Diving Deep: Grants + Foundations - A Petrus Development Show Episode

In response to repeated inquiries about foundation funding, Petrus offers this special deep dive into how to maximize grantwriting success.  Join Andrew and Rhen as they explore strategic approaches for nonprofits seeking grants, including the key principle of treating foundations as major donors.

Show Notes:

Foundation grants can strengthen a nonprofit's financial portfolio, but they shouldn't be the sole focus since securing them requires extensive preparation, relationship building, and patience.

In this episode, Andrew and Rhen answer these questions AND MORE:

• Where can you find foundations that might support your organization?  Are there specific places to look for appropriate grant opportunities?
  
  
• What does it take to put together a successful grant proposal?
   
• What kind of projects do foundations like to fund?
  
  
• How can you improve your chances of getting a grant?
  
  
• How should you respond after you receive notification about your request? 

Andrew and Rhen cover all of these basics, and they offer important insights into how to improve your chances of getting the grants you want.  But, in the end, it all comes down to this:  Treat foundations as major gifts prospects, and do the necessary research and relationship building work.  

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:

04:28.04
Host
Well, howdy everybody. Welcome back to the Petrus Development Show. My name is Rhen Hoehn from Petrus Development and joining me today is Andrew Robinson. How's it going, Andrew?

04:36.95
AROB
Hey, Rhen, it's going great. How about yourself?

04:39.46
Host
Living the dream. So today we're going to jump right into it. We have been getting a lot of questions about grants and getting grants for your nonprofit, writing grants, all of the things about grants. So we figured we'd jump in and do a special episode that's a deep dive on that topic and dig into it and hopefully help the people out and help you all get some grant money and figure out what are the right grants for you to apply for.

05:05.86
AROB
That sounds good. I know when I—so I've been in fundraising for 20 years, right? When I was at the A&M Foundation, I had a lot of luck and good fortune with foundations and grants for the medical school project. Most of the other staff members at the foundation were major gift officers. And so they would say, "How are you getting these grants? We're not writing grants. We're not asking for grants. We're not doing that."

05:35.94
AROB
And this was a while ago, you know, "How are you doing that?" But my bottom line recommendation is you have to treat the foundations the same as you would your major gift prospects. You have to develop relationships, you have to explain the impact of what you're doing, and you have to ask. They just have different rules around how you ask, how you accept that money, and you learn that stuff as you go. But at the end of the day, you just have to treat your foundation donors the same way you do regular major gift individual donors with good fundraising practices. So I think that's the big takeaway, but we are going to talk about specifics today, which I think is really helpful.

06:16.88
Host
All right. Well, where do you want to start? What do we need to know about grants? What are the big important pieces to get at upfront here?

06:23.68
AROB
Okay, so first is that one, treat your foundations just like you would major gift prospects. But even before that, it's about strategy, right? Building a fundraising program is about being intentional, it's about being consistent, and it's about creating diverse streams of revenue.

06:39.42
AROB
So a lot of foundations—excuse me, a lot of nonprofits, and in particular, nonprofit board members or nonprofit volunteers or executive directors—they think if we need money for our organization, we don't have a good strong fundraising program, we need to go get grants, right? Because that's what you hear about. You hear about big grants from big foundations funding things like the symphony and the universities and the hospitals. And so you think that's where the money is. I'm going to go get grants.

07:09.05
AROB
Well, spoiler alert, everybody is thinking that, and there are a finite number of foundations and finite number of grant dollars within those foundations. So from a tactical, from a strategy standpoint...

07:23.43
AROB
Grants should be a part of your fundraising program, but certainly not all of your fundraising program. Just to put this in perspective, my dad used to run a private foundation in Texas, medium-sized foundation. They had about 60-70 million dollars in assets. They gave around, they gave away around 3 million dollars a year.

07:42.12
AROB
And I asked him one time, I said, "Dad, how many grants do you guys make a year?" And he said, "That 3 million dollars goes to about 70 to 75 individual organizations." And I said, "Okay, and how many applications do you get?"

07:54.43
AROB
And he said, "Oh, minimum 750." And this was years ago, and it's probably increasing.

07:57.93
Host
Wow.

08:01.22
AROB
So what you hear there is that one foundation awards grants to 10% of their applicants. And most of those 10% are repeat grantees who they've been funding for years and years. So I just want to start this by saying foundations and grants should be a piece of your strategy, but definitely not the only hook you hang your hat on.

08:26.12
Host
Right. I think there is a misconception that this is easy money. Why would I spend time going out meeting donors face to face when I could just write a quick application and get tens of thousands of dollars? And that's really not the case is what you're saying, right?

