Chapter 5

Fitting Your Idea to Funds

Fitting your idea to funds takes some time and thought. Deciding on where to begin this quest can be daunting, though it doesn’t have to be. In looking for funds, success is all about attitude, organization, and leaving some preconceptions behind.

1. Matching Funds

“Matching funds” is a term used in the funding world for the pieces of the money puzzle you’re in the process of fitting together for your application. Some of the funds will come from you, your organization, or partners through money you’ve saved, special events, and fundraising. A portion could come from public funds, like state, provincial, or federal funding. A percentage could come from the private sector through foundations or corporations. I’ll walk you through them.

2. Some Background

To gain some background on this matching and supporting system, let’s take the technical jargon out of it, put the people element into it, and step back to explore some history of that thing that many of us humans like to do: give, exchange, and prosper.

It’s reassuring to know that our tendency to gather for the common good and redistribution of wealth could go as far back as 3.2 million years to Lucy, whose skeleton was discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia. Why? Because it’s a human tendency to care for our families, share food, and build social networks to cope with our environments.

Moving into more modern times, the word “philanthropy” comes from the Greek “philos” for loving and “anthropos” for human being.

In 1900, with the Century Company, New York industrialist Andrew Carnegie published The Gospel of Wealth, a compilation of magazine articles about philanthropy written between 1886 and 1889. After making his fortune, Carnegie turned to philanthropy with a passion and established the Carnegie Institute.

Carnegie, describing the publishing of his book said in his 1920 Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie, “After my book The Gospel of Wealth was published, it was inevitable that I should live up to its teachings by ceasing to struggle for more wealth. I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution. Our profits had reached forty mills of dollars per year and the prospect of increased earnings before us was amazing.”

Carnegie was good on his word by making his first distribution to the “men in the mills” to whom he gave $4 million “as an acknowledgement of the deep debt I owe to the workmen who have contributed so greatly to my success.” In addition, in this first distribution, he gave a $1 million dollars to maintain libraries and halls for the workers.

Carnegie’s philosophy became popular in the early 1900s and continues on today with the idea of corporate profits being “reinvested in the common good.”

Foundations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have taken this concept to a global scale and focus on improving and changing people’s lives through promoting better healthcare worldwide.

Similarly, in 1999, Canadian Jeffrey Skoll, Past President of eBay and Officer of the Order of Canada created the Skoll Foundation with a mission to support social entrepreneurs who drive change. So far, the foundation has invested millions internationally.

2.1 Innovation from the ground up

Stoking the fires of social betterment requires people who believe they can make changes and have the ability to do so, no matter what their circumstances or where they live.

As an example, Canada’s Women’s Institutes began in 1897 with a mandate that included, “an appreciation of rural living,” and a goal to “develop informed decisions through the study of national and international issues (particularly those affecting women and children).” During WWII, they picked berries, made jam, and sent it to children evacuated to England’s countryside, in tandem with the Women’s Institutes in the UK.

2.2 Local entrepreneurs

One of the societies I work with has been around since 1961. While combing through archival information, I found a record of the board of directors selling bonds in partnership with a credit union in the 1970s. Innovative thinkers and excellent strategists, they wanted to buy property for a new building. They succeeded and created a long life for the society.

Selling bonds, along with everything from bake sales, raffles, cupcake walks, distance walks and runs, online auctions, to swishing (clothing exchanges), auctioning items, and countless other creative activities that spur on community redistribution, have sustained community growth and continue to do so.

One society had a member who decided to have a 50th birthday party to kick off funds for a capital campaign and raised more than $5,000. Another person walked the length of Vancouver Island, 460 kilometers, to raise building funds before the idea of walks and runs became popular. He liked to walk. It was what he could do to contribute.

People’s efforts to help range from the practical to the comical. The UK’s The Mix lists the number one fundraising idea as any wacky sponsored stunt: “Shave your head, wax your chest, bathe in baked beans, dye your hair, auction yourself to the highest bidder.”

