 Hi everybody again. Thank you for joining our webinar today. Today is gonna be amazing. Look, you're gonna learn the 10 tips to writing a winning grant proposal. I'm Aretha Simons. I'm the webinar producer here at TechSoup. If this is your first time here being with us at TechSoup, I'm just gonna show you how you can engage today. They will move forward. You already know you're on mute. So please use the Q&A section to type your questions. I know some people don't go to the Q&A. You still type in the chat. We'll try to grab your questions from the chat. Today's webinar is gonna be 90 minutes long. It is being recorded. So if you have to leave early, you will get the recording along with the slides. If you need the closed caption, just tap on the bottom of your Zoom screen and you'll see the CC button. Today, I'm gonna move on away because we have the president of Grant Station here with us. It's such a pleasure. She has been working in the nonprofit sector for over 20 years, either in or with nonprofits, raising over $45 million for nonprofits to build capacity within their nonprofit. Look, Alice, no pressure, but we're so excited for you to be here. I'm gonna turn this over to you and thank you so much for being here with us today. Great. Well, thank you, Arita. And thanks, everyone, for coming. We have a really large crowd. So that's really exciting. And like Arita said, she will send out the slides and the recording to you so you can take notes, but you don't have to necessarily write down every word, unless that's how you learn. So I'm gonna get this sardline written that off. And get the show started. So we have a pretty simple agenda today. It's really about 10 tips that I have learned from being a grant writer, from being a grant reviewer, and from being a funder of capacity building grants here in West Virginia. So the 10 tips that I'm going to share with you are things that I see other organizations struggling with or things that I see that places that organizations can improve in order to write a competitive and successful grant proposal. So some of ours have to do some of the tips have to do with a little bit more about the planning and development of your projects and then others more about the writing aspects of what writing your proposal. So when you're painting that picture for the funder and you're really doing yourself the justice so that they understand who you are and what you do and the impact that you make in your communities. Then we will have time for some questions and answers. I'm gonna probably talk for about an hour, a little about, and then we'll have that time. And so in the background behind us, we do have Aretha from TechSoup who can answer any TechSoup related questions. We have Nikki Bentley-Coulthard who is the owner of the grant advantage and she will be able to answer questions related to grant writing. And then Jeremy Smith from GrantStation who is our guru and can answer anything that you have about GrantStation. So they're in our background and they will field our questions and then we will also have that time for questions that would be kind of relevant for everyone and that sort of thing at the very end. So feel free to type in those questions while I'm talking and then that way we'll have them kind of in the queue at the end. So tip number one is about being prepared. The Boy Scouts I think have that slogan and it's really true in the grant writing world. That you want to kind of have things sketched out and have an arsenal of kind of projects that you have kind of developed so that when you do find funders that match your mission and vision that you are kind of prepared to develop that proposal. And kind of having them I don't like the term shovel ready but having them kind of ready to go even without the funding is a really great strategy. You know you don't want to wait until you hear about a funding opportunity to develop something but you want to kind of have those projects in the queue so that when those funding opportunities arise that you're really only having to spend your time at that point. So just preparing the grant application as opposed to writing and developing a proposal all at one time. And some of our other tips in here will also show you some tools that you can use in that planning process. If you are kind of familiar with the term logic models, you could create a logic model for the different projects that talks about, you know what resources you need for your project, what you're going to do the activities that you're going to do in your project. And then what you want to see as as the outcomes or what's going to change in your community or with your participants because of that. If you're not familiar with that term don't worry about it there's places you can learn about logic models and Grand Station is one place that we do offer that training. And then the matching your funding to the project is really critical. And I have kind of a funny story. I guess if it's not about you it's funny but I was talking with a foundation a community foundation one time and the executive director was telling me how they were giving out these little, I think they were like $100 gift cards or something for the best written grant in each cycle. And so then, if you wrote the best, you know the best written grant you got the $100 gift card to give to another nonprofit it could be your own it could be just, you know one that's near and dear to your heart whatever so it was $100 gift card to another nonprofit. And so when I was talking with her I said, Oh, I said so that's really cool you get the $100 gift card, and then you get the grant right because you, you know just wrote the best grant. And she said, you know, you would think that she said but in this last round, the best written grant did not get funded. And I was like, Oh, why is that and she said because we don't fund those types of activities it was completely out of the world and the priority area of that funder. And so even though the grant was the best written grant, they didn't get funding because, you know, let's say they don't fund substance abuse issues and let's say it was written for substance abuse. So that's where that finding that match to your project is really important and that's really, you know, the heart of what Grand Station is to to help you find those funders and know what their priorities are so that you're writing and developing a partnership addressing those priority areas together. So, it also avoids kind of that mission creep when you're just chasing the money, you know when you just will apply for anything that comes in front of you. So all of a sudden you can get down the road and say you know my organization was not founded on these principles but you know we kept chasing the money and changing our focus and all that kind of thing and down the line you kind of you can come back and be like who we wanted to be. So kind of, again, having those projects ready being prepared and then finding those great matches with the funders is a really critical step in writing successful proposals. And kind of tied to that writing proposals there's a lot of different ways that you can design your, you know, do your design. This is a method that I have I developed and I like to use and I've used it with every project. And one of the things that I really I'm not going to go through the whole thing of this but one of the things that I really like with this process is that it with this framework is that it really helps you involve those that you serve in the design of your programs. And that's really critical because I'll tell you a mistake I made one time, and it was when I worked in a nonprofit, and it was, we were doing the capacity building work for for organizations throughout West Virginia. So one of the capacity areas we wanted to enhance was technology, because our organization provided technology to nonprofits. And so I had, you know, talked about all you know what nonprofits were struggling with around technology and all that kind of thing and I have the data to support it. So I thought to myself well what am I going to do about that so I set up these workshops where, and all of our workshops were free. And I set up these two workshops about designing a technology plan for your nonprofit. And then this was also long enough ago that you couldn't just sit in front of your computer and make a website like you can now. And so the other free trainings that I was offering was, you know, what components would help you if you develop the website, you know what, you know, if it's, you know, putting donors, you know, have being able to have donors, you know, donate on your website or having an events page or whatever it was so kind of like what what's possible what would help your organization. So I offer these free workshops for around the state, and I get like eight people total to show up. And I'm like, Well, why didn't anybody show up I mean everyone shows up to our grant writing trainings and our strategic planning trainings and all this kind of stuff. So then I thought to myself well why don't you ask the nonprofits in the state what their technology needs are. So I then went back and said what you know did a survey with them, and it came, you know what we found out was what they wanted was like to sit down in front of a computer and learn how to use publisher to create their brochures, or sit down in front of a computer and learn how to use Excel to manage their databases and things like that they wanted that real hands on support with the software. And then I offered those trainings and we filled every seat and everything was great. But in the first step, what I did was I said I see that nonprofits have a problem or whatever target population you're serving, you know I know the data. And instead of