08:39.36
AROB
Correct, yeah. Now it is one of those—foundations, again, if you treat them like major gift prospects, you have to develop relationships and that takes time. And so if you never start that process, you're never going to get to the point where you have relationships and they're funding you. So it is important to start it, to begin the process, but know that it's a piece of your strategy. If money comes in this year or next year, that's great, but you're doing all the other things that you should be doing. You're writing your annual fund letters.

09:07.86
AROB
You're building up your online giving. You're supporting your monthly giving. You're going out and asking individuals for major gifts. You're doing all of those things and grants are a piece of that. And so if you approach it with that strategy, eventually you will get to a place where grants are a significant part of your revenue stream, but that's going to take time. And so you want to invest in it just the way you invest in all the other strategies.

09:33.99
Host
Great. So how do you, as you're getting started, how do you even identify foundations that you should apply to in the first place? How do you figure that out? There's a lot out there. Some of them are well known. Some of them aren't. Where do you go to find them? How do you find ones that aren't as easy to find?

09:50.47
AROB
Good question. So a little bit of information about foundations. When you think of your typical foundation, which is an IRS designation, just the same as a 501(c)(3) is a nonprofit designation. I think it's 501(c)(4) is a foundation. And Ren, you can fact check me on that while I'm talking, but a foundation is a legal entity that is granted special tax privileges under the IRS tax code. So what that means is that...

10:24.16
AROB
An individual or a company or somebody at some point takes a whole boatload of money and they stick it into this vehicle which is this private foundation. That money is invested in stocks and mutual funds and bonds and all sorts of assets and it will grow.

10:43.09
AROB
It will grow and those investments will grow, but they are not taxed the way that you and I are taxed.

10:55.11
AROB
That's the benefit to the individual of a foundation from a tax standpoint. The other thing is that then they can have a specific intentional focus on...

11:03.80
Host
Thank you.

11:04.81
AROB
...doing philanthropy with that money. So that's why foundations get started. The individual can put their money or the organization can put their money away. They can make grants and then those dollars are not taxed. Now, the condition on that is they have to give 5% of those dollars away every year. So what that means is they can't just stick that money in there and leave it forever. They have to be actively making grants with that.

11:33.68
AROB
So that's just a little bit about foundations. So when you're looking at foundations as a part of your strategy, you want to identify foundations that were set up with the intent of funding programs like yours. So what do I mean by that? Most people, when they stick that money in there, they say, "I want to do this, or I want to accomplish this with these dollars." Most of the time, there are geographic restrictions. Not always, but geographic is kind of an easy thing. People like to support their own community. So looking at foundations within your state is kind of just the very first place to start, right?

12:12.78
AROB
Next would be, "I want to fund organizations or causes that I'm passionate about." And maybe that's environmental, maybe that's animal care, maybe that's faith-based and religious causes. So what is your organization and what are the things that you're doing? What's the impact that you are making?

12:32.14
AROB
And then looking at foundations that were set up to fund those specific causes, right? That's kind of your second. So geography, and then cause. And then next, you want to look for, just the same as you do with major gift prospects, foundations that have assets, right? So there are a lot of private foundations that have three-four million dollars in assets, which is good, but 5% of that—you're talking about maybe a hundred thousand dollars a year, maybe two hundred thousand dollars a year in grants that they're making. And so you could put a lot of effort into a proposal and get a five thousand dollar grant, which I'm not saying that's not a good thing, but I'm saying...

13:19.36
AROB
If you just sort of think strategically and look at your middle, medium-size or larger foundations first, there are more funds that they can award to grantees. So those are just kind of three ways to dial in who you're asking for grants: Look in your area, look for organizations that support your cause, and look for organizations that have a reasonable amount of assets to award.

13:50.01
Host
All makes a lot of sense. I want to come back in a second to talking about kind of what projects you should be thinking about applying for and such. But first kind of in more generally, what does it take to put together a grant proposal? What's the time commitment involved? What's all needed there?

14:07.31
AROB
Yeah, so I will answer that. Let me stick a pin in and come back to that last question a minute ago, because there's a practical sense of like, how do you find the foundations? There are a lot of really great tools. There's a website called Candid. If you just Google Candid, it started as the Foundation Center. And that's a database of foundations you can search through. There's also, if you're looking specifically for Catholic organizations, there's the Catholic Funding Guide, which is put together by FADICA, and that's a listing. Now, these are subscription-based—you pay for access to it, but the way that they identify what I was just saying: what they fund, how many assets, and where they fund it...