The Mix goes on to say “the potential for a sponsored stunt is limited only by your capacity for shame.” This harks back to kissing and dunking booths which had delightful elements of abandon and public embarrassment — all in good fun and for a good cause. Some of us are born to tap into the lighter side of life while making money for a good cause.

From chic evening galas to bathing in beans, these community-based, shoulder-to-shoulder efforts remain the bedrock of participating and giving. The funds go to buildings, emergency efforts for natural disasters, community infrastructure, education, clean water, immunization, and bonding countries together.

Though more than a century apart in their establishment, the Women’s Institutes and the Skoll Foundation and others like it, recognize that there is a plenty of fuel for change from the ground up and many people want to make the world better. Supporting social entrepreneurs and their use of technology takes this human resource and expands it in a multitude of ways.

2.3 Why rehash the past?

Knowing more about society’s trek with funding gives us a better idea of where funding’s been and where it’s heading. Funding is about transformation and balance. It affects us all. From the libraries, galleries, colleges, universities, and museums we enjoy, to the hospitals, water systems, aid for illness, poverty, education, the environment, and more: People’s ideas shift and improve the way things are.

Funding is more than a big deal. It’s enormous and vast. Whether you’re on the giving or receiving end, it’s about the impact of ideas. There is no more exciting field in which to be involved.

And one more thing: It makes people happy. The giver, the receiver, and the university student of today can enjoy the ideas of benefactors from 100 years ago. Think about that as you go forward with your idea and look for funds.

3. Small Communities: Big Impact

The country audience is the difficult audience: a passage which it will approve with a ripple will bring a crash in the city. A fair success in the country means a triumph in the city.

— Mark Twain

Yes, Mark Twain again and I promise it’s the last time, but before I jump into looking for funds, I want to mention working in small- to mid-size nonprofits because, in terms of dollars, it’s where the majority of financial impact and social change takes place.

Whether you work in a small community or larger urban center, there are takeaways from each from which we can all learn. Nevertheless, I sometimes compare the freedom for ingenuity that smaller nonprofits have to that of entrepreneurial start-ups in the tech industry. Different pay scale completely, but there’s freedom to move and be inventive and enormous value in this independence for you, the organization, and the funder.

Why? There are a number of reasons, the main one being that the smaller and more finely tuned the staff, the more latitude the organization has for change, movement, collaboration, and impact. Funders want impact.

In Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High Impact Nonprofits (Jossey-Bass, 2012), authors Leslie Crutchfield and Heather Grant explain that, “According to a study by Urban Institute, more than 80 percent of all American charities operate on less than $1 million annually.” Crutchfield and Grant go on to explain, “For every one of the large nonprofits featured in our initial research, there are literally hundreds of thousands of organizations that are serving local communities and aspiring to have outsized impact with fewer resources.”

I’ve seen this difference in how things operate firsthand while working on a study-stint in a large, magnificent organization early in my career. Numerous departments with various decision-making processes restricted the organization’s latitude and slowed staff’s ability to make, and act upon, decisions quickly. This experience gave me valuable insight into the great potential of smaller organizations which professional fundraisers sometimes refer to as “small shops.”

If you’re working for a small nonprofit, keep this in mind and make the most of your freedom and creativity.

4. Getting Started on Your Search for Funds

The good news is that there are multiple ways to bring partners and funders together and increase support for your idea, so let’s get started on your search in the wide world of funding.

4.1 Take a quick look around

When taking the first steps in getting your idea off the ground, it’s worth your time to step back for a moment to see what drives funders’ willingness to contribute. An easy way to do this is to have a quick look online at five funders you can find under grants and foundations in your region.

On their web pages, read “about us,” “grants,” “criteria,” “our values,” or “funding priorities.” Even if they’re not within your idea’s interest area, you’ll gain some broad knowledge about how funders see fund leveraging and participation as critical components of a project’s success.