doing that analysis as to why they're having that struggle. I just skipped that step and went right from here's where they're having a struggle so here's what I'm going to do about it. And in my first example, I didn't I didn't meet anybody's needs. Because I didn't include them in the design of the program. So including, you know, your target population really helps you to identify you know if up in the condition or status you're talking about, you know how many people are homeless, you know, well why are people homeless. Why are people unemployed or unemployed, why are people unemployed, because those root causes are really going to help you develop an approach that's going to be effective. And it's also going to help you identify partners to bring in to your project because when we're looking at, for example, why are people homeless or why are people unemployed. There's usually more than one reason behind that need or more than one root cause. And so it can be a great tool as well. Using this framework to also then identify who are other organizations working on some of the root causes that you could bring into your program and bring into your approaches partners and show the funder. Through your applications then how you're really, you know, working bigger to address the issue more holistically. So in looking at that unemployment, you know, you might do job training, but you know some an organization that does transportation. And so they're providing that transportation so you don't have to reinvent the wheel there, you can just partner with them bring them into your project and it helps them and it helps you and funders like to see that they don't like to see us reinventing the wheel or doing something. You know that that somebody else is doing. There's just not enough resources to go around. So involving those that you serve really helps you know identify that approach that's effective, and then just using kind of this planning framework also can help you identify those partners that are really critical to success, which goes it right into my next one of partnerships. And the funders, you know, like I said earlier they don't like to see organizations, you know, you know, trying to like go alone, go at it alone and I would hear this a lot. When a client would call and they would say, you know, I want to start a daycare or I want to start this service and, and if I, you know, knew about I might say, well, you know, there is one of those services, you know, in the community. So just a few blocks away or whatever for where you want to start this and they would say, Yeah, but I want to do it on our own and I want to do it differently and I, you know, blah, blah, blah, and it's a harder, you know, it's a it's a it's a harder thing to try to, you know, just, I mean just they don't like it. So doing that kind of root cause analysis, again, can really help you into how can I bring in other assets and resources and partnerships into my organization and into my project and really enhance what we're doing by capitalizing on what else is going on in the community. And like I said, it's just a thing that funders really like to see. I still have another tool that I would share with organizations, and it's just, I just called it a partnership identification tool where, you know, looking at different constituencies and it's to, it's two slides long. I'll show you both, both pages of it. And, you know, looking at businesses and corporations and then looking at other organizations in the community. And in doing so, you know, really looking at why they would want to support you, how does supporting you help them and thinking of that up front so when you're reaching out to them. Or, you know, putting yourself as a strong organization that does great things and working that as what's a benefit for the partner and then what do you want from them, you know, what resources are you looking for, if it's money or if it's volunteers or if it's space or you know anything else that that that you would be looking for support. And with, I live in a pretty rural community and so, you know, when looking at businesses and corporations. I think you have to be a little bit more creative in some of, you know, the more rural areas. And so I did break down the businesses and corporations into, you know, those located in your community. Obviously, those are ones that you would want to reach out to. You are in a rural community and you don't have a lot of businesses or corporations, looking at companies where your stakeholders work. So looking at, you know, where does your board of directors work, you know, where do your volunteers work, because a lot of times businesses are giving through their employees. So identifying the different places where they work or different companies that might sell to your stakeholders. And then just also looking at vendor corporations anyone that you buy stuff from and developing that partnership. And then affinity corporations just being organizations that do similar work to you, you're doing it in a nonprofit fashion, they would maybe work an angle at a for profit business so thinking of like, if you work with the elderly and you're doing, you know, trying to keep seniors in their home and affinity corporation could be, you know, a company that has a lot of mobility resources or something canes and walkers and things like that and looking at, again, why they would want to support you, you know, what what do you have as a value to them, and then what do you kind of what is your ask of them. Those are just and just so you know, on this this particular chart, you know, mostly in their motivations, when you're looking at businesses and corporations, it is going to be for that advertising that you're doing for them. You know, so kind of always when you're approaching them to always have ideas in mind with how you're going to acknowledge them, you know, you're going to put them on your website you're going to put them on your servers, you know, you're going to, you know, do some press releases, you know whatever always being aware that one of those motivations from those businesses and corporations is always about that that kind of advertising that you're giving them. And then there's also all all sorts of other community assets that you can look at beyond beyond businesses so looking at all the different social service agencies and schools and colleges and universities and faith communities and looking at government agencies and officials, looking at your different civic groups like your Lions Club and your Roa Tans and those kinds of things, looking at healthcare organizations media, obviously funders, and then with public resources, I'm kind of thinking more about your like your doctors and rag, those kinds of things that can be brought in so you want to kind of think, you know, outside of the box as you can, to figure out how, you know, partnering with these different agencies and institutions can kind of help move your project along to. Again, this is in that be prepared stage right you don't, if you know that you have three weeks to develop a proposal, you know, and you haven't identified those partners yet and you have to develop those partners, you know, sometimes the three weeks isn't enough time if you're not kind of pre prepared so these are things that you can be doing. You know, before you even start to write an application. So now I'm going to move on to a little bit more about the writing aspect. And first with writing with a reviewer in mind, realizing that a lot of times reviewers are volunteers who, you know, review for community foundations and united ways and things like that. And most of the time they have no idea about what you do and how you do it. And so you just when you're writing your applications treat that page like a blank slate, where you're really educating them about everything that needs to be said to answer their questions and, you know, communicate your project to them. And in that, you know, kind of, you know, we all have our own jargon in our own sectors. So just making sure that you know that you at least explain some of that jargon or, you know, reduce it or whatever but but realize that that that the reviewers don't live in your own world. And so, you know, writing, you know, if you want them to know it, you have to write it. And I've had people come up to me after I've done a grant review, and they've said, Well, didn't you go to our website and look at, you know, additional projects and things like that. And my inside that voice said, you know, no, that wasn't my job to find the answers to these questions, you know, that was your job as the writer to answer those questions for me, but really realize that that that they're scoring your application based on what you write. So, you know, make sure that that if you want them to know it that you write it down. And within that, you know, whole process of the review, you know, that that funders, even if they're paid at a foundation or if they're volunteer reviewers, quite often they're asked to read a lot. And so, you know, you kind of want your writing to be, you know, to answer the questions and all that kind of thing, but you want it to be interesting, you know, you wanted to engage both their minds and their hearts. So that they're interested in keep, you know, in continuing to read your application. So I might do that with, you know, stories about, you know, typical clients or little sidebars with quotes that that clients have, you know, made about the project or how the project has helped them or changed, you know, something in their life. And that sort of thing and really, you know, trying to do that storytelling in my writing. So just always kind of keep that in mind, you know, the reviewer, you know, think of if I was sitting in that