14:54.04
AROB
Foundations, remember they have some rules. One, they have to give 5% of their assets away. Two, they have to file a form called a 990 every year. And within that 990, they list how many assets they have, what the growth is, and then the grantees, who they're giving that money to. So those databases will sort of index that information and make it searchable. So you can get access to that information through—that's just two sites, Catholic Funding Guide and Foundation Center.

15:21.86
AROB
But there may be others out there; those are kind of my two go-to. Okay, so that's the practical, how do you find it? Going back to what does it take to write a grant proposal? So remember going back to the example of my dad, 75 grants out of 750-plus applicants, they have to have ways to limit their available pool that they are funding...

15:49.78
AROB
Just by simple ways. One is geography, how much people are asking for, how much money they have, and then the cause. The other way though is they create the application process and they create these conditions around the application that make it pretty labor intensive. And I don't know, I'm not a foundation guy. I'm just a guy that raised money from foundations for a long time. I think that's intentional because if they made the process so easy where you just go and you click a box and say, "This is how much I want and this is a project," then that 750 number would be...

16:29.14
AROB
750,000, right? I mean, it would just be so big.

16:32.10
Host
Right.

16:33.61
AROB
So the grant application process is pretty tedious and pretty labor intensive, I think, because they want to just make it a little bit harder so they narrow their pool.

16:46.09
AROB
So an application—most foundations are going online. It used to be where you had to fill out the forms, send it in triplicate or five copies by mail or deliver it in hand. Now, most of them are online. So you identify a foundation and you think, "This is a great place." I can fill out a proposal and they're going to ask you for your narrative. Who's your organization? What's the work you're doing? They're going to ask you for the project that you're asking for. 

17:13.89
AROB
So details about the project, the budget, and then they're going to ask you for a whole lot of supporting information. They're going to want your bylaws for your board, your legal notice that says you're a 501(c)(3). If you're a Catholic organization, where you're listed in the Catholic directory of nonprofits. They're going to ask you for kind of a listing of supplementary documents, one, so they can look at it, but two...

17:42.98
AROB
I think just to make it a little bit more, you have to actually put effort into getting these grants.

17:50.28
Host
And just from my own personal experience, I would say that gathering those supporting documents probably takes at least as much time as writing the narratives and such that they ask for. It's something you've got to build into your calendar of, "Okay, I need to get this document from this person and this other one from the diocese." And you've got to allow a couple of weeks for that all to happen. Otherwise, you're going to hit the deadline and not have those things. So just a word from my experience, at least.

18:15.41
AROB
Yeah, Mary Walker, who's a friend of mine, she's been a grant writer for a long time. She used to say that—and she's been doing this for a while, right? So take that into consideration. But she would say, "I could write all of the documentation..."

18:30.78
AROB
"For a grant, the narrative, the project, in about eight hours of time. If I have the information, it takes me about eight hours of writing, compiling information." It probably takes you at least that amount of time, just like you're saying, to gather all the other supporting documents, send your emails, wait for responses. They're going to want your budget, your bylaws, all of those things that exist but aren't readily available. If you're an individual...

18:59.50
AROB
That wants to get into grant writing, start gathering those documents, start applying. And whatever those supporting documents, the supplementary materials are, make a folder that says "grants folder" and stick your bylaws in there, stick your P&L, your balance sheet in there. All of those things that you're going to need to repeat, put it in one place so that when you go and apply next time, you know where it is.

19:25.32
Host
Great. That makes a lot of sense. So what kind of projects do foundations typically like to fund? Let's start by talking about kind of the project piece here.

19:34.43
AROB
Yeah, so I was talking with a foundation board—this was years ago—and I said, "You know, what do you guys like to fund?" And one of the guys, he was pretty honest, pretty candid. He said, "Look, Andrew..."

19:49.64
AROB
"You know, I sit on this board, I sit on the board of a couple of other foundations and nonprofits, and I've got friends that do the same. When I'm hanging out with my buddies at a dinner party or after a round of golf, and we start talking about the foundations, the boards that we sit on, I want to be able to tell them about the cool projects that our foundation is funding..."

20:16.24
AROB
"And if I don't have any cool projects, then I kind of feel left out of the conversation."

20:16.33
Host
Right.

20:19.91
AROB
"So what can you do for me? You can give me cool projects that we can fund, that I can tell my friends about." Okay, so maybe you're laughing. Maybe not every foundation board member has that mindset.

