Once, when I worked for a small, under-resourced organization, we created a project that perfectly fit a community need, was structured for efficiency, and had a large return on investment from donors. I approached an eager donor who was familiar with our efforts, our successes, and our available resources. I asked him for $1.3M. He told me he loved the project, was thrilled with our design, and really wanted to give us the gift. Then, he said, “unfortunately, your organization doesn’t have the ability to receive a gift as large as $1.3M.” I was dumbfounded. We had done everything right in evaluating, justifying, and planning a strategy to meet an essential need in our community. Yet, as an organization, we didn’t have the operational structure to receive a large donation. In that instant of excitement and disappointment, I realized that all fundraising efforts should only start after a close examination of an organization’s situation, their board, their staff, their infrastructure and their standing in the community. Each of these will influence an organization’s potential for raising funds.

The key steps in the process of assessing your fundraising capacity are: understanding how your organization is perceived internally and externally, knowing your strengths and weaknesses, and prioritizing your efforts and resources. Likewise, a solid market analysis is essential in developing a diversified and successful fundraising strategy.

After these initial strategic considerations, the next level of capacity building is to determine the size of your potential donor database. Once you identify these donors, begin making the match between you and them and solicit funds to develop projects of mutual interest.

Specifically, the steps to build your organization into a financial success are:

1. Know your organization by creating:
   1. Strategic plan
   2. Market analysis
   3. Needs assessment
   4. Current assessment of potential donors
2. Build a successful board consisting of:
   1. Community leaders
   2. Business leaders
   3. Political leaders
   4. Philanthropic leaders
3. First level fundraising strategies consist of:
   1. Classic and contemporary media presence, from local news to social media
   2. Regularly scheduled newsletters and updates
   3. Direct solicitations to the donors you already know
   4. Building member databases
      1. Collect emails at public events
      2. Provide free membership while sharing emails
      3. Use current members to introduce new members
   5. Annual appeal letters to donors
      1. Tell a story
      2. Explain how the potential donor can help
      3. Ask for the money
   6. Exploring area philanthropies & corporate donors from
      1. Community foundations
      2. Local businesses
4. Second level fundraising strategies consist of:
   1. Grants
   2. Small to medium-sized special events
   3. Planned giving programs
5. Top level fundraising strategies consist of:
   1. Capital campaigns
   2. Large scale events

Fundraising strategies vary from one type of organization to another. If the organization is small, it is best to employ a strategy that builds your supporter database and directly solicits them for cash donations. In contrast, a large, established organization may be in the perfect position to host a sizable gala.

When your organization has a track record of successes, strategic efforts should be made to attract the most powerful and influential board members. These board members will bring credibility to your organization as you begin to seek larger donations. As your board stature grows, so will your options in fundraising.

An honest assessment of your organization and your place in the community will help you understand the best approach to take to effectively secure funds. Thus, with broad community recognition, a strong track record of success, financial efficiency, and influential board members, you’ll be able to employ a large diversity of effective fundraising strategies.

The post How to Build a Successful Nonprofit appeared first on Grant Training Center Blog.

According to The State of Global Giving by U.S. Foundations, during a five-year study from 2011-2015, grant-making by American foundations to charitable organizations outside the United States reached an all-time high. In 2018, international funding topped $10.3 billion, compared to $2.1 billion sixteen years before (an increase of almost 500 percent).

International donorship represented over 27 percent of all grants made by American foundations, while the average grant amount tripled from just over $200,000 to more than $604,000.

The major funding categories are as follows: health (52 percent); economic development (12.5 percent); environment (11 percent); agriculture and food security (8.3 percent); education (7 percent); and natural disaster funding, though on the rise, currently amounts to only a single percentage point.

The top three categories for these grants – amounting to more than 100 percent (due to some overlap) were as follows: project-related (65.2 percent), research & evaluation (39 percent), and capacity building (10 percent).

It is notable that the majority of these grants were channeled through intermediaries, which then parceled the money to other organizations.