There’s no secret formula for looking for funds. The fact is that you need to fit your agenda with the funder’s agenda. In Mari-Anne Kehler and Andrew Bird’s Putting the Profit In Nonprofit: 5 Power Success Strategies for Nonprofits (Amazon Digital Services, 2014), they ask the question “Why should corporations and individuals care? You must speak to their agendas. Corporations often discuss their agendas publicly through SEC filings, press releases, company websites, newspaper stories, blog postings and listings of projects they already support.”

There’s no secret formula for looking for funds. The fact is that you need to fit your agenda with the funder’s agenda.

The funding world offers a wide spectrum of options. Lead your search for matching funds with your draft budget and written summary in hand. Look for funds in your area of need, at your level of request, and be strategic. If you happen to wander off the path and fall into the rabbit hole of a funding portal, you can waste countless hours, unless you’re strategic in your search.

4.2 A note on operating versus special projects

As you begin to scope out what’s on the funding horizon, ask yourself, am I applying for special project funds or operating funds?

Operating refers to funding ongoing, year-round staff wages, overhead costs, rent, utilities, banking, building maintenance and repair, travel, and insurance.

Special projects have a beginning, middle, and end within a specific timeframe. Examples include development, programs, strategic plans and projects, contracting, and capital projects.

Typically, funders prefer special projects. Most granting agencies and foundations do not fund year-round operation of organizations unless, like some private foundations, they have a specific mandate to do so.

If your goal is to attain operating funding, you can plan sequential special projects to build up your organization’s core revenue streams and reputation. By doing this, you’ll eventually establish healthy operations which some agencies and foundations will want to support.

5. Public and Private Grants

Aside from the community-generated funds you’ve put together through your organization’s and local partner’s efforts, there are two traditional avenues for finding matching funds: public sector grants and private sector grants.

Here’s a major wayfinding strategy that will cut your time in half in looking for funds in these two levels of funding. I mention this theme several times because sector portals, whether you’re looking for money or contributing money, give you valuable information.

When you’re looking for public or private funds always look to your sector’s associations. They may be the first to provide you with information on grants. Also, umbrella organizations that represent funders, such as the Community Foundations of Canada, provide information on funds that might be available to you.

5.1 Public grants

There are public grants created and controlled by all levels of government from village, town, or city; region; county; state or provincial; to federal.

6. First Step: Look to Your Sector (the Inner Circle)

Within most sectors, there are a wide variety of public, or local government, regional, county, provincial or state, and federal grants available for special projects.

Subscribe to newsletters and feeds pertaining to your community and sector to receive current information and to be prepared for announcements of time-sensitive grants. An example of an agricultural sector portal site is Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE): “Grants and Education to Advance Innovations in Sustainable Agriculture” which gives information on grants available in each state and on professional development.

These grants are tailored for needs in your sector and have an organic flow to them because peer groups interested in bolstering the health of the sector are sharing them. They can have a high success rate because peers, government, or community economic development agencies may have sent them along. If you decide to submit an application, they can help to champion your cause.

Also, make it a habit to subscribe to, or check into, government pages that apply specifically to the sector in which you’re working. For instance, if you’re looking at an idea for forestry, subscribe to the provincial or state and federal sites for those sectors. This is where you’ll get the first news and announcements on funds available. These sites are particularly fruitful just before or after elections when new initiatives come into play, especially in terms of providing jobs.

Become a member of professional associations within your interest area. This is an important peer group that has a vested interest in your success and success within the sector.

7. Second Step: Search a Wider Circle

There are widely-known portals for government grants, like the United States’ Grants.Gov. In Canada, you can go to Canada.ca and type a search for grants and you’ll be able to find a wide variety of grants which you can search by subject, date the government announced, or file type.