seat and I was reading this, you know, this answer and is, you know, is my writing engaging, am I telling the right information, those kinds of things. And really tied to that is also just about following the directions of the grant instructions. So, you know, funders all use different terms that mean the same thing. So when, you know, one funder might say here's our application instructions and another funder might say, here's a request for proposals or an RFP, or here's our notice of funding availability. There's a NOFA, right, or a funding opportunity announcement, a FOIA. So I all use different terms, but they are generally the instructions. That's what those are, you know, no matter what they call it if it's a NOFA or a FOIA or whatever. So when you, you know, are looking at those, you know, those the outline of what they're asking, you want to be really careful about, you know, all the rules that they set down, you know, they might. One of the things that I do is put it exactly in the order in which they listed those questions. And, you know, they might have page limits or character counts more often now with more applications going online. If, you know, it is still a hard copy, they'll say, you know what size your fonts can be, how big your page margins can be, all those kinds of things. And you want to pay attention to all of those rules because they can, you know, just eliminate you from the very beginning, if you don't follow those rules in their first kind of run through. And you don't want to do all that work and then realize just because you had an extra page your application didn't get read. And like I said also, you know, funders all use, you know, different terms. So one funder might ask you for a need section and another funder might ask you for a problem statement. And another funder might ask you, you know, issues to address, you know, and, and yet those all those three things are asking the same thing it's you know what what what what are you doing what what's the challenge in your community that you're going to be addressing. You always follow their headings and their terminology, even if you generally call it a need section, if they call it a problem statement section then you want to use their terms back to them. And you want to put it exactly in the order that that they asked you to answer the questions because the grant reviewers usually have a score sheet, and that score sheet usually follows exactly. What the, the, the NOFO or the FOIA had so that reviewer is looking for the answer to that question. First, and if you put it at the end, they could, you know, just skip over it and go I didn't see the answer. I'm going to score this section really low, or, you know, or something like that. So, you know, you want to make those reviewers happy right because they're the ones that are making the recommendation for funding or not. Another tip throughout all the application is really highlighting your strengths instead of your needs. And one of the things you know so I'm always writing from that strength based perspective of showing the funder that we are a nonprofit organization that has solutions to issues in the community. And a lot of times what happens is a nonprofit will see the word need. So what, you know, in the need section or the problem statement section or whatever and they start to talk about themselves as having needs. And so they start talking well I need a staff person I need a van you know I need this and they start immediately setting the entire application up wrong because they're talking about their needs. And really, you know, it's not compelling to a funder or even really a donor to go up to them and say, I need this and I need this and I need this. Right, because every nonprofit can do that right every nonprofit can have a list of things that they need. The way that you want to approach your applications and even just if it's conversations is really talking about how they would invest in your solution. So you want to talk about your solutions talk about the strengths. Talk about why you what you do is you know the best approach to use and how you make change in your community and things like that, and really always going with that. You will have your, you know, you will talk about your needs when you outline your budget, right, and your financials will demonstrate those needs, but you don't have to. Someone once asked me like, Well, where do I just show that I'm like really need their money so bad or I'm going to go out of business and I'm like, I never show that I need their money so bad I'm going to go out of business right that's not compelling. That's not the way the reason a funder or donor would invest in you, you know, just to keep your doors open they invest in what you do and the change you make. So always kind of approaching your writing or your talking with those solutions. I don't think that that this slide is can be underestimated with how much time it does take to really create a strong proposal. And so I have on the next few slides like a sample writing schedule that that I would outline with every client about you know who has to do what and when it has to be done. And to try to keep that accountability, you know, if you have your bookkeeper working on the budget sections and if you have someone else doing some of your research for your need section and those kinds of things you know that you need to list out all those tasks that need to be done, and have that timeframe so that that people realize that just can't pull this all together at the very end, which for some reason I don't know why it is but it does seem that grants that's like the way grants are written it's always seems to go to the last minute. But if you can kind of, you know, have those timeframes and outline those tasks, it can kind of help prevent some of that, you know, finals week activities that go on when you're trying to get a proposal submitted. And then with the due dates and times, you know, most funders are going to have a will set due date and even, you know, a time limit so you know what time of the day it has to be invite. And so it will happen, you know, almost every time that the minute that, you know, a grant is due that's when your power goes out, or if it's something get a put in the mail your cards going to get a flat tire or whatever I mean it's, it is the day I grants do is the day that those problems are going to happen. So, as much as possible when you're putting your schedule together your writing schedule back it up so that you know that you have at least you know an extra day, just for those problems that could happen. And with bigger proposals like the state and federal agencies, you know, even a couple more days, just because there can be problems just with getting things submitted. And usually, if your proposal is, you know, one minute late, it's not going to get read. So, you know, you really want to, you know, make sure that you have, you know, your proposals in on time. And then it's also a really great idea to add into that schedule time review time, where you have other people looking at your proposal. Especially that, you know, maybe have nothing that don't know anything about your project are great people to ask to come in and review it, because if they can understand it. Then you've done a good job. Or if they have questions then you can clarify things ahead of time and you know sometimes. If you only ask people who kind of work within your field, they already have enough information in their head that that something's going to make sense to them but it's not going to make sense to that reviewer or that funder. So, having that review time can be very helpful. So here's just a sample of like a writing of a writing schedule where what I would do is say every document that has to be submitted in that application. And then start to write out, you know, when are we going to, you know, when does each thing have to be in, you know, and what the due date is, and he's responsible for it. So you can just keep a little bit more accountability for everyone. And it also kind of helps because, you know, usually a funder is going to ask you for that project narrative. That's where you're asking and answering all those questions. And then they're going to ask you for budget information. And then these things here are just, you know, called attachments and that actually makes sense that they're things that you attach to your application. And these things can, you know, you want to keep these things on like several different computers in your office, or, you know, in some central location, or, you know, if it's a physical copy that's fine too. But, you know, once a year, you probably want to have these all updated. So always make that time, you know, between Christmas and New Year's we're going to update all these documents in our files. And just getting these common attachments won't be as challenging. You won't have to, you know, create the whole board, the whole board list, or create that organizational budget or create those resumes like they're all kind of on file. So having those and having a set time every year that you update them can really save you time. Because again, what will happen if you submit this application and let's say you don't submit the most recent audit, then they would they can just call your application unresponsive because you didn't include everything. And they don't even read it. So if there's any reason why you wouldn't have these I would contact the funder ahead of time to talk about that and if there's any work around that you can have say if you don't have an audit or whatever. But these these can really keep you on task and and kind of with the enough time to make that that strong application. We're rounding out to some of our last tips. But