OPENING REMARKS
A grant application—one we’ve referred to throughout the book, Safe Schools/Healthy Students—asked applicants to explain how “short- and long-term strategies will allow for the systematic development of infrastructure that builds organizational, community, and individual capacity to sustain outcomes beyond the life of the grant.” “How are we going to address that mouthful?” everyone wondered. “Where do we begin?” Increasingly, sustainability—plans for keeping programs and organizations up and running once the grant period is over—is a topic writers are asked to discuss in grant proposals. Grantmakers, it seems, don’t like to think that the grant-funded activities will end the second their money runs out. They want some assurance that additional funds will become available to maintain the program. And can you blame them?—EK
But if I Had Enough Money, I Wouldn’t Need to Apply for a Grant in the First Place!
Obviously, if money were no object, all the programs in the world would be created, enhanced, expanded, and sustained if successful. In the past, foundations assumed, often correctly, that a successful program would be picked up and replicated by a local or state government agency.
But now funders at every level, from foundations to the municipality to the state and federal government, assume that you will find someone other than them to maintain a program after their grant ends. Federal agencies assume that local government, or perhaps businesses or individuals, will step in to keep a really good program going. Local government agencies hope the state will take over the funding, or that clients will become eligible for entitlement funding such as Medicare or Medicaid or federal disability insurance, or that clients will be happy (and able) to pay fees for services received when the program works well. We know that this is a catch-22, especially right now. As we are preparing this edition, the headlines are all about city and state budgets being cut and “the sequester” affecting every federal agency as well as states and localities. Organizations (and staff members) we care about deeply are only beginning to experience the effects.
Yes, tough economic climates do make it harder to patch together support for programs you feel are very important, and much harder to keep them going. But there still are ways you can show a grantmaker (and reassure yourself) that at least some of the program elements, if not the entire program, will live on.
Show that other grantmakers are interested in the program. Earlier we suggested that you keep on file a list of current funders of the agency and your programs. Your program budget could show actual income from other grants as part of the total support of an existing program, or it could show all the other grants for which you’re applying to support a new program. (Increasingly, funders are thinking carefully about how realistic you are in projecting such income, and they’re talking to each other, so make sure your list isn’t mostly fantasy.) If you’re a government agency, you should describe the tax-levy support that the locality already provides, or any external government funding stream that is or will become available, in order to demonstrate the stability of the program.
Explain that long-term government support will be available once you’ve developed the program. As we’ve said, foundations have always liked to provide seed money for new programs that they expect the local or state government to take over if they prove to be successful. But in times of government belt-tightening, this is an expectation that has limited prospects.
Nevertheless, if you can mention government funding streams that may be available once the program is established, you should do so. One example is an employment program for out-of-school youth. As we write, there still is federal money, usually through a state or local government agency, for such programs, but the guidelines require the grantee to serve fairly large numbers of young people. If you feel you’re not ready to jump into such a large-scale effort, and you want to start small and then expand once the program is up and running by applying for the government grant, your request may fit right in to a foundation’s “sustainability” criteria.
In a health program you may know that most of your prospective clients will be eligible for reimbursement through an entitlement program or through private insurance. You may be able to show that once your program has reached full capacity it will be supported through this income. If you win a grant to provide special skills training to your home care staff, you may be able to sustain the program by selling the training to other organizations that want their workers trained but don’t have the resources to do it. If you can demonstrate that your approach will work, the grantmaker may be interested in helping you start up and operate the program until the funding stream is well established.
If you are a county or municipal agency, tell the reviewer about prospects that the tax-levy budget will cover the funding once the grant period is over. Be open about any difficulties you may encounter while tax revenues are down, but explain which state or federal grants will be available to fund this program, and describe any success you’ve had in winning such grants. Be sure you make it clear how and when you will apply.
Show underlying support from a larger program. For example, if your agency operates a teen center with other foundation funding or government contracts or grants, show how the proposed karate program or day camp fits into that structure. If you run a senior center, show how a health grant will provide nutrition courses for the participants. These activities may end when the grant runs out, but because there’s an underlying, stable source of funding, it is more likely that you will be able to find other grants or realign your overall program to eke out at least part of what you need to keep a project going.
Demonstrate your organization’s commitment to and experience with fundraising. Do you have development staff? Describe how that staff will pursue additional funding in the future. Have you been working to diversify your funding? Describe your initiatives. Do you have a fundraising plan? Describe it. Have you raised private or government dollars in the past? Explain your past success in raising money to sustain programs that are similar to the one in the grant application.
One organization we know had a program that brought otherwise homebound elderly to a senior center to socialize with each other and with more active seniors. This program started with foundation funding. It had always operated on a shoestring, but because an external evaluation showed that it reduced serious depression significantly among the elderly participants, the agency was committed to keeping it alive, and had done so for more than 10 years. Support was patched together at various times from small foundation and corporate grants, from bits of government contracts when the funder approved, from in-kind contributions, and from the agency’s own general operating funds. Proposals for this program consistently demonstrated the organization’s commitment to keeping it going, and this commitment did help to win additional grants over the years. Sadly, the program finally had to be closed because of cutbacks in other funding. So we know you can’t keep all of your important programs going—there’s just not enough general support available out there even in the best of times. But when it’s appropriate and possible, tell the grantmaker so.