The province of Ontario has a wonderful site, Grants Ontario (grants.gov.on.ca), on which you can search grants by sector or ministry, and they list grants alphabetically. There are other portals such as this and I’ve listed some of them in Appendix II and on my website at griffithscommunications.com. This step is more time-consuming than having a peer pass information along to you and has less built-in support than the first step, but there are excellent opportunities to fit your idea into the funds available.

7.1 Universities

University sites are excellent portals for finding funds for furthering education and research because they want students to succeed. Universities are also generous about providing samples of successful applications, documents, and budgets. Some are open to the public and, even if you’re not applying in the area of education, it gives you a great resource for forms, narrative, and examples of success.

7.2 Private and public foundations

Private foundations are family foundations whose funds have come from a corporation, person, or family and they may or may not give out grant money while a public foundation has funds from a number of sources, families, individuals, and government. They provide grants and are public charities. If you want more detailed information on foundations, I suggest you get a general idea of them at GrantSpace.org, which is a free service of Foundation Center, a subscription-based service for funding searches. GrantSpace is also an excellent portal for document samples.

7.3 Look to umbrella organizations

Learn about how foundations operate and find them through their umbrella organizations/associations.

Umbrella associations do the work of pulling businesses and organizations within sectors together to become more effective. Reviewing the best practices of foundations through the associations they belong to will save you a lot of time in understanding what they do.

These associations form a framework for goals, ethics, standards, and best practices within industries. The information you find on these sites is valuable, and gives you insight into how foundations support communities and form partnerships. The sites also can link you to foundations in your location.

The Community Foundations of Canada (communityfoundations.ca) and the US Council on Foundations (cof.org) provide information on community foundations. If you’re looking for international foundations, I have listed a number of informational sites in Appendix II.

Frequently, community foundations have an intake calendar for organizations seeking funds. Larger foundations, like the Vancouver Foundation, have interest areas they prefer to fund and provide substantial information on their website about their goals and intentions.

In addition to searching what these organizations fund, it’s equally important to read what foundations state about their purpose. The Council on Foundations site states that it “provides the opportunity, leadership and tools needed by philanthropic organizations to expand, enhance and sustain their ability to advance the common good.” Integrity and transparency are required to be a member of one of these associations and these sites give you an excellent idea of best practices amongst foundations.

Many times, there is a trickle-down effect in these associations as they want their members to uphold these same best practices. As a grantee, you can expect, to some degree that they will require the same level of standards from you.

7.4 Paid subscriptions for grant and foundation information

If you have the time and money within your organization, there are subscription sites, like Foundation Center, that provide information about foundations and grants.

Some require an investment that may be above and beyond what your organization is able to pay. In this case, think of partnering with local government or an agency that likes your work. They may have the budget to subscribe to one of these portals and not mind putting you on another “seat” on the package that they have purchased.

Going into one of these portal sites is like walking into a Costco-like environment of funding opportunities. There are crates and pallets of thousands of funding opportunities from which to choose.

These portals do a commendable job of stacking foundation giving to the ceiling. It is a wonder to see how many foundations and granting agencies are supporting efforts. If you have the opportunity to enter one of these portals, I recommend it.

But, before you spend your pennies to find more pennies, think about what kind of fund might fit your need. Subscribing to a service like this might not fit how you operate. It might fit a well-oiled machine like a large university’s fundraising “shop” which brings in millions each year for special projects and endowments.

However, that might not be who you are. I’m happy to say, for those who do not have the budget for it, there are numerous solutions to your search for funds through umbrella associations and through visiting sites like Charity Village, which can lead you to more information, or by reading books like Getting Grants: The Complete Manual of Proposal Development and Administration by Alexis Carter-Black (Self-Counsel Press, 2010). It has chapters on US federal government grants and foundation directories. Remember in any kind of search you undertake, you’re proactively fitting the fund to your need rather than your need to the fund.

7.5 Donations and online auctions

Depending on what your nonprofit’s business is, donations can come in different forms: cash, some nonprofits accept land, and the Kidney Foundation of Canada is known for accepting cars which they then recycle or resell.