really looking at budgets now because budgets are really critical pieces of an application. I know a lot of reviewers who go to the budget first, and they read the budget first and then they go and read the application. And one of the things that I want to say about budgets is that your budget and your approach should really mirror one another. So, in your approach section, you're going to be writing about how all these staff positions for example all the things that these people are going to do that that there shouldn't be any surprises to the reviewer. After they've read the application they should know almost be able to kind of visualize what a budget would look like. And what would happen to me a lot would be that my clients would give me budgets at the end. And, you know, and I've already kind of written the narrative and then they threw in information in the budget so they added a consultant or they added money for a particular system, or they, you know, just added something in there. And in the approach, I didn't talk about how, you know, what kind of, you know, how what kind of software system would be purchased and how it would be used, or I wouldn't have talked about, you know, what that consultant is going to do with the staff, you know, twice a year or whatever it was. And so, you know, those two things should really mirror one another. And, you know, your budget has the numbers, your narrative has the explanation of, you know, what all the budget numbers kind of mean and what what you kind of do, what you're going to do with the money. So, again, here you can see with the budget, you know, that usually those are just the numbers they'll have a, you know, a form that you fill out. Here's just the personnel costs for this project right. And your budget narrative or sometimes it's called a budget justification, that really tells the story behind the numbers. And so that's what the reviewer is looking for, because this is, this is fine, this is, you know, what they're asking for as a format. But if you don't have kind of that narrative behind it, you just don't know, well, how much is the project director working, how much are the therapists working, you know, that kind of thing you don't have really any of the story behind it. So here's just an example. Now this is from a federal grant so it's a kind of a maybe a longer narrative than you would do for say a, you know, a community foundation or a local grant. But you can kind of see here that, that they, you know, that they looked at, well, how much, you know, how much does the project director get paid so then you can see, oh, well the project director is working 80%. And that's what we're asking the money for just the 80% of his or her time. And then you can see that, you know, the rest of the staff here that they're going to be hiring is all working at a full time rate. And then under the justifications that kind of just shows, you know, just a little bit more about, you know, kind of, you know, what the people will be doing. If it was under supplies that we'd be about like, well, what kind of supplies will be bought or, you know, looking at rent costs or, you know, any other kind of component. It's kind of just that, that, that explanation and that kind of understanding what's going on behind the numbers. So this is kind of a longer example but, but still an effective kind of thing to model after. And then one of my last tips. Well, two more. It's just about like developing your own, you know, grant writing skills. I believe that grant writing is a skill that can be developed. You might be great at it your first, you know, moment out of the gate, and it might take some time to develop, you know, those skills. You know, realize that it takes that time and there's, you know, things that you can do and reading other successful grants is really something that help, you know, always helped me out a lot to see, you know, what made this application successful, what was it that they did, how did they frame up the information, how did they tell their story, what did I like in this application that sort of thing. So, in order to read successful grants, I mean, there, you know, there's different ways you can do it you can look at, you know, just asked people in your network, you know, can I read, you know, your, your, your winning grants, just to get some different, you know, ideas on on, you know, again how they wrote them. And Grand Station has an award, award-winning proposals competition every other year. And so, Grand Station members have access to award-winning proposals, they're all, they've all won in the, from the funder. And then, Grand Station does an activity where we also then have different proposals that we judge and have a winning proposals thing so if you're a member of Grand Station you can have access to those. Under the great advantage page, there are successful grants under that resource tab so you can go there and take a look. And then, if you're at this level you might not be and that's fine, you know, but if you're looking at writing federal proposals, you can get copies of successful grants through the Freedom of Information Act. You can go right to that link there and you select the federal agency that you would like a proposal from. And you just keep working your way through that, that online form. And you can request, you know, copies of successful grants. So, you know, again, this would be more in the planning stage of what you're doing but if you're like, Oh, I know that my community wants to go after, you know, the drug free communities grant. Dear, you know, it'd be great right now to start looking at other successful grants that that were written and do that through the Freedom of Information Act. And then my last tip is just about being persistent, you know, again, I think that this is a skill that can be developed. Sometimes, you know, sometimes grants are just very, very competitive, you know, they might get 400 applications and they're only funding 40. And so it's a it's a great idea to either ask if they have reviewer comments for you like sometimes, again at the state or federal level they'll send them usually with your rejection letter. They'll send you the comments of where your applications were weak where that where what your strengths were, and then you can work that into making a better application the next time. If a funder doesn't have, you know, written reviewer comments, it's okay. And I encourage you to, you know, call them up and say, you know, could you let us know what some of our, you know, weaknesses were in our application. And, you know, improve for the next time. And most of the time they'll, you know, kind of tell you what your, you know, weaknesses were, you know, like, well, we were looking for more partnerships or we were, you know, looking for a more robust approach to dealing with this or that. And then you can just work that information into making the application, you know, better than next time. So don't hesitate to do that. And I have a great story of a client before I worked with them. And it was a federal proposal. But she had tried for this really competitive federal proposal for like three or four years and had been rejected. And then one year she said, Okay, I'm not going to apply this year. I'm going to become a federal grant reviewer for this, you know, this funding opportunity. And those sit at the table and see what it is that makes these proposals effective. You know, that's what she did one year she just set out of the, you know, because she couldn't have been a reviewer and have had submitted an application. And the next year she then wrote the application and got it. So I thought that was like a great kind of persistence angle. And also just, you know, as part of your own skills just, you know, becoming a great reviewer, most of your, you know, local United ways community foundations, maybe even some of the businesses that give dollars. You know, they're, they're always looking for community reviewers, so you would be welcomed with open arms they usually give you a little training. That sort of thing and then, and then you work through the process. So, I really encourage you to do that as well because that really always kept kind of kept me up on my game, you know, hearing what, you know, others are doing seeing again examples of things that, oh, I really didn't like the way that, you know, this was laid out or I really didn't like the way they told this story or this was just boring, or whatever it was, you know, being a reviewer really helps helps you kind of learn these skills. So we're going to go ahead and have time for some questions and answers I do have. Again, we can kind of talk about this but we do have Jeremy, who's with us today behind the scenes he's doing a free webinar on how to use Grant station and, and the tools we have available to help you find funders, how to build a grant seeking opportunity and how to write proposals. And then we're also having our textbook promotion which is why we're here today on just those days only for $99 which is an amazing deal. So, I encourage you to take advantage of both of those opportunities. And I'm going to take a drink of water and see what kind of questions we have. Perfect time to hand it off to me hello everyone this is Jeremy with Grant station I'm the Director of Communications at Grant station and I have the privilege of going over all your questions so I have a couple I'm going to throw at you Alice. During our go ask Alice section which is my favorite part of Alice webinars. So this was a very, very early question and I was actually wondering this to Susan asked you said this, but why don't you like the term shuffle ready. It's more, I know, I know, that's kind of silly. Great question those Susan. I think it's just, I feel