Also significant is the fact that over half of all international giving by private foundations came from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Sub-Saharan Africa benefited from the largest share of global grant-making by United States foundations and accounted for a full quarter of total grant dollars provided in the five years between 2011-2015.

Besides the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, examples of other major U.S. foundations that make international grants are:

• The Ford Foundation in addition to other programs, funds rural communities to gain more secure rights over land and forests, focused especially on indigenous peoples, racial and ethnic minorities and women.
• The Open Society Foundations funds programs to build vibrant and inclusive societies, grounded in respect for human rights and the rule of law.
• The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation provides funds for family planning and reproductive health, with a decided focus on East and West Africa.
• The Walton Family Foundation seeks grantees who can expand access to high-quality education and also address global environmental issues.
• The Rockefeller Foundation primarily funds public health, eradicating disease (by seeding the development of vaccines for yellow fever and malaria), as well as visionary approaches to rural development in Asia and Africa.
• The Jane Jacobs – The Center for the Living City funds opportunities for community engagement through the lens of the ecology of cities in order to advance understanding of the interconnected human and ecological systems.
• The David and Lucile Packard Foundation supports rural communities, developing future leaders, restoring ecosystems and protecting the oceans.
• The Bloomberg Philanthropies funds economic development for emerging economies, public health, as well as education.
• The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation provides money for wildlife conservation, environmental protection and science education.

The top ten corporate foundations making international gifts are the: Coca-Cola Foundation, Citi Foundation, JP Morgan Chase Foundation, Caterpillar Foundation, GE Foundation,  ExxonMobil Foundation, UPS Foundation, Walmart Foundation, Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies Contribution Fund and Goldman Sachs Foundation.

Every one of these donors has its own application criteria, but for the majority the following primary considerations are paramount and include:

• Alignment with the foundation’s funding priorities
• Organization’s capacity to carry out the expected activities
• Effectiveness of the proposed activities to address global urgent needs
• Ability to achieve measurable and positive impact

It is axiomatic that by its very nature, international funding is an extremely complex business. Clearly, it is also enormously competitive and more often than not there are several layers of different approaches as well as challenges that need to be addressed. These include governmental protocols, currency fluctuations, and partnership issues as well as fiscal controls and responsibilities.

Successful proposals to these funding agencies start by understanding their culture, “language”, interests, criteria, and previous funding history as well as partnership engagements. Other key areas that govern funding for these donors are credibility, a solid and perspicacious insight into the specific international arena that is in need of funding, as well as a proven record of success.

The post Foundations & Corporations: The Art of Procuring International Funding appeared first on Grant Training Center Blog.

Every donor is unique. For example, the institutes that comprise the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have dissimilar missions, and each has its own culture and requirements. The same can be said of the Department of Defense (DoD) and a myriad of other donors. Chasing the money rather than good ideas is a major flaw. Donors do not fund those focused on money, they fund those who are passionate about a good idea that aligns with their goals. Consequently, here are the five things you need to know about the language and culture of any donor before you write:

• What are the priorities of the donor? Each donor has its own priorities. For example, the National Science Foundation (NSF) encourages interdisciplinary programs and transformative ideas, and their definition and characteristics appear on their website. The DoD has five major foci: peacekeeping and war-fighting efforts, homeland security, evacuation and humanitarian causes. Each of these subcategories has their own mission and language. Turning to foundations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation seeks to understand the world’s inequities. “Whether the challenge is low-yield crops in Africa or low graduation rates in Los Angeles, we listen and learn so we can identify pressing problems that get too little attention. Then we consider whether we can make a meaningful difference with our influence and our investments, whether it is a grant or a contract.” As this demonstrates, each donor clearly addresses their funding culture via their priorities.
• What is the mission of the donor? All donors have their own missions, which give us an understanding of how they visualize their funding priorities. For example, the NSF’s mission is: “To envision a nation that capitalizes on new concepts in science and engineering and provides global leadership in advancing research and education.” The NIH’s mission is: “To seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability.” The Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) run by the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command of DoD has a similar emphasis to NIH, but its mission is to relate health research to the armed forces. Even though both NIH and DoD fund innovative ideas to combat disease, their missions and foci are different.
• What have donors funded in the past and why? One of the best insights into a funding agency is who and what they funded in the past and how much money they awarded. Federal donors list abstracts of winning proposals, along with the name of the funded institution and the Principal Investigator/Project Director. Accordingly, we can instantly know who they consider credible and their focus. Foundations will often describe what they have funded in the past on their website. Their 990pf tax forms will also show how their funds were allocated. The decisive question for you to ask is how your idea and their funding patterns match.
• What are the evaluation criteria for awarding grants? How grants are evaluated is one of the best indicators of the donor’s culture. This will include the evaluation criteria, who the evaluators are and how they are chosen. For some donors, such as NIH and NSF, reviewer selection is not a blind process as reviewers who are chosen have a deep understanding of the agency culture. In the case of foundations, it is more difficult to discern who the reviewers are, but one good way is to understand the vision of the leadership and the makeup of the board, which will be reflected in the reviewers chosen.
• What is the language of the donor? In many cases donors speak different “languages”, which are in the same family of languages. For example, the various US Department of Education Title Programs (e.g. Title III or Title VI), address different topics. Some address underrepresented groups, others international and others centers of excellence. Similarly, NSF directorates and NIH institutes have different missions, speak to different audiences, and address their vision of the world on their own terms. It is these “languages” that need to be understood, spoken, and incorporated into grants in order to give you the competitive edge.

In conclusion, submitting similar proposals to different donors is a fatal flaw. In order to succeed, we have to understand first and seek to be understood secondly.

The post 5 Things to Know About the Language and Culture of a Grant Donor appeared first on Grant Training Center Blog.

Steps You Must Take to Promote Your Idea to a Foundation

• The first step to determining how best to approach a foundation is to do your research. You can begin with their website, which in many cases includes what they do, what they fund, who they fund and what they believe are important problems that need to be solved.
• To avoid speaking a different language than the donor, research the foundation’s history. How they evolved and who they are today will shed light on their core values and the issues that are important to them. Once you have identified these elements, make a chart that includes: the foundation’s name, funding priorities, geographical funding region, and how your request parallels their vision.
• Review the foundation’s tax returns (990PF) to identify who they funded, how much money they gave and the purpose of their funding. This will give you a more comprehensive view of how your request compares to what they support.
• Understanding the makeup of the foundation’s board and leadership will give you excellent insight into the approach you will need to take in making your request. If, for example, you are submitting a proposal to a foundation that funds issues related to health disparities and the board is made up of physicians, business persons, and patients, your language should be such that your proposal speaks to all of them at the same time.
• Once you have done your research, you will need to customize your “elevator pitch” using language that the donor understands, and frame your work as an opportunity for the donor to fulfill their mission. Here you will need to align your mission, values, and vision in a manner that makes you a credible partner.

Let us look at some examples of what foundations want and what they expect from grant seekers. Starting with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the first thing that we see on their website is what they believe to be their greatest priorities in the U.S. and abroad. Specifically, they describe those as follows:

The path out of poverty begins when the next generation can access quality healthcare and a great education.In developing countries, we focus on improving people’s health and wellbeing, helping individuals lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, we seek to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—can access the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life.

They emphasize their values, mission, vision and priorities throughout the website. This information, along with further research, will give you an understanding of whether you are a good fit, and if so, how you should align your proposal to speak the same language.

Turning to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation website, we immediately see the words “We believe” with a description of what they fund:

We believe in supporting and building upon the mindsets, methods and modes of change that hold promise to advance children’s best interests generally, and those of vulnerable children in particular.