20:32.97
AROB
But there's at least like a kernel of that in everybody. They want to, just the same as everybody else—if you're picking stocks, you want to pick cool stocks, right? If you're buying Christmas gifts, you want to buy cool Christmas gifts. If you're funding nonprofits, you want to fund cool projects.

20:48.40
AROB
So that's tricky for the nonprofit though because if you're constantly making up new projects just so that you can get a grant for it, you're spending a lot of time and energy doing things and chasing dollars that aren't really advancing your core mission.

21:03.52
AROB
So what I like to tell people is...

21:03.73
Host
Right.

21:07.51
AROB
Look at the impact that your organization makes, right? Write down a list of here's all the things that we do. We make food and feed homeless in the community. We go on campus and we do evangelization.

21:22.81
AROB
We have a sports league. List out all those different things that you're already doing and then think about how you can request money specifically for that piece of your organization in a specific grant that supports the work you're doing, but it highlights that piece as that kind of cool project that those board members are going to be excited to fund.

21:51.51
Host
Right. Are there any types of projects that they generally don't like to fund?

21:56.16
AROB
Most of the time they'll tell you. So there are some foundations that say no salaries—we don't fund any salary lines. There are some that say no building projects, no capital.

22:07.74
AROB
So they'll tell you upfront. If they don't tell you, then generally speaking, you're kind of free to go any different direction. But again, going back to that—what are they going to tell their buddies at a dinner party? Or what are they going to tell the other couples when they meet them for dinner on Saturday night?

22:28.48
AROB
They don't want to be talking about how they fund the salaries of an organization. They want to be talking about how we fund the impact. And so find ways within your budget to request specific money for the impact that you're doing and for the programs and not just unrestricted money for your salaries and your overhead, even though that's what you need. If you can get that funding for the programs, that essentially kind of acts as unrestricted because you can then use that part of your budget's covered and then you can pay the salaries with the other money, right?

23:00.63
Host
Yeah, and I think the other thing that stands out to me is debt. It's pretty hard to find a foundation that's going to want to help you pay off your debt in my experience.

23:09.04
AROB
Yep.

23:09.14
Host
Good.

23:10.08
AROB
100%. I did.

23:11.02
Host
Sidebar, did you mention kind of the structure of foundations? I was Googling for a few minutes there.

23:18.73
AROB
Yeah.

23:18.74
Host
Okay, so like the fact that there's the board and stuff.

23:21.84
AROB
I've kind of alluded to the board members.

23:25.51
Host
Yeah, should we kind of specifically talk?

23:27.14
AROB
Yeah, yeah, I would say that.

23:28.45
Host
Okay, let me, let's go back and mention that then.

23:31.28
AROB
Why don't you do that and improve our chances? Why don't you do that in the "how do we improve our chances of getting a grant?"

23:36.64
Host
Okay, that makes sense.

23:37.84
AROB
Yeah.

23:41.96
Host
All right, I'm going to... let me continue the... I'm just gonna move them up here.

23:41.98
AROB
So you've asked about projects, so I guess the next segue would be the amount. Oh yeah, yeah, great.

23:49.22
AROB
Great.

23:49.59
Host
Let's hit these two points here quick.

23:53.06
AROB
Every change you made just means more editing for you, you know.

23:56.55
Host
I know, I know. I don't get paid hourly anymore. Back in the old days, I'll edit anything, man. I'll be fine. It'll be good for me. Okay.

24:15.47
Host
So you mentioned just now capital projects. Is it pretty common that foundations don't like capital projects? They don't like new buildings or renovations? Or does that kind of depend on the organization, on the foundation?

24:26.14
AROB
Yeah, it depends on the foundations. Most foundations though, if you're doing a campaign for a building, they're not going to make a multi-year pledge, right?

24:36.15
AROB
So that's the... the foundations that do that are the exception, or they will do it for, you know, three or four different organizations that they've been funding for 80 years, right?

24:46.40
AROB
They know every year they're going to make that grant, so they can ask for that. Most nonprofits don't have that kind of relationship with the foundation. So multi-year grants are out. So you could ask for a new building or a part of a building, and they might fund it, but it's going to be a one-time gift. Other than that, they'll tell you, or you'll find out if they fund capital or not. And I think you're going to ask in the next question that we'll talk about, how do they tell you, right?

25:18.02
Host
Yeah, and we'll get there in a second. One more question I want to ask about projects specifically is how do I know what amount to even ask for from a foundation?