like it's kind of an overused term like think outside of the box, you know, so I just like to me, but it's great to have them right like do have shovel ready projects. And just to me it's just like I feel like I see that term a lot so it's just, it's just a silly thing for me, but you guys don't you can like it. And, and you have to worry about it but I just kind of feel like it's kind of overused, but here's a, here's a question that I think we've covered in lots of our webinars that we offer a grand station and I'm sure many of you are asking this of yourselves to but it's one to sort of address this and mentions that she has an all volunteer cancer nonprofit. I really just have small donations that really cover printing phone with office in the home. Is that, is that the right approach or should they be thinking of a way to have more than just all volunteers and maybe look for more of a sustainable approach. Well, you know, I think it really just depends on kind of what you know what you see as, you know, is there a bigger, you know, need out there that that you could, if you amped up the resources to help you, you know, through either, you know, pay staff or you know, other monies coming in to do, you know, to pay for those therapies or those maybe costs that families incur when they, you know, are in the hospital or dealing with cancer. You know, it just kind of depends on where you want to see yourself going there's nothing wrong with being, you know, an all volunteer organization. If you want to grow, and there's a bigger need to meet out there. You know, then then I think you know starting with grants is a is a great way to start to grow that you want to keep those, you know, local donations that you have and you always want to keep that pipeline of support that you're having from other places. But, you know, grants could be a great way to, you know, you know, take it to the next level in what you're trying to do. I've been on a board of an all volunteer literacy organization. And it. The leadership didn't really want to grow that much but I was always kind of pushing, we're not meeting the need yet there's still so much adults illiteracy in the area, you know, we could up this through grants and get more resources to the project. And they just didn't want to do it the leadership didn't and wanted to keep it kind of small and that you know that's fine that's just the way that they went but you know you definitely, you know you can start with, you know, just those donations, you know, demonstrate all the support that you have through all those volunteers. It makes you a very attractive to funders to see that you know that you have all this kind of grassroots support behind you. And that's a real strength for you know what a funder would like to see. So, it's, you know, really kind of how how you would want to, you know, no right or wrong there. Excellent. No that that makes perfect sense. I mean, you can go either way but the only thing I noticed and I was going to throw this in based on my experience I've spent a lot of my time working with radio stations, nonprofit radio stations, and it's all volunteer which is fantastic and it works great. But the one thing I noticed is when there is no it's all volunteer based. It becomes a passion project. And when the person with the passion no longer has the passion. It becomes very difficult to continue moving on unless you happen to find someone with that exact same amount of passion. So that's the only reason I'm thinking as long as you have someone, if I'll be here forever. Great, then I think you're good to go but if you're not going to be there forever, it might be good to have at least one person who is constantly there like maybe I'm trying to think of not like a receptionist but someone, a secretary of some sort that keeps the books keeps it moving. It's like oh this is what Jeremy did last week. This is what Alice is doing now that she's been hired, having that one presence helps and I know that something a grant could provide. Absolutely, yep, yep, that's a good point Jeremy. And that is you know that's like always looking at that sustainability of an organization, especially when you have a founder, you know who's always kind of run it and it is their passion, right you have to get the rest of the leadership to keep it moving forward. When that founder, you know, moves on and and so that can always be challenging. Exactly, you know and related to this one Kathy asked a question which I think is a perfect segue. Small nonprofit, no one gets paid, common situation. I usually pay my own way to events, and they have world worldwide and the art sports education arena. She'd love to find a donor that allows them to hire people to do the tasks necessary. Is that possible to do with the grant. I know the answer is yes but I want to make sure Alice that I am saying that correctly. Yes is the exact right answer. And so that is part of what we do at Grand Station we have databases where you can go in and there. We have a charitable database US based and then we have one in Canada and we have an international database so I know there's people from all three areas there. And so you can go in and you can talk about you know you can use clip boxes and do you know that it's I'm in this area of the arts. I'm looking for funds for you know ongoing program support. And then you can find what's available through our database so that's, that's, you know, a big part of what a grant station membership does for you. But yes, you know some funders, you know, like to fund funders like to fund different things. So sometimes you'll find a funder who might say, I'm not going to pay salaries, but then other funders will say yes I'll pay salaries. So it's kind of you also kind of want to, you know, that's where that building your grant strategy comes in. And that's how do I build that up if I need, you know, I need equipment and I need, you know, operational funds and I need supplies, you know where can all that come from. And again that's what we do at Grand Station is provide those databases for you through a membership. And also, exactly what you're saying a couple questions coming along this lines, just to mention, I give all the tours on Grand Station and if you don't know how to do this, if you're wondering what steps go into that. It's beyond the scope of this webinar but all that information is on Grand Station. So with a membership which will only be $99, we've divided up into three easy sections. We have a search section, a build section and a write section, search is for searching, building is for how do I put all this together, writing is everything you need to do when you're writing a grant. So it's all nicely laid out. And actually while I have the floor for a second Alice, I want to see if Aretha might have something that's a little interactive that we can run. I think we do. Is that right Aretha? Am I wrong? She has it right there. Look at that. Do you currently have a membership with Grand Station? This is a very easy one, just a yes or a no. Let's us know. Do you currently have one? Do you not have one? And if you don't have one, I encourage you to sign up for our webinar next week. This is me along with our lead researcher, Kerry Glauser, and we'll be going over all the features of Grand Station specifically. But today's webinar was about giving you these tips and the ideas and the ways you could really get into the concept of, you know, receiving grants and how you can use them for your specific purposes. Like, oh, we have quite a few people who don't have a membership, which is great, because you can pick up a year for $99 instead of $699. So you'll save quite a bit of money on that. But we have a couple of people here who do have a membership. So you probably already know some of the value that you can find with a grant station membership. I think there is a question that may have been dismissed accidentally, and I'm trying to see if I can locate that one. It's, I'm not quite sure exactly what happens if someone else dismisses a question accidentally if it gets pushed, but I think it was regarding specific search terms. So Alice, when you're looking for grants, and we'll just use grant stations example because we know it so well, what do you do specifically it's like so you're looking for grants you're trying to figure out what to do. What's that process like when you're trying to find terms. Yeah, so one of the, you know, one of the, it would be a great reason to have that shovel ready project kind of in the queue. Because what you'd want to do is really look at what needs your addressing what geographic scope, you know that your project will be will it be in a, you know, serving an entire state or just a county or just a city. So understanding your geographic scope, and then within the different sectors that that your project will serve and so again with like grand station we break it down into different categories. So you know there's a health care category if you're doing dental health you can look specifically under that or mental health and on on again Jeremy can show you through a free webinar. You can also look at those different search terms. You can also look for things under the types of support that you want so when I was talking about we need equipment for this project or we're looking for operating costs for this project, or we're looking for you know money for a capital, you know, project, whatever you know it can look, we're looking for startup money. We're looking for seed money, that kind of thing and then it pulls the funders that like to fund those things. And so, you know, having that project kind of pre plan, where you can go through and find those keywords and start plugging them into, you know, like our database then you can kind of see what's