The Impact Issue #27: How’s Your Grant Strategy Stacking Up?

Hey there,

Welcome to The Impact – your weekly dose of grant writing tips, opportunities, and inspiration.

We know that sometimes strategic planning, organizational capacity building, and institutional development can be overwhelming.

But these are the building blocks for successful grant proposals!

We want to help make this process easier by sharing tools and tips to take the guesswork out of strategic grant planning.

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Don’t Miss Out!

Stop scrolling! This week, we’ve got some more interesting data to share with you. Trust us, you don’t want to miss this 👇

📊 Insights Report: Where Is the Most Funding? Grant Funding Across the U.S.

Ever wonder how grant funding varies across the U.S.?

We dove deep into Instrumentl's grant database and uncovered eye-opening trends:

• Not East vs. West, but East AND West: Most grant money funnels to the coasts
• Unpredictable growth (and decline): How year-over-year shifts surprised us
• New Jersey’s secret: This state isn’t just big—they’re winning in both grant size and volume

How does your state rank?

👉 Check out the full trend report!

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Pitfalls and Pointers

So you’ve found the perfect grant. Or at least it seems perfect.

It’s the right size, fits your mission, and you can meet the deadline.

There’s just one final question: Does it align with your capacity?

⚠️ Pitfall: Not Accurately Judging Your Organizational Capacity

When creating grant proposals, sometimes it can be tempting to write what the funder wants to hear, without taking into account what is actually doable with the current projects, personnel, time, and space your organization has available.

There is nothing worse than writing a convincing grant and then putting the entire organization in a situation where you have to change your strategy, structure, or activities to keep up with your promises and commitments to the funder.

💡 Pointer: Make Sure You Are Working as a Team

Involve program managers, administrative staff, and development staff to make sure that what you propose in your grant application is feasible and aligned with the strategic plan of your organization.

Pressing staff to comply with completely new goals or requirements for a funder puts stress on everyone and usually doesn’t translate into benefits for your target population.

👉 With Instrumentl’s Capacity Building Toolkit you have all the elements to judge whether the commitments you are making in your grant application are really something sustainable for your organization and the growth you want to see!

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Tech You Should Know

One of the most powerful ways to ensure that you aren’t stretched beyond capacity and are clearly identifying where funding is most needed in your organization is by conducting a SWOT analysis, helping you evaluate your organization's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

But who has time to create a detailed SWOT analysis from scratch? That's where Creately comes in.

What:

Creately is a visual collaboration tool that simplifies the process of creating diagrams—including SWOT analyses. With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface and customizable templates, you can easily map out your organization's strategy in minutes.

How Nonprofits Can Use It:

1. Gather a Cross-Departmental Team of Experts: Gather a team from different departments in your nonprofit to bring together different perspectives and expertise.
2. Create a Shared Creately Workspace for Brainstorming SWOT Factors: Invite and encourage your team to brainstorm the different strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your organization and to include them in your shared workspace.
3. Use a Drag and Drop Template to Visualize Results: Take the results of your collaborative brainstorming session and input them into one of Creately’s SWOT templates. The drag and drop features make it easy for anyone on your team to edit and contribute.

Keep in Mind:

• Collaboration: Creately allows you to invite team members to collaborate in real time, ensuring that everyone’s insights are included in the analysis.
• Integration: The tool integrates with platforms like Google Workspace, Slack, and Microsoft Teams, making it easy to incorporate into your existing workflow.

Ready to streamline your strategic planning?

 👉 Try Creately’s SWOT Analysis Tool today!

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Expert Perspectives

🏆 Rachel Werner on How to SOAR to Effective Grant Planning and Prospect Research

Effective grant planning is easier said than done.

