KEY QUESTIONS WHEN EXPANDING YOUR GRANT RESEARCH
By Diane H. Leonard, GPC, President/Owner, DH Leonard Consulting & Grant Writing Services, LLC
In Expanding Your Grant Funder Research, I said “I can hear the objections that follow. ‘We have a grant calendar and we do all of those things you mentioned about grant research. How do we identify “new to us” grant funders?’”
Did you miss the first of this two part blog series? You can read Expanding Your Grant Funder Research in its entirety here.
Now back to the objections outlined above. You have a grant calendar. You are documenting your grant deadlines, relationship building, and research efforts on the existing grant calendar. Others in your organization beyond one staff or one grant writer can access or see the grant calendar. Excellent!
Your question about “Finding the Diamond in the Rough” as it relates to identifying additional funders is about how you can expand your search tools and how you can move beyond what have become “the usual suspects” for your grant seeking organizations. Now the real fun begins.
After you established your best practices and supporting policies and procedures; after you have established your grant calendar and made it a key working tool for your organization, you are left to ponder a different set of questions and concerns as you consider how to grow your grant revenue line item. Questions like:
- Should we begin to include foundations that “do not accept unsolicited proposals” in my research results and within my grant calendar?
- Should we begin to look at forming partnerships with foundations that are more than “just” grant funding relationships?
- Should we begin to look at existing and/or new natural collaborative partners in order to begin submitting collaborative grant applications that financially benefit all partners?
- Should we subscribe to more than one tool in order to ensure that we are not missing any funding opportunities for our organization?
The good news, or perhaps sometimes the challenging news, is that there is no one size fits all answer to or approach to these questions. There are best practices to follow, but the creative way that you identify these additional grant opportunities and expand your relationships and partnerships with grant makers is ultimately up to you and your grant seeking organization.
I am looking forward to digging into these questions as well specific research tools that can help you do that during the Diamond in the Rough webinar on May 20, 2015 provided in partnership with GMS Nonprofit Accounting and Financial Management/Reporting Systems. I hope that you will join us! Registration is available here: https://www.gmsactg.com/finding-the-diamond-in-the-rough.html