out there that would help match what what you're trying to do and then make that you know make that great funder connection right from up front. So that you know that that they like to fund this, this priority area that I like to fund the kinds of things you're asking for in your budget. All all those kinds of things. No that's that's perfect that's exactly what I would have said so I'll have you do the webinar next week. So two questions came in this one from Aaron, another one from Brie and I think they sort of go together. Aaron's asking about grants for specific projects she sees that, what are their grants for operating costs out there, they'd love to expand and hire staff, but doesn't seem to be compelling to funders. And Brie says they have a small nonprofit no one gets paid rely on donations to host events, but advise supply for grants to help with funding. They've got to research the right types of grants and how to craft those. So in both cases, I think they're looking to expand. And it's a very tricky question, because it's a funder isn't like I want to give Jeremy money to make his nonprofit better it doesn't quite work that way. So what should people keep in mind when they're trying to, we want to pay staff, or we want to actually, we want to expand and have more people what what should they be looking for. Well, I think a couple of things that you'd want to do in your search, you know, is that is that that we do have that option to look for, you know, operating costs and funders that that will, you know, support that. And like, for example, like, and then I know locally, for example, like our United Way our local United Way will fund things like salaries and things like that. So, you know, when putting together a strategy, I always kind of go in a little bit heavier, asking the United Way for those salary supports because I know they'll support it. And then asking say a different foundation who didn't want to pay for that salary support asking them for another component of that application. So it's really, you know, again, about finding that that, you know, finding those funders that will that will, you know, pay for that staff, and our databases will help you do that. And then when you're, you know, in your writing, I mean, I think the thing is, is showing, you know, really demonstrating that that you have the ability, like there's a need to expand. And that you have the capacity to expand as an organization, you know, you have the systems set up so that you can manage the money well and do the evaluation well and, you know, implement the program effectively, those kinds of things. You know, kind of showing that you've done this work, but there's still more need. This is why, you know, if you had more, you know, if you had more resources, you would be able to serve more people, and you'd be able to achieve this outcome with more people. So again, just kind of using that homelessness, you know, that if you had, again, more staff to go out there and do that outreach, then more people would get into homes and have more, you know, self sufficient stand stability, those kinds of things. There's always about, you know, again, leading with your strengths on that, showing that you've done the work. And that, you know, that you see that there's capacity to serve people, serve people either better or serve more people. So you can also look under capacity building grants. If you need support, looking to, you know, kind of build your nonprofits systems. So if, let's say for example, you know, that you know that you're going to be, let's say, you're part of your longer term strategy is to, you know, get more, you know, more money into organization. And so you need a better financial system in order to, you know, manage the dollars appropriately, you know, and so there can be capacity building grants out there that would help you develop those financial, that financial infrastructure, if you will, so that you can, you know, so that you'll be more competitive for those applications. And that's what the funding isn't there anymore, but that's kind of where I started was that capacity building. And how do we get nonprofits, you know, who are on the ground doing work, how do we get them, you know, situated enough with a good strategic plan and, you know, you know, those systems there. So I think that makes sense and one good thing to note again and I can't say enough good about it because I work for it, but a grand station in the build section which actually you rewrote that entire section. That section is all about how to get all these things lined up. How do you get your board in line, how do you get your board on board, where is your money coming from we have a program planning tool will go over all this next week. The scope of today's webinar to really go into that kind of thing, but I did want to talk a little bit you mentioned this and I found it fascinating and I think it might help a couple people here who don't have a grand station membership and maybe wondering a little bit about grants. Do you just get one grant that covers everything. And Nikki this might even be a question that you could pop it if you want to on this do you just try to get one grant to cover everything, and that's all you have to worry about. Is there a different approach that you should use when you're trying to put together, what do they call it a grants strategy. That's right Nikki you want to take that one. Yes, sure. I do believe in a grant strategy I think it's very rare that you could find one grant that will fund everything you want to do. Generally, if they have the money to fund the whole program they're already doing the program themselves. So we, I recommend partially things together and saying you know you have a mission, a vision and where you're going to go and there's lots of different arms that come off of that and look for a grant to fund one of those arms that then is coupled with another to build the whole program. Absolutely. Yeah, I really echo that, you know what she said and, and the other reason that you also, you know, want to try to diversify that funding is also because if you do plan on one funder and you only have that one funding stream is something goes wrong and that funder, you know, drops the program or changes their focus or whatever. Then you've lost everything and you don't have anywhere else to go. So, not only is it, you know, it's also just helps you with kind of overall sustainability to have more than one funder. That makes a lot of sense now Chris has a question I just want to, we'll make this nice and clear Chris wants to know does capacity building apply directly to hiring staff. So that is a little bit trickier with capacity building usually know that with capacity building it's about, and I understand the argument Chris like, if I have more staff I can serve more people so that sounds like increasing my capacity. And I totally get that argument. However, most funders are looking at capacity building as building the infrastructure of the organization. So, you know, that that so it's about, you know, having a good marketing plan or a fundraising plan or a good strategy or a succession planning or those kinds of things having those systems and staff that would work with, you know, your, your clients or your participants or whatever term you use. That's really just under program grants that's just regular program brands. So that's a standard operating kind of operating funds because those people are working directly with your, your clients so that's, you know, a standard salary grants. Now, I new at Grand Station have offer capacity building grant webinars as well usually twice a year so you can check that out on our online on our online education page. And that is, I was just going to get into that and I was actually going to mention Nikki you said something in the chat earlier. I was thinking maybe we could just tackle that really quickly. It was about the idea of someone looking for funding for a CEO purchase purpose and you were saying, you could adjust to grant in a certain way to deal with that. I've seen grants done in two ways. If you have a project, if you're especially if you're a smaller nonprofit, and your CEO is directly involved in a lot of the service provision and supervision. Then you can put a portion of that CEO in the grant like maybe 20% of their time is done supervision of the program staff that's going to be carrying out the project. You can put that into a grant. The other option is to include it in your indirect costs or your administrative costs, which are allowable on most federal grant proposals. And this is a rate that's based on a percentage to help cover overhead costs such as CEO utilities, your audit expenses, things like that. So it can be done in multiple ways, but yeah CEOs are crucial to the program and need to be covered in some capacity. That's clever. Very clever. Another question that came in and I can actually take this one from Claudia are there funders who will fund projects or capacity building for religious NFPs and that answer is yes. You can use the specific search term you can even use to just specifically focus on those within the grant station database. I don't know the exact number off the top of my head, but again it also comes down to the specific program you have. And one thing that I know Alice mentioned today's webinar which is very important is the concept of collaboration. So if you run into a situation where we're not going to give money to a not religious organization. Well, maybe you could partner with a different organization that's maybe not religious to do the same good work, and then they can apply for the grant and then the money can be applied equally across the project for both people. So there's other ways to approach it so