25:26.58
AROB
Good question. So again, I told you that foundations, they file that 990 and in there it says they list out all their grants that they make every year. So it requires some digging and some research, but you can go into previous years and see who they funded and then what the size of those grants are. So what I typically will do is I'll look at that and I'll kind of figure out what's an average size gift. If they make seven grants, all $100,000, that makes it pretty easy. If they make, you know, a hundred grants, some are $5,000, some are $25,000, some are...

26:05.61
AROB
$50,000 and then they've got two that are, you know, a half a million. Well, I'm not going to be the one the first time that comes in and asks for a half a million. I'm going to come in and I'm going to find a way to ask for kind of right in that middle, that $25,000, maybe $50,000, but if they don't know me, probably unlikely they'll do $50,000. So I'll probably be asking for about $25,000. So again, you learn this stuff with experience and some of that experience comes through rejection letters, but set yourself up for fewer rejection letters by not coming in guns blazing thinking we have such a great program. Don't write such a great grant that we're going to be one of those half a million dollar grantees. You want to get your foot in the door and then build that relationship from there.

26:50.40
Host
Great. So kind of building off of that, how can we improve our chances of getting a specific grant?

26:58.42
AROB
Okay, so this is probably, you know, we've talked about specifics and we'll talk about a few more. This is probably the most important, right? And going back to that very first comment that I made about treating your foundations like major gift prospects, that is how you improve your chances of getting grants. So what do I mean by that?

27:16.20
AROB
So the structure of a foundation typically is there's a staff and that staff is usually a president or executive director, maybe a grants coordinator, maybe an admin person, and then maybe a program officer if they, once they kind of start getting bigger, you know, financial, somebody that does the finances, the accountant, things like that.

27:36.67
AROB
So they have that staff, and those people are paid by the foundation to accept applicants, review them, kind of do the work of that foundation. Then they also have a board, and that board—those are appointed positions.

27:54.69
AROB
Sometimes they're lifetime appointments, sometimes they're rotating three-year appointments or whatever. But those board members are actually the ones that will be voting on who gets grants. Okay, so there's kind of two different sides to the foundation structure.

28:11.74
AROB
So how do you improve your chances of getting a grant? You develop relationships, and you let both sides know what you're doing and what impact you're making and why a grant to your organization is going to make a difference.

28:28.51
AROB
So that's a little bit tricky though, right? The staff members, you can call the executive director, you can call the grants coordinator. In fact, that's the first thing that I encourage any person who's thinking about getting into grants and identifies a foundation. The first thing I say is call them up and say, "Can I talk with you? We've never applied" or "We applied 10 years ago" or whatever the situation. "I think that our program aligns with your foundation's mission. Could I talk with you about some possible projects that we'd like to request funding for?" Most staff members are going to say yes. That's been my experience. They'll say yes because in a way it kind of makes their job easier because then that's one less applicant application that they have to throw out because it has no alignment with what they do, right?

29:16.37
AROB
So...

29:16.53
Host
Right.

29:17.83
AROB
So most of them will meet with you, and then you can come in and say, "I've got three projects, three different amounts, and what do you think the board would like to approve or would be interested in approving?" So that kind of helps you build that relationship with the staff members.

29:36.58
AROB
The board members are a little bit tricky because board members for a foundation don't like random calls or emails from nonprofit people saying, "I know you sit on this board. Can I talk with you about our funding needs?" They just don't like it. And most of the time that's going to be a turnoff or kind of a red flag if you go in that way, but...

29:57.70
AROB
If you identify people, let's say a foundation board has 10 people, and you have people that are active as volunteers or participants in your organization, you know, so your own board, your finance council, your building committee, whatever...

30:14.01
AROB
Letting them look at the list and say, "Oh my gosh, I play tennis with Steve every Thursday. I had no idea he sits on this board." Okay, great. Well, then your job next time you play tennis is to talk to Steve about this organization and say, "Hey, would it make sense for us to apply?"

30:30.19
AROB
So coming at the board from that angle and coming at the staff by just doing good development is the way that you improve your chances. The other way you improve your chances: follow the rules.

30:38.33
Host
Yeah.

30:40.31
AROB
Like if they say, "This is what we want," and we want 500 words, don't put 501 words, put 500 words. Just make yourself easy. Make it hard for them to throw it out for a silly reason. Those are probably the two ways that you improve your chances.

30:56.42
Host
Yeah, I think that personal connection to a member of the foundation is invaluable. Just, I guess, a couple examples to illustrate that. Maybe on one of our previous podcast episodes, maybe at one of our conferences, you talked to a member of a very large foundation where all the family members can vote on projects to fund. And she talked about how in their situation, the rules that they had set up were that every family member was allowed to make a grant of up to ten thousand dollars to an organization of their choosing, and then the rest of the money was split up by a vote of the entire kind of body of members there.