They further explain where they focus their resources:

Concentrating our resources on early childhood (prenatal to age 8), within the context of families and communities, offers the best opportunity to dramatically reduce the vulnerability caused by poverty and racial inequity over time.

At the end of the day, your grant proposal should complement a foundation’s mission and vision. You will best succeed if you speak the same language, fit into the same culture, and present a plan that promises mutual future success.

The post Do You Speak the Private Donor`s Language? appeared first on Grant Training Center Blog.

Being able to describe your proposal in this abbreviated style signifies that you have mastered your idea and can describe it succinctly. If you feel that your idea is too complicated to describe in a few minutes, chances are you will not be able to write an effective abstract, specific aims, or project summary. No matter what your topic is or who your constituents are, answering the following questions will help you compose a successful elevator pitch.

What is your idea?

Your idea should emerge from a well-researched problem. The question should follow the problem. For example, if you have a research question, you should identify the phenomenon to be studied: Can changes in diet and upbringing compensate for genetic abnormalities? Or, in the case of the attendee in my Chicago workshop: How can we create accommodating sports activities for physically disabled children?

What is the significance or importance of your request?

Does the project address an important problem or a critical barrier to progress in the field or area? If the aims or objectives of the research or project are achieved, how will knowledge, technical capability, or behaviors in your area improve? How will successful completion of the aims or objectives change the concepts, methods, technologies, treatments, services, or preventive interventions that drive your field?

Who will be in charge of the project?

Project leadership depends on expertise and experience. Examples of good performances in the past should be relayed in your elevator pitch. Demonstrating a record of accomplishments will speak to your credibility, a major selling point for many donors.

How innovative is your idea?

Having a fresh and new approach with the power to shift paradigms is critical for NIH and NSF researchers. A new approach to serving the beneficiaries of an intervention can influence donors in the same way. Also, leveraging models that have worked for other fields or disciplines could be part of a convincing argument. You will need to stress how your idea is compelling, urgent, and needed.

What is the environment?

Donors understand that inappropriate or unprepared facilities can spoil what would otherwise have been a successful project, and will want assurances that this is not the case. Will your work environment contribute to the probability of success? If so, include this information in your pitch.

What will be the Overall impact?

Close your pitch with the overall impact your project will have. How will the end result of your work have a powerful influence in your field? What will be the ongoing effect on the lives of your beneficiaries? Depending on your idea, you should also address the broader impacts your idea will have on your community, society, or even other researchers.

With thoughtful preparation, you can condense your proposal into a few key points. Emphasizing everyday relevance, tailoring the speech to the audience, and using simple terms and analogies can turn a muddled, dissertation-length discussion into a punchy two-minute pitch. Turning a complex idea into a simple concept is the ultimate goal of an elevator pitch, and doing so proves you have command of the project or research.

The post Why should I have an Elevator Pitch? appeared first on Grant Training Center Blog.

Institutional Compliance

My institution at the time was a large 501c3 research organization with over $100 million in grant revenue per year, and an award portfolio of almost $1 billion. Like most nonprofits and research institutions, we lived and died by our ability to procure grants and maintain a healthy sponsored projects portfolio. Participation in proposal development was mandatory for researchers, and the institution was constantly forecasting workload needs based on submitted, pending, awarded, and closing grants. The culture at my institution encouraged PIs to aim for large, multi-year grants with padded budgets, since these were the most likely to yield an automatic no-cost extension or two. Furthermore, most researchers could only maintain employment through their grant portfolios. Given this environment, it is easy to understand how this PI believed that the grants being awarded to him were his personally.

Accountability to the Donor

Unveiling the truth about grant awards is rather anti-climactic. In the simplest language, grants are non-repayable funds or products, disbursed by a sponsor to a recipient. Most awards support a specific project and require some level of compliance, evaluation, and reporting. Sponsors of all kinds have the money and desire to advance certain agendas, activities, or research areas, but do not have the internal resources to do so. Specifically, foundations and not-for-profit organizations award funds based on a recipient’s ability to further a mission or goal, as well as fulfilling the work outlined in a proposal submission. Although a PI or team submits the proposal, sponsoring organizations do not recognize individuals as entities that can or will share responsibility on the same level. Instead, that burden falls to the organization or institution to which those PIs and teams belong. Moreover, a single person cannot carry out the proposed work or research to the degree that an organization can.