don't think it's just you by yourself and the giant ocean trying to land the giant whale of a grant. It's not how it works. The idea is to figure out a strategy, work with other organizations, try not to duplicate but just augment augment what someone else is doing with what you currently do. They do their thing for a reason you do your thing for a reason. What happens when you put the peanut butter, you know in the chocolate or the chocolate and the peanut butter I'm totally dating myself. But when you that commercial where they combine it and make something amazing. That's what you could do. That is an amazing combination to chocolate and people and also building off that as well Jeremy the you know so there are funders that funds specifically will fund religious organizations. And then there's a lot of funders who will fund a religious organization, but not funded the religious activity. You know if you were, let's say, Jewish Community Center, and you know you were providing all sorts of outreach and food pantry and all this kind of stuff for people. You know they would pay for the secular kind of part of the food pantry, you know type of activities, but not the religious activities that take place. Sometimes if you're not looking for funding just for that religious activity, other funders will fund the non religious components, as long as it's open, you know to the public or whatever and not like only to members of your, you know church or synagogue or whatever. Makes perfect sense. Yep. Let me go on. Are we doing on time are we still okay or can we answer some more questions. Yeah, you're good on time. Okay, Alice, I hope you're ready minister. Usually I take up so much time. We've actually got 20 minutes. Oh, wow. Okay. Well, great we can keep answering questions and Aretha while I have you, people will be receiving a copy of the recording and also a copy of Alice's slides is that correct. Absolutely. I read this on top of everything she could do the whole webinar by herself it's amazing. I have a question this might be more of a this is more of a specialized one came in through the chat and this might be a combination Alice Nikki maybe just Alice, but does a board member need to step down when they become the executive director or can they stay on the board, or is that like a no no. So what yeah, it would be you. If you are a board member you would not. You wouldn't have dual roles, because your board is, you know, in charge of all the, you know, the planning the direction. You know, the vision the mission those kinds of things and will oversee the executive director so the executive director will report to the board. So that's why you wouldn't have a board member and be an executive director because it's like dual roles and they conflict with one another. So you would, you could be at board meetings you can give input, you can, you know, usually an executive director is very active with the board, but it, the actual, you know, kind of the buck stops with the board. And so you wouldn't want that dual role. I'm going to get a like a what if situation here this one came from from Delana. What about the board treasure becoming the nonprofit CFO. I'm assuming it's a larger organization so they have CEO CFO etc. So the treasure becomes the CFO it almost seems like you're trying to hedge your edges here but it's like, if you are with the organization you shouldn't if you're working for the org, you shouldn't be on the board. Because again it's that conflict I think that might be there. Does that seem correct. I think that would be correct maybe you got anything on that I mean, I mean I'm trying to think if I know. I think it boils down to whatever your articles of incorporation layout. So if your article say that the director has to be a board member which I haven't seen that, but I mean I guess it could be in there. If those as an executive director you're accepting a paycheck versus a volunteer director. I think there's some differences in how it's structured, and that goes back to how you set up your entity to begin with as you set up in on profit. But I do agree that you're, you're, you're setting yourself up for more headaches and more conflicts. If you have dual roles. So it's cleaner to keep it separate. You know but if you're an all volunteer organization and all the board members are taking on these roles as volunteers. That's a little different than if you're getting paid. Right that that's that's I think the good distinction because in that all volunteer organization I was part of you know the board treasurer was, I didn't think of that was you know did manage the books you know and so, but it was nobody was paying so you know, I guess it's not. And the executive director was paid a small amount and so she was just an advisor to the board. So, yeah. Let's take a step back into some one oh one questions now. Okay, so James has a good one too hard. Yeah. Okay, so here's some softballs for you. So, if you are new to grant writing, and this is also for you, Nicky. What a book, what would or a primer or a primer, I think as our former CEO used to call it. I never called it a primer it's always been a primer to me. What book would you recommend sort of get someone ready to a new to the idea of grant writing I think you might have one Alice and I think you might have one Nicky as well. I will I will strongly promote and recommend Alice's book mapping the course. It is offline though. Oh it is right now. Okay, it is yeah because. Yeah once I moved over to Grand Station I took it offline. But it's really good. Yeah, but we can we can see if we can find a link to that. Sure, sure. But it was it, it followed that that first chart that I had on there. And how do we plan through all the pieces of the grant and then how do we connect them so that our entire grant story is really, you know, concise and consistent and compelling. And all those kinds of things and it just takes you through each, each part section by section. We also do on our site on our right site. We do have, you know, we take you all the way through how to write a grant, you know from the beginning to the end. So a membership can get you all that information as well. And I think because you can read it on your phone you can read it on the computer. There is a lot of information there I mean again from that whole process of even organizing your board making a grant seeking team what is a grant seeking team what's the point of it. What's primary research what secondary research. What's all this stuff for, and then like Alice was just saying the writing section breaks it all down so I wouldn't say necessarily a book specifically that we'd recommend other than just a grant station, because all of our information is really focused on getting you to funding, you know your one stop shop for funding as a local store has one stop shopping here you can buy like you know, your oranges and your tires the same store. Well you can do that at Grand Station anything related to grant seeking, you can all do at Grand Station with that membership. So, it's fun to throw that out there. Yeah, as we're going. A couple more questions again we're going to go with a bit of a basic one here. Lucille says, what are sort of the top things that a very young organization, a national social change organization should focus on in their first year of venturing into grant writing. What are some tips since we are doing a tip webinar it might be nice to throw in some tips. You're a young organization, you're do national work, social changes your focus. What should they be. What are some tips they should keep in mind. Yeah, I think you know a couple of things, you know would be that that first tip about kind of having some different, you know projects and directions that your organization would want to go and get some of those fleshed out so that if opportunities arise that you kind of have, you know, some of that legwork done and you can kind of immediately start to, you know, apply to those funding sources. And I think that you know when you're looking at right now, you know, being kind of like a national organization, and looking on that kind of social change. In the area, I think it's also a really good time for that that more funders are starting to pay a little bit more attention and either, you know, having different social justice issues as part of what their priority areas are, or, you know, having a set amount of money to advance those causes. And so I think, you know, focusing on what you, you know, having that story of what your solutions are what you see, you know what you see as change, and being able to communicate that to the funders and kind of having that sort of flow would be some of the things that that would focus on because it is a good time for that, you know that that there's just more funds out there right now and and you know funders are trying to be more, you know, responsive to it. Yeah, I would add one, two things actually agreeing with Alice when I'm looking at federal grants right now, every single agency is asking about equity, and asking about removal of barriers. So it is a good time, and it is a good place to start. But also in your first year as you're developing and growing, don't forget to track your progress, because that data becomes very crucial for future grants, where you can show what impact you've had, what response you've had. You know, starting to look at how you measure your your successes is is a good key to get if you start while you're still small and don't have as much data, it gets easier when you have more than trying to create a whole new system later on. Absolutely, that's great Nikki. That's excellent, excellent advice there. Good tips. Good tips. So now it's time in the webinar where I like to slow it down a little bit and do some