Hi, I’m Alex Dunn, the Millionaire Grant Lady. I have 15 years of grant writing experience and over $103 million in awards under my belt. I’m excited to share with the DFW501c.news audience some tips, tricks and opportunities in Federal Funding.
On federal grants, we are continuing our Texas Hold ‘Em strategy. We are waiting, and seeing, and verifying as much as we can.
While we continue to Hold ‘Em on federal grants, it is worth discussing the importance of foundation funding for nonprofits.
As you are building your nonprofit, most nonprofits early on come to understand that they must increase their funding so they can serve more people, serve the community, and do all the things that they got into this industry to do.
I advise nonprofits to diversify revenue sources. Some sources of revenue could include earned income, individual and corporate donors, fundraising events, and of course, grants.
There are three main types of grants.
- Federal grants that come from the federal government.
- State and local government grants that come from your state and local governments.
- Private foundation grants that come from private foundations.
The federal government has historically given away hundreds of millions of dollars in grants every single year, and it is a large source of funding for organizations in America. However, federal funding is vulnerable to shifts in government priorities, and government grants are not right for every organization.
Private foundations are operated outside of the government, and so private foundation funding is my favorite kind of funding to recommend for most of the nonprofits that I talk to.
Why are federal grants not right for everyone?
Federal grants are:
- Extremely Competitive: In a typical federal grant competition, they may make ten to fifteen awards across the whole country, and there are large organizations that are industry leaders applying for these grants. This makes the awards very competitive.
- Complicated: Federal grant applications are also very complicated to complete, compile, and submit. Most federal grant applications are more than 100 pages long with attachments, and they require a significant amount of time to develop.
- Only Open on the Government’s Timeline: Grant opportunities come open based on government priorities, negotiations, and agreements. Typically, once a government grant opportunity comes open, organizations will have around four to eight weeks to prepare the application and submit. If the organization misses this window, there will likely not be another opportunity to submit a grant for this priority ever again.
Foundation grants are:
- Less Competitive: While each foundation is different, generally, foundation grants are less competitive than a federal grant. A local foundation may receive hundreds of applications, but they also may give out hundreds of awards. This increases the chances that one of those awards will go to you.
- Less Complicated: Each foundation asks for proposals to be submitted in their own unique way, but many foundation proposals are around 10 pages of writing with an additional 10 to 20 pages of attachments. This means less work goes into preparing the proposal and gathering the required information.
- Open on the Foundation’s Timeline: Foundation timelines tend to be much less strict than government timelines. Typically, foundations will have two or more application windows in a year, and many foundations have rolling deadlines. A rolling deadline means that they will review applications at set points (say at a board meeting), but they will accept applications at any point prior to the board meeting. Basically, this means that organizations can apply to most foundations at any time, whenever the organization is ready.
While we continue to watch this evolving situation, foundation grants continue as normal.
