucial, and it should start at the top of the grant application, not just with the grant writer. So, making sure to foster and build in a culture of that multiple level of relationship building with a funder.
And then the last thing, I think Melissa kind of hinted at this too, funders are people too. So we want to focus on more than just the financial aspects of our transactions with funders. You can invite them to events, offer opportunities to interact with the people they're actually helping or even involve them in volunteer activities. Hold a funders’ open house. Invite funders to come in and meet your executive director or your board, and make sure you're just not holding it on an afternoon or an evening that might compete with their own board meetings. This kind of engagement can help build a deeper and more personal connection.
Okay, folks, so we've gotten through so, so, so much today. I want to pause for questions, but I also want to get to kind of some of our wrap-up today. And what I might do, because we are getting a little close to the hour and I know we're all busy. I might go through the chat after this event and answer questions asynchronously in our event resources page. So I'm going to drop that link in the chat again. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to add a section to this page, that is our Q&A. So, I'll add in questions that came in from the chat, I'll respond there, and you'll see your name and your question in there, so I make sure to get to everybody's questions.
As a reminder, I want to make sure folks know that Alia is booking those one-on-one strategy calls. And so, I'll drop that link again in the chat. For those of you that started your process of funder evaluation today, she's going to be able to help you really narrow in your searches. I saw some of you were saying that you might need some help narrowing that down. She is a true pro at this, which is why I'm so excited that she had time to be on this event today. So, I encourage you to do that with her, if you have an opportunity to book. You've got 10 of those spots.
Okay. Before I share our feedback form, I have been doing this habit of getting a class photo. So, before folks move on to their next meeting, I would love to invite us to go off camera, if you feel comfortable, and I'm going to take a quick class photo of everyone who's in this room and share it. I really appreciate folks being willing to jump on and share. Okay. And I'll go through the pages, I'll do a quick count off, and we'll do a quick smile and wave.
Okay. Everybody ready? 3, 2, 1... Cheese!
Okay. One more page. 3, 2, 1... Cheese!
Nice, Maura. You got on camera just in time.
Wow. I love seeing all these smiling faces. You all are awesome. Great. Our last thing for today is just going to be sharing that feedback form. I'm going to drop the link for that in the chat. I'd love to hear what you have to say about our program today. Let me find that for everybody here. And please take a moment. It should only take about 3 minutes to fill out your thoughts. I'd love to hear what you have to share about our program. Thanks, folks, for being here.
As a reminder, we have one more session in this series. It's going to be next Thursday. That's going to be this one about post-award management. I also am including an invite to our grant chats next Tuesday. I know it's a little soon coming down the pipeline here, but I haven't invited anyone else from our events yet. So, I wanted to make sure this special group got access to that. It's just a fun hour-long moment to kind of meet other folks and chat about challenges and triumphs that we're having in our grant seeking world. So, I'll drop that link in the chat as well.
Thank you so, so much for being here. You can reach out to me, say hi on LinkedIn or email me if you need to reach out with any other questions, I loved spending this hour with you. I will see you all for our next session next Thursday. Thanks everyone for being here.
Oh, thanks Paul. You're the best.
Thanks for spending this time with me. It was great being with you. Have a great rest of your day.
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