31:35.61
Host
And so her point there was if you want a grant of $10,000 or less, you just need to convince me or one of the other members individually. If you want something more than that, you've got to convince a majority of our board, right?

31:49.05
Host
So knowing some of the internal rules like that... I had another client that I worked with who—it was kind of what you talked about—one of their board members connected them to the board member of a foundation where they became kind of good friends and she talked him through...

31:49.83
AROB
Yeah.

32:03.25
Host
You know, if you want to get this grant, you need to use this wording on this question specifically.

32:06.92
AROB
Yeah.

32:07.87
Host
That's what the board is looking for.

32:08.48
AROB
Yep.

32:09.53
Host
And so there's some little games that can be kind of played and they'll kind of give you insight into that.

32:16.68
AROB
Yeah, 100%. I hate to phrase it that way because people, they think, "Oh, it's not a game. Fundraising is about relationships." 100% agree with that. At the same time, there are games that the grant writing and grant funding, it is a game and you have to learn the rules.

32:35.94
Host
Yeah.

32:37.48
AROB
Once you learn the rules, then you're going to be in a lot better position for success. If you come in trying to make them play by your rules, you will get more rejection letters than anything else.

32:51.98
AROB
So learn the rules and then play the game by their rules and you'll have a lot more success.

32:57.00
Host
Exactly. If you want to kind of hear more about that, way back in episode 11 of the Petrus Development Show, you had Larry Massey on, who is the director of a foundation.

33:04.37
AROB
Oh, yeah, Larry.

33:05.98
Host
And he kind of talked a lot about some of those specific things, those games, so to speak, that get played in the process there.

33:13.04
AROB
Yeah.

33:14.84
Host
And it's understandable. It's an overwhelming number of applicants in a lot of cases, right? They've got to find ways to narrow it down to the best ones quickly.

33:22.17
AROB
Yeah, I mean, like I said, at that foundation, seven—it's probably more than 750, but 750 for 75 applicants. If you look at national foundations, they probably get, I mean, I would not be surprised if it's in the three to 4,000 applicants for, you know, 200 grants.

33:44.21
AROB
I mean, it's just the numbers are just overwhelming.

33:45.31
Host
Right.

33:48.82
AROB
And so they wouldn't survive every grant cycle if they didn't put some of these rules and conditions in place just to make it kind of worth your while. The other way to improve your grant, improve your success is don't give up after the first rejection. My—I don't remember if it was my dad or somebody else—they would tell me, "You know, if we get a first-time applicant..."

34:13.16
AROB
"Almost probably 90% of the time, we're going to deny that first request just to see if they come back a second time." And I was like, "Whoa, that sounds really harsh."

34:22.09
AROB
Well, that's how it has to be if we're going to survive, but the organizations that come back the second time, even after getting a rejection letter, they're going to have a lot better chance at a grant with that second application, that third application.

34:35.13
AROB
Just because I know that they're in it. They're not just blasting out letters to 100 foundations. They are doing good development work and being consistent.

34:48.03
Host
So you mentioned they're calling foundation staff. Did you ever try to meet with them in person?

34:54.31
AROB
Yeah, absolutely. Fundraising, again, with your major gift prospects, you want to meet with them in person, have that face time. It's the same thing with foundations. Try to develop that relationship. I would say, like I said, when I was successful with the grants for the medical school,

35:13.03
AROB
every single foundation that funded us, I would go meet with at least once a year, if not more. And those first couple of meetings were just discovery, right? Exactly the same discovery, kind of cultivation, talking about what we're doing, learning about their foundation.

35:30.35
AROB
And then eventually they would say, or I would say, "Hey, you've got that deadline in February. These are the projects that I'd like to fund. What do you think?" Or "I'd like to request. What do you think?" And in almost every situation, those staff members actually helped me craft the application in a way that it was going to get funded. What I mean by that is, for example, when we were asking for scholarship money, I would say, "Well, we really need scholarship money," and they would say, "Okay, well, I can tell you that if you request this amount or in this range..."

36:08.54
AROB
"...for a scholarship that has these conditions, that's going to get our committee, that's going to get our board excited. And so I'm not telling you it's going to be approved, I'm telling you that's going to get them excited." And so then what am I going to do? I'm going to go back and I'm going to request that amount with a scholarship with those conditions because, again, I want to give those board members something that they're excited to fund and they're excited to talk about and tell their friends they're funding. And they worked and they funded scholarships like that for years while I was working there just because it worked and they appreciated the effort and interest that we put into crafting an appropriate application.