Tax Liability

The additional issue of tax liability is enough to dispel the erroneous notions of possession from most researchers. Institutions with the capacity to receive grants are either exempt from IRS tax liability, or they are large enough to absorb said tax liability. Excepting most scholarships, fellowships, and some disaster relief aid, if a grant is awarded and accepted by an individual, that person will be responsible for paying all the tax liabilities associated with it. I will never forget a meeting where I met a handful of faculty members who had been accepting grants awarded to them personally. The IRS had finally caught up with them and was demanding over $50,000 in back taxes, with the penalty for non-payment being time in prison. Had the institution accepted these awards, there would have been no tax liability at all.

Remember, grants are made to institutions, not individuals. Understanding why grants are awarded, and what the researcher’s role is in administering the award is vital for an organization’s ability to survive an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) audit. As Project Directors or PIs, you have been selected by your institution to act as the representative for the award. You have been made accountable for managing the programmatic requirements supplied by the sponsoring organization. While this is an awesome responsibility, it does not make the grant funding yours. Should there be an audit issue down the road, you may end up quite grateful for this fact.

The post Whose Money Is It, Anyway? appeared first on Grant Training Center Blog.

In a study published in the February 28, 2011 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers at Duke University Medical Center found that individuals who were optimistic (as determined by survey responses) about their diagnosis, treatment and recovery, were more likely to be alive after 15 years than individuals with lower expectations. The researchers noted that the level of optimism displayed by patients did not have to be extreme to have an effect.

Similarly, I recently reviewed 25 proposals that had been funded and 25 that had not. The common denominator in most of the funded proposals was the level of enthusiasm and optimism.

Optimism becomes evident when:

You are proud of your work.

Donors will see that you take pride in what you are trying to accomplish. This will give them confidence in your stewardship and accountability.

You are proud of your institutional mission and strategic direction.

You address the mission and innovative direction of your institution and make the match with the donor’s mission and objectives. Donors will be impressed with your ability to execute your activities via a well defined direction that is couched in experience, strength and previous success.

You have a passion for your cause and are willing to share your enthusiasm.

The two sections of your proposal that will demonstrate your passion will be the need statement and your organizational background. Ultimately, you are undertaking a project that will make a difference for your constituents/research with a plan that will enrich lives.

You believe that you will be funded.

You will be funded if you have written an excellent proposal, have a well researched and developed idea, adhere to the guidelines of the request, and build a relationship with your donor.

To be enthusiastic about your success, you need to be proud of what you are currently doing and what you hope to accomplish. You must also believe that at the end of the day you are submitting the best work that you are capable of doing. Stay optimistic and both the funding and success will follow!

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Hopeful Nonprofit Seeks Supportive Foundation

A foundation’s financial support should be based on a solid strategic plan of what they want to accomplish and the areas that they wish to fund. They set the expectations and standards of the plan of action or research. Foundations do vary, but those that make a difference are collaborative, supportive, and have clear, well-defined missions and goals. They work in partnership with grantees to ensure that the results they are both seeking are carefully scrutinized in every step of the implementation.

The Gates Foundation serves as an excellent example of collaboration between the donor and the grantee. A quotation from their website succinctly states: “We do all of our work in collaboration with grantees and other partners, who join with us in taking risks, pushing for new solutions, and harnessing the transformative power of science and technology. We strive to engage with our grantees and partners in a spirit of trust, candid communication, and transparency.”