Rachel Werner, an expert grant professional who has helped nonprofits garner over 160 million dollars in grant awards and managed over two billion dollars in grant funding, shared with us the keys to making the most of this phase of the grant lifecycle:

Here’s her expert advice:

• Conduct a Needs Assessment for Your Organization: Ask yourself: What are our resource gaps and needs? What are our goals and priorities? The answers should guide your grant's strategy. 
• Map Out Your Greatest Priorities: Use tools like Logic Models and SOAR analyses (strengths, opportunities, aspirations, results) to guide your top funding priorities. 
• Develop Fundraising Goals: Based on the results of your analyses, develop clear fundraising goals and organize them by campaign. Make sure to consider available resource capacity and personnel. 
• Implement and Track: Outline clear policies and procedures to guide your work. Make sure you have systems to track your progress and can develop reports to gauge success. 

This approach not only optimizes your grant-seeking efforts but also ensures that your organization is well-prepared and strategically aligned with the opportunities it pursues.

🔍 Explore strategies for becoming a more effective grant seeker in the full workshop!

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Have You Tried This?

⏰ Use Grant Timelines to Keep Your Team on Track

If you’re finding it challenging to keep everyone on the same page, especially as deadlines approach, try implementing a grant timeline. A well-structured timeline does more than just list deadlines—it creates a shared vision of the tasks ahead, helping your team understand how their work contributes to the overall goal.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Break It Down: Identify key milestones such as proposal drafts, budget approvals, and submission deadlines. Assign responsibilities for each task to avoid last-minute scrambles.
2. Visualize It: Use calendars to map out these tasks visually. This helps in identifying any bottlenecks early on.
3. Review Regularly: Set up brief check-ins to review progress. Adjust the timeline as needed to accommodate unexpected changes or delays.

This small step can make a huge difference in keeping your grant application process smooth and stress-free.

Ready to try it?

👉 Get started with our free grant timeline template and see the results for yourself!

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Opportunities Spotlight

🌍 Gupta International Foundation Grant

Who It’s For: Nonprofits with a focus on global health, education, and economic development.

Next Deadline: September 30, 2024

Grant Amount: Up to $500,000

The Details:

The Gupta International Foundation is committed to supporting innovative projects that address pressing global challenges. This grant is ideal for organizations with programs aimed at improving healthcare access, advancing educational opportunities, or fostering economic development in underserved communities. Projects that demonstrate a scalable impact and sustainability are strongly encouraged to apply.

👉 Apply Here!

🥕 Rooted in Evidence Grants

Who It’s For: Food banks that aim to improve the health and dietary quality of emergency food recipients. 

Next Deadline: March 31, 2025 (LOI)

Grant Amount:  $25,000

The Details:

The Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition (GSCN) is looking to fund innovative and dynamic programming to improve the health and dietary quality of emergency food recipients. Through this funding opportunity, grantee food banks should expect to work collaboratively to design and implement a high-quality project and accompanying evaluation that will yield meaningful data and information to share with partners.

👉 Apply Here!

Want more grant opportunities?

🔍 Explore thousands of other grant opportunities now!

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Networking Nook

The opportunities that were originally shared in this issue of The Impact have since passed. To check out more recent and upcoming live events, go here.

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In Case You Missed It

📑 Article: Examples of Goals for a Nonprofit’s Grant Strategy

Setting clear, actionable goals is the backbone of any successful grant strategy. Whether you're new to grant writing or a seasoned pro, this article provides a detailed guide to help you define and achieve your nonprofit’s funding goals.

👉 Get the Full Story!

📑 How-to Video: The Easiest Way to Find New Grants: Peer Prospecting

Discover how peer prospecting can unlock new grant opportunities you might be missing. This video shows you how to expand your pool of prospects by researching organizations just like yours.

👉 Watch the Video!

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Want to Take the Guesswork Out of Grant Writing?

With endless tasks like prospecting, researching, applying, and managing, grant writing can feel overwhelming.

But it doesn't have to be this way!

With Instrumentl, you get an all-in-one platform designed to streamline every step of your grant journey. Sign up today to get full access to all of our tools and resources, and transform your funding experience!

👉 Try Instrumentl free for 14 days today!