deep breathing and focus on meditation because Angela said, due to previous for management, they're doing everything possible to fundraise but trying to dig out of their hole is daunting. What moments of Zen can you provide to to help someone who's dealing with feeling overwhelming situation. Maybe you are the only person in your organization and you're like, I have to apply for grants on top of everything else. Why can't I just be in the 1700s and have a rich donor give me money so I can perform my art and do my good work. I think that, you know, that there's a couple things I mean if you had, and I don't know your story, you know, completely here Angela but, you know, if you had some poor management or you know somebody embezzled some money or you know something like that that I think that, you know, one of the things of going back to funders that that you have a relationship with and talking with them about what you've done to shore up those problems. And, you know, talking to them if they have any, you know, additional funds to help you kind of get back to to a solid ground kind of thing is a good way to go it's easier than trying to develop a relationship with a new funder and then having to have some poor management in the past. So I think, you know, if you're looking at you know that you're digging yourself out of a hole because of that for management, you know, bringing in the new management and what you, you know, the new systems you've set up to do, you know, better or track things or new policies and procedures whatever it is, kind of going with that and seeing if they can kind of help you out to get you, you know, back to to solid ground. And then if it's just like you're just really, if it's more of a question of you're really like overwhelmed and you're, you know, you're, everyone's, you know, really like your one grant writer and everyone's throwing everything on you and all that kind of stuff. I think that that you have to be just real transparent with your leadership and and talk to, you know, your, you know, your executive director or, you know, some board members or whatever, and talk about how you know that you need to bring a more of a team approach, and not let everybody just say, hey, grant writer, it is your responsibility to save this organization, you know, it's like grant writers don't have this magic that we do when we go into our room and start writing. And we need the input from, you know, other staff of the people that are being served, all that kind of thing and so trying to delegate out some of those activities where other people can assist you maybe who can do some research for you. Maybe there's, you know, a person that can do editing and, you know, making some great graphics, you know, those kinds of things and try to build a team kind of approach. And then that's where, you know, using that plan or that calendar will be really important so that everybody knows what they have to do by what time. It just kind of depends on which way your situation was. That's excellent. So, since we do have two grant writing experts here I think this is a question I can't answer. So this is where it'd be perfect for for you and possibly Nikki as well. Jason asked this in the chat, and then Reagan went ahead and amplified it. I think for strategies for unsolicited opportunities. Now just to quickly say, could you explain what an unsolicited opportunity is and then possibly any strategies for working within those. Sure, I'll take it first and then I'll let Nikki talk to it too. So, when I win the lottery and I start the one foundation. I'm going to be required to give out. I think it's 5% of my assets each year. That's what a foundation has to do. And as the runky foundation, I can simply say I'm giving money to Tech Sue, and to, you know, these other two nonprofits, and they're going to get all my money, and nobody else can apply. And as long as I'm giving my 5% and I'm giving it to those organizations. I'm okay as a foundation right and I'm following all the rules. There's other foundations who say, okay, you know, I have this money. I want everybody to apply and I'll pick the best, the best application, you know, and that's how I'm going to fund people and that's discretionary grants that's kind of what that's what we're talking about. So how do you get to the runky foundation right that's that that can be kind of the harder part. Now, at Grand Station, we don't put organizations like the runky foundation on our database because you can't apply to it. Right, so, you know, even though it's, it's, it is a foundation, you know, they're not, they're not accepting unsolicited applications. We only put the ones that, you know, you can get some traction with on our site. But some of the things that if you were trying to get to the runky foundation, I would look at who, you know, who is the member, who are board members of the runky foundation and look at that, see if we have any connections that way. I would look at my board and see if my board had any connection to any of the staff or board members of the runky foundation and and then start to make those relationships. It's not as easy. I mean, it's a more time intensive activity. It's not, it's not the worst thing to do though right as part of a bigger strategy to try to develop those relationships, you know, letting them know who you are and what you do. But it is, you know, it's going to take a lot of, you know, kind of that one on one time and personal time to do it. So, Nikki, do you have any recommendations for that? You know, that would be my same recommendations, you know, just remembering that people give money to people, especially when it's not part of a open grant program. So networking and, you know, getting positioned in the right places to meet the people you need to meet. And I just thought of something else. You can also, you can go to the runky foundation, and you can look up their 990, which is their tax form. And through that you can find out who they funded and whatever taxier that you're looking at the form. And that can also kind of help you like either, oh, let me, you know, connect with some of these other people who've been funded and see how did they get in or, you know, kind of try to go that direction too, to see how you can make connections with the foundation. That's perfect. Yeah, that also helps with other foundations as well, just when they know someone to say, you know, okay, it's the end of the year we didn't get as many applications as we thought we have extra money we haven't reached our 5% yet we have to spend it down. And then they just pick up the phone and they call somebody and say, hey, do you need some money. And so there's networking and those those conversations, especially if you have a community foundation in your area, or, you know, a foundation that's located where you are. That can be a hidden gem as well. Yep. Absolutely. And you can look up iris 990s on Grant station as well just throwing it out there. In case you're wondering what you can do with Grant station you can do. Again, one stop shopping for grant research can be done on Grant station. With that, I think I want to just do one quick one. This may be unfair to do this, because we want to get out right on time if we can, Rita is keeping me to task. Neil asks a very common question. How are grant writers compensated. So they are in different ways. I always worked on a fee for service type basis. And that is if you're part of the fundraising professionals group association for fundraising professionals that is the standard of ethics that we have that we get paid for our work and we don't work on contingency. So, you know, that's the easiest way to do it. But some do on contingency I mean some, some grant writers do work that way. So, but I think you want to avoid it I think it has more problems than it's, than it's worth. Yeah, it's, I would, I would go with a fee for service type of. Perfect. And with that, I'm going to hand it back to Aretha, I believe, and I will get you out without you having to fire me. So fantastic. Hey, can I ask you one question real quick, Jeremy. Yeah, I saw a question there from Selena, but she said she got a $99 grant station membership last year. Then she said, would we need to reapply for 99 this year, or will our membership renew at $99. And that answer is actually a perfect segue into Aretha in just a second. But you would have to renew and that's the glory you stay a member of TechSoup, you can remain a member of grant station for only $99, but it means you need to renew it every year we don't automatically charge you anything at Grand Station we don't automatically bill you like some other organizations that do grant research. Once you pay you've paid for that year, or two years or you know ideally 50 years, however long you want to pay for is great. We do not auto charge you. And that's where TechSoup is great because they will tell you all the wonderful things that you can do at TechSoup and specifically Aretha, the $99 special that we have coming up. Wow, this has been like a party that nobody wants to leave. We still have 211 people on here. I just want to say thank you I put the link. If you want to get notified I put the link. You can put your email in there. You probably get TechSoup's email but you can sign up just for this particular special with this link and we will send you the notice saying hey this is when it starts and this is when it ends. I just want to say thank you Alice. Thank you Jeremy. Thank you. Oh gosh, I can't remember her name but thank you. Nikki, Nikki is here. Thank you. Thank you. This has been wonderful. Thank you so much. A lot of thanks in the chat room. I'm going to go and you guys have a great day. Make sure you take care of yourself. Wonderful. Thanks so much. Goodbye everybody.