Successful Foundation Searching for Reliable Nonprofit

In turn, a nonprofit should prove its strength to the donor through its governance structure, transparency, accountability, ethical fundraising, careful planning, civic engagement, public policy, and strategic alliances. A reliable grantee has a clear mission, with a proven record of faithfulness to its philosophy. Further, the nonprofit’s past successes should clearly demonstrate a path to achieving the promised goals. Once the match has been established, the results of the collaboration are greater than the sum of its parts.

Shared Goals

The strategic planning cycle below is an example of what the foundation and nonprofit should have in common.

A shared mission and goal between the foundation and nonprofit strengthens the relationship. The strategic approach for both will revolve around the following basic questions: Where do we want to go? How do we get there? How do we measure success? How did we do? How can we improve? This is the key to each organization choosing the other.

The Path to a Successful Match

From the outset of the grant making process, the donor should have a clear idea of the overall results they want from a nonprofit. These should be clearly communicated to the grantee, and there must be flexibility to achieve those results. At the end of the day, a good marriage will depend on making the match and having the vision and passion to make the difference for the beneficiaries they both wish to serve.

The post The Ideal Marriage: Foundations and You appeared first on Grant Training Center Blog.

I have encountered other participants just like the former secretary. I have also had excited and enthusiastic participants who are new to writing grants. The organizations they tend to represent typically have zero experience with grants, but the participant feels that he or she should start writing proposals in support of what his or her organization does. They view grants as a way out of funding reductions, a means to supplement an existing program, or to maintain office staff. In these cases, the senior management of such institutions often does not know that their staff is thinking about submitting grants. Or, if they are aware the employee is writing a grant, they have merely tasked the job to a staff member with little or no direct support.

Being in either of these situations is horrifying and happens more often than you might think. It doesn’t matter whether an organization is forcing unqualified employees to write full grant proposals without the support of programmatic experts, or employees are considering applying for grant funding without the support or even full knowledge of their institutional senior leadership. Such proposals are most likely doomed for rejection in either scenario. In the case of the research facility mentioned above, the institution lives and dies by their ability to procure large grants. Failure is not an option. For the independent staffer who wants to submit proposals regardless of their institutional support, there is a small chance that they will get lucky and win an award. However, that almost inevitably dooms the organization to mismanagement of the programmatic and financial aspects of the award.

Institutional Support and Buy In

When I teach the Professional Grant Development course, I remind the participants of a handful of key concepts about grants every morning and afternoon. One is that proposals are submitted by and awards made to institutions, not individuals. Grant writers, principal investigators, and project directors are representatives selected by the institution to write competitive proposals. In theory, they are largely the same people when it comes to the technical proposals. These representatives are entrusted to successfully carry out the programmatic aspects of an award. Before any organization decides to jump into the grant writing game, the management of that organization needs to be committed to supporting their staff in grant-writing endeavors and award management. Senior leadership needs to support programmatic experts on drafting technical language for a proposal, as opposed to the administrative staff. Once an award is made, time and resources must be made available to grant writers and administrators to ensure proper management of the award.

Tone at the Top

At some point in your institution’s lifespan – assuming it is successful at procuring federal grants – it will need to go through an OMB 133 audit. Many people confuse this with a financial audit, which it is not. The 133 audit examines how grants are managed and grant expenses handled. One vital element to any good 133 audit is a test of the Tone at the Top. Tone at the Top is a term that originated in the accounting field and is used to describe an organization’s general ethical climate, as established by its board of directors, audit committee, and senior management. Having a strong Tone at the Top is believed by ethics experts to help prevent fraud and other unethical practices. For instance, if the management of an organization understands the grants process, provides resources and management tools for successful proposal development, and sets the proper tone regarding correct grant management, then that strong Tone at the Top will permeate through the entire organization, down to the very most junior staff. However, if the Tone at the Top is weak, it can sour the entire organization. One example of a weak Tone at the Top is when senior management creates mandates out of desperation or panic. The former secretary whose leadership expects subject matter novices to write or review winning technical proposals is a striking real-life example. A weak Tone at the Top can lead to an unethical approach to grantsmanship that trickles down through the entire organization.