36:51.08
Host
Great. Is it common for foundation staff to make a site visit to your organization?

36:57.19
AROB
I would say there are some that like to do that, but it's probably a very small percentage. Most of them, you can invite them certainly, but most of them, that's going to come after kind of years of funding.

37:09.10
AROB
They want to see what they've done. Most of them, they just don't, practically speaking, have the time to make site visits.

37:14.72
Host
Yeah.

37:14.92
AROB
So don't be disappointed if they say no.

37:15.04
Host
In all my years...

37:16.68
AROB
Yeah.

37:17.26
Host
Yeah. I had it happen one time in all my years, and that was more of a coincidence as they happened to be traveling through my area. I said, "Hey, I'm going to be there anyway. Can I stop by?" "Sure." But most of the time I did not experience that.

37:29.05
Host
So you talked about the foundation board members meeting to approve grants. How often does that happen? Do they meet every month? Do they meet once a year? What does that look like for most foundations?

37:39.41
AROB
Yeah, again, using those Foundation Center and Catholic Funding Guide, most of those will list the deadlines. I would say in my experience, most foundations either meet quarterly, they'll meet twice a year, or they'll meet once a year. Some foundations kind of have a rolling process, they accept applications and they meet every month. Most of them though, they'll meet quarterly, twice a year, or annually. And so you know if you miss a cycle - I'm helping an organization right now,

38:13.44
AROB
And we missed the cycle by like a week. We're kind of bummed, but you know, they're going to do it again in the spring. So we'll come back and we'll ask in the spring. So just be prepared, kind of build a calendar. Once you start getting to this, build a calendar of the foundations that meet your criteria that you think you'd like to request money from, put their deadlines into a spreadsheet or onto a list, and then put them on your calendar so that you get your applications done well in advance of that deadline.

38:39.70
Host
Great.

38:43.10
Host
Should we talk about, and this is a sidebar again, how long it takes to hear back from a foundation, that type of thing?

38:51.12
AROB
Sure.

38:51.33
Host
They all usually publish that.

38:51.36
AROB
Yeah. You can just follow that up with, yeah.

38:54.12
Host
Yeah.

38:54.83
AROB
And do you know immediately?

38:55.49
Host
Yeah. That kind of tells right off.

38:56.85
Host
All right. So how long does it take you to find out after they meet, after you apply, after they meet, what does the timeline look like to find out if you've received the grant?

39:05.54
AROB
I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but it depends on every foundation. Every foundation is different, but most of the time there is a lag. So let's say that a foundation deadline is in October, right? You get your application in, let's say it's October 15th. You get your application in September 30th because you want to be ahead of the deadline, right, in case you're snagged.

39:27.01
AROB
Then they will take all those applications that come in October 15th, and they'll start kind of triaging and sorting them. The board might meet in November. It might meet in December. The staff is getting everything ready. The board meets. They run through everything. They make their votes, and then they're going to send out letters December 31st.

39:48.11
AROB
Then you get your letter, "Hey, I was approved." And then in the letter it says when the checks will be sent - sometimes checks will go out then, but sometimes they'll say checks will go out in February. And so you say, "Okay, great." So then February... you can be looking at, in that very simple scenario, about a five- or six-month lag between when you're writing the grant to when the funds, when the check actually arrives.

40:15.67
AROB
So that's pretty typical. So don't plan on getting approved and getting a check that day. Some do, but most of them, there's a process that involves the collection and organization of the proposals, the vote, and then the checks.

40:32.97
Host
Great. Let's say that all this happens and you do receive the grant from the foundation.

40:38.10
AROB
Yes. Great.

40:40.05
Host
Congratulations. What should you do next?

40:42.41
Host
What are the best practices there?

40:44.90
AROB
First thing is send a thank you note and make a thank you phone call. I can't remember if it was my dad or somebody else, but they would say one of their checkboxes was, "Did they get everything in properly?"

41:01.99
AROB
Well, one of those checks is, "Did we get a thank you note for the last grant?" And if they don't have a check there, you're not even getting considered for another grant. And I was like, "Does that happen? Is that really?" He said, "Oh, you'd have no idea. You have no idea. We would send these checks out and hear nothing from these organizations." And yeah, right, like there's a million reasons why. But first thing is just send a thank you note, make sure that the gift is acknowledged and thanked appropriately with a note, a card, and a phone call.