Ongoing donations can range from “donations at the door” of your establishment to annual gifts and planned giving which fundraising professionals manage.

I know of one organization that receives gifts which they auction off with a yearly online auction and do well with it.

The discussion of donations and crowdfunding, which I’ll get to in the next chapter, is full of potential. But before you start driving down the street, rolling down the windows disbursing cash, you have to know, for all aspects of funding and funding acknowledgement, a professional accountant will ensure a safer journey for your organization.

7.5a Walk hand-in-hand with an accountant

Raising funds from online auctions, just like any other form of raising funds and acknowledging donors, can be complex, so check to see what rules apply to you and your organization in giving tax receipts for donations, valuing gifts, and reporting. Take it one step further and hire an accountant who specializes and has experience in nonprofit work, and can help guide you through this process.

7.6 Publications

Publications, books, maps, field guides, film, and more, can all be surprising beneficial legacy projects for bringing money into an organization. If it’s a publication from which people can learn, that they can enjoy or give away as gifts, it will have more staying power. This could generate annual royalties for years to come. Museums such as the Natural History Museum in Ottawa and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco publish beautiful and informative books to support their efforts. You can apply the same concepts of great information and quality design to important information from your community.

Put your shoulder to the wheel and try to work with a publisher so you have a team of excellent editors with whom you can work. They want a product that interests people and so do you. Sometimes granting agencies will support writing efforts, particularly if you’re working with a publisher.

8. How to Organize Your Findings

Once you’ve had a look at public and private funds you may have found funds that apply to your idea now and perhaps others that could apply to future phases or, even, for other projects. Save your time by recording this information in a grant schedule. See Sample 3 for a basic example of a grant schedule for the Optimistic Naturalist Society which includes intake dates for foundations, local state or provincial funding, federal grants, and sponsors. Some have open intake dates and others vary from one to several times a year. The schedule illustrates grant criteria, if the funder receives the application online, by email, or regular mail. You can also create columns for appropriate projects and the funder’s website.

Sample 3: Grant Schedule

9. Hiring Grant and Fundraising Professionals

Your organization may be thinking about hiring someone to help with raising funds. There are professionals who can help you, depending upon whether you need assistance with grants or with fundraising.

There are two main categories of professionals from whom you can seek assistance with raising funds and they are grant professionals and fundraising professionals. There are several professional areas involved in fundraising and sometimes the titles and the duties overlap.

9.1 Know who and why you’re hiring

9.1a Grant professionals

In making a comparison between grant and fundraising professionals, I’m going to step out on a limb and say that grant professionals are the wallflowers of a very social industry.

Grant professionals help to develop your ideas and coalesce information into succinct messages for funders. Grant professionals research, synthesize ideas, and analyze funds that fit both the organization’s and funder’s needs. They introduce ideas to funders through narrative, and, sometimes, budgets, and follow through with relationships with funders. They can also monitor followup on grants and create final summaries and reports.

A grant professional’s world is akin to delving into a new issue of National Geographic each month. There are always new subjects and ideas about which to research and learn and to analyze strategies for funds. It takes listening and concentration and involves a process in which the big picture is brought to a summary narrative which informs both clients and funders. A grant professional’s writing, at the very best, constructs bridges between organizations and funders.

In addition to advancement writing, grant professionals work with clients to create budgets and timelines, and outline responsibilities. They also talk to funders with the client to prepare for an application or to see how funding can be expanded exponentially with matching funds in the areas we’ve discussed in this chapter.

With grant professionals, there’s usually a more defined beginning, middle, and end to each project. It is, from my perspective, a privilege to learn new subject areas and to help clients move along their continuum of growth.

9.1b Fundraising professionals

Fundraising professionals are those courageous people who enjoy dancing the continuous dance between an organization and its members and donors.

