How to Find Foundations Giving Grants To Nonprofits Like Yours

It will come to you as no surprise that grant writers and fundraisers are strapped for time. With competing deadlines and priorities, it is nearly impossible to find time to research funders—let alone dig deep into who is funding nonprofits similar to yours. 

However, looking into peer organizations is one of the best ways to find relevant funders. 

Our team at Instrumentl spoke with dozens of grant writers. Based on our ongoing discussions, we built a solution: Instrumentl’s recipient profiles to make your “Reverse Search” strategy easier and be more efficient. 

We’ll walk you through how to use this. It will save more time and find better-fit grant opportunities. 

Let’s get started!

Finding relevant grant opportunities and well-aligned funders is one of the primary challenges nonprofit professionals come across in their work. 

One of the best ways to identify funders that fit well with your needs and priorities is by looking at the funders of nonprofits similar to yours. The problem lies in finding the time to do it. 

Researching peer organizations' current and past funders— called a grant reverse search strategy, can be a tedious and time-consuming process. What nonprofit staff member has the time to review a similar nonprofit organization’s form-990, review their recent funders or sponsors, then look at that funder’s website, assess for fit, and so-on, and so-on? Very few of us likely have the capacity to accomplish this every week!

An example will make it more clear. You’re a nonprofit in Texas. You provide legal services to immigrants and refugees. 

RAICES, a nonprofit organization also located in Texas, provides similar services. By reviewing their website, financial reports or form 990s, you uncover their current funders and funding history. This points you toward potential good-fit funders. You make a list of funders you want to reach out to.

RAICES is a nonprofit dedicated to promoting human rights and securing justice for immigrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers. 

Now repeat that for 5-10 other nonprofits similar to yours. 

Doing reverse searches manually sounds simple, but that’s a lot of work! 

Between urgent deadlines, programmatic needs, and competing priorities, it is clear that nonprofit professionals need a solution to make the “reverse-search strategy” a much less time-consuming endeavor. 

Now this is what Instrumentl has been working on to save you time and make grant research simpler. 

Recipient profiles allow you to uncover who is funding nonprofits like yours, making it easier to identify potential funding opportunities.

Using a “reverse search” will increase your likelihood of finding well-aligned funders that will invest in your mission.

Let’s put away complex tax documents and scrolling through your old prospecting spreadsheet. Instrumentl profiles are here to cut your research time in half and consolidate your findings in one central location. 

Start by looking up nonprofits similar to yours in Instrumentl. If you don’t currently have an Instrumentl account, try it for 14 days. It’s totally free, and you don’t need to enter any credit card info. Find out if it’s right for you without committing.

When you’re inside, you’ll be able to see a peer organization’s recipient profile. 

Using Instrumentl, you will quickly see critical information that you previously would have to scour several websites, 990 documents, and other collateral to find. 

Each recipient profile includes:

• Organization overview, 
• Past awards received, 
• Key personnel, 
• Contact information, and
• List of past 990 documents for further review. 

How are other nonprofits using recipient profiles?

Instrumentl customer Cynthia Ceilan, Director of Institutional Giving at the Marlene Meyerson JCC, uses reverse-search strategies in her own prospect research. 

“One really cool thing that you can do is look up any recipient profile, in addition to grantmaker profiles. So if I know an organization in our area or town that’s very similar to ours, I want to see—ok, who’s funding them?”

Using Instrumentl, Cynthia leaves “no stone unturned,” capturing as many best-fit funders as possible. 

Using this strategy, The Marlene Meyerson JCC was able to raise over $1 million in just under a year. 

Related: Eager to start your own grant research journey but unsure where to begin? Check out Instrumentl’s guide for grant prospect research. It will streamline your nonprofit's process for grant prospect research.

We’ve told you about recipient profiles and how they make a reverse search strategy possible. 

In this section, we’ll take you through how to this yourself, step-by-step. We’ll cover:

• How to find similar nonprofits to yours (if you don’t already know),
• How to use recipient profiles to see who funds these nonprofits, and 
• How to evaluate funders and grant opportunities you find. 

Let’s dive in!

Step 1: Brainstorm a List of Nonprofits Like Yours

Unsurprisingly, the first step is to generate a list of nonprofits similar to yours. Your goal should be to have a list of 8-10 nonprofits to research. 

To build this list, start locally, finding nonprofits doing similar work. If you’re in Austin, Texas, like our example above, providing legal services to immigrants and refugees, who else is doing this locally? What other legal services nonprofits are there in Austin? What about nonprofits helping refugees resettle?

Now look outside Austin to other cities and counties. 

Your list should be getting a little bigger now. Keep digging until you have 10. At a minimum, try to find 5 other nonprofits like yours

Now, the next step is to look at who funds them. But we’re not doing it the old-fashioned way. We’re doing this faster, using Instrumentl.

Step 2: Search For Similar Nonprofits In Instrumentl

With your list at the ready, log into your account on Instrumentl.

Pro Tip: Create a free Instrumentl account and get access to Instrumentl’s Recipient Profile feature as well as a host of other grant research tools for 14 days.
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Locate the “Quick-find” search bar on your account homepage. HINT: It is just below the Instrumentl logo in the top left-hand corner! 

Next, enter the name of the peer nonprofit into the Quick Find search bar. 

Click the drop-down menu to the right of the search bar, and select “Recipients”. 

Finally, click on the recipient profile you would like to view. 

Step 3: Look at "Past Awards Received"

You have now unlocked your very first recipient profile. Bravo! Now, let’s dig into some of the profile’s most exciting features. 

At the top of the screen, you will see a drop-down menu with two options:  “View Recipient Profile” and “View Funder Profile”. 

If it is not selected already be sure to select “View Recipient Profile”.

Now that you are in the recipient profile view, you will notice there are several sections to inspect. 

No need to review them all now—it's time we get to the best part! 

Scroll down to the bottom of the profile to “Past Awards Received”. 

Once there, you will notice several tabs and a list of funders. 

Take a moment to browse through the list.  

Click through the tabs to view past funders by year. 

Click through on funders of interest to evaluate their alignment. 

There are several questions to consider as you analyze these past awards.

Where is the funder located? What are their giving priorities? How much did they give to your peer organization?

Take a look at the location, amount, and purpose columns. This is where you will find key information to assess fit. 

Make a note if a funder is in your same region, has a large capacity to give, or gives out the types of grants you are looking for. 

Keep in mind that just because a funder gave an award to a peer organization does not mean it is an automatic fit for your nonprofit. 

You still want to analyze their funder profile to know whether or not they: 

• Have current opportunities, 
• Are open to new grantees, 
• Fund other similar organizations or projects, 
• And more. 

Click on the funder name to access their funder profile.

Want to know if the funder has any current grant opportunities? Simply scroll down to active opportunities on the funder profile.

Related: Learn more about navigating and assessing funder profiles. 

Step 4: Save Relevant Grants and Shortlist Interesting Foundations

Once you have identified 2-5 best-fit grants via your peers’ recipient profiles, you can save them in your project tracker. 

Select an active grant opportunity. 

Once selected, click the “Save” button to save it to your project tracker.
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You can do the same with funders that have no active opportunities. 

Using the same method, Save the funder to your project tracker. Now you can stay up to date on any future deadlines and grant opportunities that may come up!. 

Finding foundations to support your nonprofit does not need to be a daunting or wearisome process. 

Leveraging Instrumentl’s recipient profiles is a surefire way to holistically enhance your grant search and find more best-fit opportunities than ever before. 

Explore Instrumentl recipient profiles by starting a 14-day free trial today!