41:31.80
AROB
And then most of the time they'll say they're funding some piece of your program. So there might be a grant report they need six months later. If they do that, fill out the grant report. But if they don't, then it's important to check back in with them as those dollars are being utilized in your organization. Again, it goes back to that core rule of treat them like you would major gift prospects. If they send you a gift to fund your homeless feeding ministry, then take pictures when your people are in the kitchen making food, going out, send that in as a thank you, and you're going to put yourself in a lot better position for another grant down the road.

42:21.98
Host
Would you add the foundation to your mailing list, like say your newsletter list, that type of thing for your organization?

42:27.60
AROB
Yeah, and if they don't want it, they'll unsubscribe or they'll tell you to stop. But yeah, absolutely. I would usually put the staff members, so the executive director or the president, to get your mailings. That's a good question because the other thing that does is most foundation staff and board members, they don't want to be your only source of funding, if that makes sense.

42:52.39

AROB

And that's kind of a major red flag if they are. Eventually, they're going to cut you off just for that reason alone. And so if you regularly do newsletters and you do appeal letters and things like that, then sending that to them lets them know, hey, they're not just relying on our check.

43:09.92
AROB
They're doing other things, and it's kind of counterintuitive. They're actually going to think, in most cases, "Alright, they're not just relying on our money. They're doing good fundraising practices. This is an organization that I feel even more inclined to support," as opposed to, you know...

43:27.07
AROB
If you're a nonprofit fundraiser or staff member, you might think, "I don't want to let them know that I'm asking other people because then they'll stop their check." But it's actually the opposite. If they think they're the only one, that's kind of a quick road to burnout, and they'll just stop funding you entirely.

43:42.23
Host
Yeah, they like to support successful organizations that they know are going to keep surviving and keep growing.

43:47.42
AROB
Completely.

43:48.40
Host
Alright, so on the flip side, you don't receive the grant. What do you do now?

43:54.50
AROB
Make a call and say, "You know, we applied, but we did not get funding. Thank you very much for considering us. Is there anything about our proposal or application that you think we missed the mark on, or how can we make it better next year?" Sometimes they'll tell you, sometimes they won't. But again, just make sure they know you're going to come back. You know that they can't fund everyone, and you're grateful for the opportunity. You'll come back, and hopefully, with a better application next time.

44:27.32
Host
Great. Alright. Yeah. Those are kind of the main points. Do you want to hit anything else? Any last advice to wrap us up here, Andrew?

44:35.77
AROB
Nothing new, just the same thing I've been saying this whole episode. Treat your foundation just the same as you do major gift prospects. Follow the rules. Don't get eliminated for silly reasons. Be consistent, and, you know, write good proposals. Find people on your staff who can spell, use spell check, and grammar check, and, you know, all those things. Just do it the right way, and you're going to put yourself in a better position. Then keep doing all the other fundraising that you should be doing as well.

45:10.53
AROB
Right. Build up your annual fund, ask your major gift people for gifts.

45:11.27
Host
Yeah.

45:14.89
AROB
All of that is important, and this is a piece of it.

45:19.42
Host
Great. And always double-check the spelling of all the names of the foundation people.

45:22.42
AROB
Oh...

45:24.22
Host
That's one thing that I've heard has happened.

45:24.84
AROB
Yeah.

45:26.00
Host
You misspelled the executive director's name on the intro letter.

45:28.35
AROB
Yeah.

45:29.46
Host
It's over.

45:30.19
AROB
Yeah.

45:30.43
Host
So, alright. Well, thank you, Andrew. I think this was very comprehensive, and hopefully, our listeners are prepared to go out there and have some success with grants.

45:39.46
AROB
Yeah, and we did this because a lot of people are asking us these very specific or general questions, right? So we wanted to make it to where there's one place you can go and get all these answers.

45:48.29
Host
Yeah.

45:52.35
AROB
If you have questions that go beyond this or you want help brainstorming or identifying, you know, you just want to talk with somebody about this process, then feel free to reach out. Find us on our website, patcherdevelopment.com. We can help you build a strategy for your entire development program, with grants being a part of it.

46:18.08
AROB
But I would say, you know, this is a means to help get the information in one place, but there's a lot more help that we can offer if you need it.

46:29.04
Host
Great. Again, that's petrusdevelopment.com.

46:31.44
AROB
There you go.

46:32.72
Host
Alright, well, thank you, Andrew. Have a great day.

46:36.24
AROB
Appreciate it, Rhen. Alright, thanks a lot. Bye.