Consider asking participants to help. We’ve all become accustomed to the idea that grants from foundations and government would always allow us to provide free services in needy communities. The reality of the current economic crisis may force us to reevaluate this assumption. In Lesson 1 we talked about fundraising approaches that smaller organizations could use before they were ready to apply for grants. In these economic times, even more established organizations may want to look back at some of these alternative income sources. Of course a bake sale won’t sustain a program, but contributions from participants in the form of dues, fees, or in-kind donations can help offset the costs. Even in the lowest-income communities, program participants may be able to pay modest fees or offer volunteer assistance in return for services. Some organizations have incorporated “pay what you can” contributions into their programs, with some success. If you are thinking about such an approach, explain this to the funder as part of your plan to sustain the program—and show how a grant can help you do this without denying services to those who can’t give anything.
Show how your community partners will be part of the fundraising process. Everyone interested in the proposed program—especially if it is a collaborative one—and connected to the organization in any way needs to get together to figure out how to sustain grant-funded programs. It may be possible for some of the partners to provide portions of funding in a few years. If they can’t, at least you can show how the effort has been made.
Use grant funds for activities and/or resources that have a life beyond the grant period. Training, for instance. If grant funds are used to provide up-to-date training for your organization’s staff, then the newly trained people will continue to do excellent work once the grant period is over. Train-the-trainer courses (sometimes referred to as turnkey training) increase exponentially the number of individuals who receive training. If 10 staff members participate in a comprehensive, intensive, grant-funded seminar conducted by a top-flight instructor with vast experience in the field, and each of them turns around and trains another 10, who train another 10 . . . well, you get the idea. You are training thousands of people for the price of one grant-funded training session. But don’t get carried away. The funders are aware that you’re trying to maximize your grant dollars—to spread them as thin as possible to get the most bang for the buck. But they also can sense when you are spreading the money too thin, and getting no bang whatsoever.
Resource guides also live on when a grant period is over. Funds can be used to develop comprehensive guides that will benefit the community (e.g., an exhaustive listing of all programs in a city or community that provide day-care services, including their requirements, program elements, and ratings). The more comprehensive the resource guide is, the more expensive it is to prepare. But it can be updated inexpensively from one year to the next by simply adding or subtracting a page. Professionally produced and edited training videos will have a life after the grant has concluded. While costly to shoot, they may be widely used over many years—more than making up for the price.
A disaster plan is another example of a project that lives on after a grant. Once such a plan is in place, it costs relatively little to update it in future years.
Coalitions that develop and implement projects collaboratively may have a better chance of sustaining projects. You’ll have more potential funders as a group than each has alone. If an after-school program is a partnership among the school district, a few not-for-profits, the city’s parks department, and a local college—well, maintaining this program may be easier than if one not-for-profit alone ran the program, especially if the partners are pleased with its success.
Is It a Mistake to Request a Grant to Fund a Program That Really Will End When the Grant Period Is Over?
This is a difficult question to answer. If you’re making a film or writing a book or building a homeless shelter that will be funded through a second grant, you may be able to complete it within the grant timetable. But why should a successful program for seniors or teens or young children not be ongoing? If you are very sure that there is no possible source of funding to continue a program, you may feel it’s better not to get started and inevitably disappoint the participants when it ends—not to mention having to lay off staff. Remember what we said in earlier lessons about not chasing money if it doesn’t fit with your mission? This warning applies to pragmatic considerations as well.
But what if you feel strongly that you must start a program to address what you know is a growing need? You may just be a little ahead of a trend. A few years ago, there wasn’t much broad funder interest in programs for people with Alzheimer’s, but because of the growing need, some Medicaid managed-care organizations are turning to these programs as a less costly alternative to nursing homes. You might not have been sure that this would happen when you first realized how necessary such a program was, and you probably would have been afraid you couldn’t sustain it if you got a grant to start it up. But if you started the program anyway because you knew how important it was, you might be in a good position to sustain it now.
One way to get a sense of what grants are going to become available is to keep in touch with advocacy groups working to create new funding streams to support programs of interest to your organization—and don’t forget to tell prospective funders about the advocacy efforts.
Sometimes, even in an inhospitable economic climate, when current funding is uncertain and the prospects for future funding aren’t at all clear, it may be worth pursuing a grant for what is called a demonstration project, a model program that is tested through a rigorous and formal evaluation, which will show the project to be effective or ineffective. If it is effective, it may be expanded and funded through the organization’s budget or other outside funding that becomes available just because it has been demonstrated to work. If it is effective in some aspects but not in others, it may be revised and tested again. If it is shown to be ineffective, of course, there is no point in continuing it.
Finally, as a very last resort, you may have to level with the funder. You may have to say you’ve explored other prospects for support, but there’s nothing out there right now that you can point to. But explain how important the program is, what an impact it will have on people’s lives. And show how committed you are to doing whatever it takes to keep it going once it’s started.
Pop Quiz
Essay Questions
1. Let’s say you want to show that you will sustain a literacy program for immigrants in your community if the Love Foundation gives you a grant to cover the first year. How will you convince the foundation that your program isn’t a “one-year wonder”?
2. Explain why you might decide to apply for a grant even if you’re not sure you can sustain the program.
Short Answer
1. Another good word for sustainability is __________________.