Both situations I mentioned exhibit a weak Tone at the Top. In the case of the research facility, I see very little hope for their ability to turn themselves around and rescue their dying organization. The Tone at the Top is one of intimidation. The attitude is one of “I don’t care what we need to do, just get the grant funds in the door.” Should an award be made – which is unlikely with a novice writing scientifically technical research proposals – that same attitude would filter through the post-award management of the grant. However, in the second example, there is the possibility of a bright future. While the ideal is to develop a strong Tone at the Top long before writing proposals, this situation can be recovered. The employee who wants to start writing grants to extend or expand programming, or ensure continued employment for staff is promising. It speaks to an organization where a staff member can work with his or her senior leadership to develop a strong Tone at the Top.

The post No One Has Your Back: The Truth About Institutional Support appeared first on Grant Training Center Blog.

It can take as much thought and data-gathering to write an effective letter of inquiry as it does to prepare a full proposal. Don’t assume that because it’s only a letter, it isn’t a time-consuming and challenging task. Every document you put in front of a funder says something about you and your organization; make sure you convey the right message. Each step you take with a donor should build a relationship for the future.

While a typical letter of inquiry should not exceed one page, a few exceptions may be made. For instance, if your organization has received previous funding from the donor, it may behoove you to take a couple of paragraphs to remind them how helpful their grants have been. To help you design a great and effective letter of inquiry, the components are detailed below:

Ask for the Gift

The letter should begin with a reference to your prior contact with the funder, if any. If not, your first two sentences should describe the totality of your request and the funds that you are requesting. Your third sentence should make the match between you and the donor. For Example:

We are writing to inquire whether the Lion’s Charity Foundation would invite a proposal from the West Virginia Technology Consortium, requesting an investment of $100,000 per year over two years to support our Enterprise 2014 Initiative. This grant would provide part of the funds needed for us to train at least 1,200 low-income entrepreneurs in rural West Virginia in the computer skills they need to create sustainable businesses. Your literature indicates that your foundation is searching for innovative ideas to improve the lives of the rural poor; we believe our proposal falls well within your area of interest.

Describe the Need

In a much abbreviated manner, tell the funder why there is a need for your project, piece of equipment, etc. Remember, this section of the letter helps the donor understand why they should grant your project the funding you are requesting. As an example, describe why your constituents should be served and how you know that your interventions will work. You can cite answers from questionnaires, quote those who have been successful in this endeavor, and find projects and statistics that can back-up your need.

Explain What You Will Do

Just as you would in a full proposal, provide enough detail to pique the funder’s interest. Describe exactly what will take place as a result of the grant. Donors who require a letter of inquiry will always want to know where their money and other resources will be directed. For instance, describe your goal and how it will be accomplished via your three measurable objectives. Describing your outcomes and evaluation is also extremely helpful in reassuring the donor that your project has been thought out, and that you understand the path for its ultimate success.

Demonstrate Your Credibility

The last paragraph will directly speak to your credibility and expertise to undertake the project. You will need to describe who you are, what you have done in the past to demonstrate previous success in this area, what resources you have already contributed to the project, and the expertise of the staff who will be directly involved in implementing the objectives. For example, you should state how you previously served the population in question, or – for research projects – the preliminary data you have. Essentially, this will be about how your project dovetails with you and your mission. This will speak to the sustainability of the project with the resources that you will be given.

The Final Two Sentences

At the end of the letter thank the donor for taking the time to read your letter. This is necessary, and should not be overlooked. Lastly, close with a call to action; let the donor know that you will be following up with them in the near future.

Remember that this is your introduction to the donor. You will want to make a great first impression, so make every word count. Be sure that every sentence conveys your message and builds your case for funding. For those whose grants do not involve a letter of inquiry, the process of writing such a document or an abstract can be useful in preparing to speak with program officers. Each of the points above will need to be addressed, via a face-to-face meeting or phone call.

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