Although grant writing may be included in what a fundraising professional oversees, he or she plays an ongoing, critical, and complex role between an organization and its benefactors for the long haul. The job is to meet targets set out by the organization to attain funds from corporate and individual donors, from private and public sources, and to oversee cycles of requests, giving, and acknowledgement.

For larger institutions and organizations, fundraising professionals, also known as Development Officers, champion the organization and move it along with campaigns and by developing long-term relationships with donors.

Fundraising professionals also work with donors for planned giving. In Fundraising for Nonprofit Groups (Self-Counsel Press, 1999), authors Joyce Young, Ken Wyman, and John Swaigen explain: “Planned giving ranges from concepts that are simple, such as a bequest in a supporter’s will, to complex financial arrangements that require a fundraiser to have a combination of personal sensitivity and technical knowledge of tax planning. It includes memorial gifts, bequests in wills, gifts of the proceeds of life insurance policies, gifts of limited interests in property, and gifts of stocks and bonds. It can also include gifts made in celebrations of happy occasions.”

9.1c Professional fundraisers

There’s another category for bringing funds in and that’s the category of professional fundraisers. The difference between a fundraising professional (or a person in the fundraising profession) and a professional fundraiser is that the first refers to an individual and the latter refers to a firm or business contracted to raise funds.

Terms and definitions in the funding world can be confusing, so make sure you check with the associations I’ve listed to find the right situation for what you want to accomplish.

9.2 Should a grant or fundraising professional receive a percentage of funds?

A few months ago, a community in eastern British Columbia called me to ask if they should hire a consultant who was offering to create a grant proposal for an “incentive” percentage. In other words, if the consultant wrote a proposal for a project targeting, say, $1 million, the consul-tant would write it for free in exchange for five percent or $50,000 of the total on approval. Should they do this? The short answer is no. There are many reasons why. Here are just a few:

• Writing proposals is complex business. Though a grant writer usually ends up solo in actually writing the summaries and perhaps doing the budgets, the process involves consensus from many community members, estimates from vendors, cover letters, motions from municipal/city councils or First Nation Council Resolutions, working with other consultants, and more.

• In short, it’s hard work. It requires experience and knowledge. Professional time spent on creating a thorough proposal, approved or not, is valuable and worthy of compensation despite what the outcome might be.

• Writing proposals and fundraising requires confidentiality, objectivity, and arm’s length work, especially when dealing with funders and donors. Nothing will sink a project faster than introducing a project to funders who examine the worth of the project for a community and see that there is an incentive-based element to the application.

• On approval, where would the funds come from for the consultant? In this case, the community would have to come up with $50,000. Sometimes, funders will allow a percentage for administration but I’ve never seen a line item on a grant application form titled “percentage compensation for the grant writer.”

Grant and fundraising professionals both have associations with which they can be affiliated. Examples are the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Grant Professionals’ Association, and American Grant Writers Association. Have a look at the FAQs about ethics on these sites. These organizations also have best practices tips and provide information about who might be available in your area to assist you. The Association of Fundraising Professionals has excellent leadership interviews on Vimeo and YouTube.

10. Tips to Think about as You Sort through Possible Grants and Funders

While the possibilities for funding are endless, here are some things to think about which will make your exploration of the world of funding easier.

10.1 Manage your time

Make clear decisions beforehand about how and where you’re going to search for funds and stick with that decision. Using a basic grant schedule like the one I’ve provided in Sample 3 will save you time.

10.2 Create strategies that work for you

If you need to, map out your search on paper or use Scapple to plan your search and use the steps I’ve suggested for both public and private funds. Otherwise, you may spend too much time meandering through your search.

Applying for every offer of funding that lands on your desk is sometimes more costly than anyone perceives, in time and matching dollars. Before you respond to a dollar amount you see on a grant announcement ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you have the time and energy to embark upon another proposal?

• Do you have the budget and funding to match the criteria?

• Does the funding fit your need and capacity?

If you can say yes to these questions, the funding is worth considering.