 I'm going to go ahead and get started. Thank you for joining us today for this TechSoup Connect Florida monthly event. I'm excited. You all have already let us know where you're from and let us know who you are and what type of nonprofit you're serving. I do want to let you know this is being recorded. So those of you who registered for the event will get the recording at least 48 hours after the event. My name is Aretha Simons. I'm the TechSoup Connect Florida Community Organizer. I'm also the president of Multiplying Talents where we help nonprofits like yourself start, grow and maintain. We do 501c3s for clients all over the nation. But today we're here to talk about TechSoup. Before I get started, I want to let you know that this is a community right here online where we welcome everyone. We do put community first. So we're here to support each other. So I hope you all chat in the chat room and share any information that you want to share. A lot of times there's a lot of synergy. People get connections here. We at TechSoup build strong communities and technology is the way we do that. So I would like everybody to participate by again chatting in the chat room and sharing contributing. TechSoup, for those of you who are new at TechSoup, if this is your first time, it is a global network. We serve nonprofits in over 128 cities in over 43 countries. Every day I'm talking to people from all over the world, from Canada, Japan, all over Italy and it's amazing what TechSoup has done. And I want to just give you just an idea. But before I do that, I want to tell you that this TechSoup Connect Florida is a monthly event and we need your help. We need event producers. We need people to market it and you market it just basically by sharing and you may have some marketing experience where we want to grow this community. We want as many nonprofits to come in and share and learn. We need monthly speakers. If you have a topic that you would like to speak on, something that will help nonprofits and specifically hopefully it ties to technology. And again, we need chat room host. Well, I mean by chat room host, somebody to be in the chat room because a lot of times people will ask, okay, well, where can I get this free Microsoft 365 and the chat room host would just put that link in the chat room. So if you would like to help in any way, there's my contact information, a simons at TechSoup.org, and I would welcome your help. So again, we've got that covered as you can see TechSoup is organization we're 501c3 just like you and we, we product stuff on bridging the bridge from technology services people when we hear tech, you think of just hardware and software but there's lots of products that are not only products but we have courses right now you're really in a course that's what you are in you're in a course. We have IT solutions. We have a community where we connect you with other resources as well. Training courses, we have IT infrastructure if you need help with designing your website if you need help, just making sure your website is running properly. We do a lot of that. There's also the services department where if you need help if you download a product or software and you need help putting it put it in your computer and making sure it's running right because a lot of people will get G Suite and it's like you know I don't know what I'm doing. We're here to help with that too. I want to ask you for those of you who this is your first time at TechSoup. Imagine if you wrote a grant, and you wrote a grant for one organization, meaning that you write one grant, and you don't have to fill out any grants. That's kind of what we are at TechSoup. We have over 100 partners that provide us software and technology hardware, and this is just an idea of who some of the partners are but again they're over 100. And when you go to techsoup.org and you sign up, it's free to sign up, you upload your 501C free, then you have access to all of these partners and platform. It's a free software, lots of free software. Just to give you an idea, a typical organization saves at least $17,000. And to give you another idea, if you were a small nonprofit with up to 10 staffers, this is what you would save in retail value with TechSoup. Incredible. I can't say enough about it. So, I want to remind you of a couple of upcoming events that's coming up on July 20th. There's an event fundraising and event planning. August 10th. What makes a great board member, you have to be there. Not just a good board member, a great board member. And then September 21, we're going to be talking about where to find grants and I'm excited about that because a part of this conversation today is all about grants. So enough about all the housekeeping. If you would, everybody would remain on mute so that the recording quality would be awesome because you're going to hear this replay. So if you would, everybody would mute yourself. I guess speaker today is Melanie Campbell. Melanie has over 20 plus years experience in the nonprofit industry with grant writing, fundraising doing 501C3s. She is the founder of Hire It Out, and that assist nonprofits with building their concepts and getting their ideas so they can get grant funding. And that's really important. Her health, her expertise is also in health and human services. So writing grant is just not all that she does, but writing grants are really the foundation. She's written for United Way, government, city, county, state, and federal. So working with nonprofits is what she does. So with that, all that being said, I would like to introduce you to our speaker, Ms. Melanie Campbell. Melanie, I'm going to turn it over to you. Hey guys. So, you know, tech issues. But my PowerPoint is gone somewhere in my computer. But I have my notes. Thank goodness. Okay. Tonight we're talking about pieces and parts. So for those of you who've never written a grant. It's not that scary, I promise, because you're already doing what you love to do. You already know your programs or your services inside now. It's just a matter of putting it together. So we're going to bake a cake tonight, basically, we're going to put all the ingredients together so that the next time a grant comes around, you're ready. So the first piece is to know your organization and have all the parts. So the first piece is I should say, so you're 501 C3, your board list, your staff resumes, especially your CEO and your program directors. Other things that you'll possibly need is letters of support. That'll be part of the RFP or request for proposal it will tell you if you need those kind of things. So for solicitation for contribution, different states have to call it different things, but the majority of them are bad. An annual report and audit. This is where you can sometimes get tripped up because sometimes an RFP will say, we need a, an audit done by CPA, or financial audits. For those of you who are only doing a postcard, it's okay. Now some foundations will say they want the full, full 990, but if you're still new and young, you may not have a full 990. Then the other pieces that might be coming about are you can sometimes upload a newsletter, but read the RFP, because you want to make sure that you're uploading what they want and don't give them too much. Next would be the actual grant itself. So I always tell nonprofits to go ahead and get everything together. Your program, you know, inside and out, I'm going to use healthcare because that's my safe zone. So I were writing for a pediatric organization, pediatric nonprofit who, you know, does medical care. I would want to know the demographics of the patients. So age, race, ethnicity, gender, education. And then if it were for adults, whether they, what schooling they'd gone through that way of covering the whole gamut of everything that could possibly ever be asked of me and a grant. So from there, I want to know what all services we offer. Again, you know your programs inside and out. So this should just be no brainer to for you to write. You want to have a synopsis of your program so three to five sentences that encapsulates what all you offer and what the program is. You want to have your need or your problem that you're trying to solve. So for that, what I just gave example I gave you, it would be we are providing medical services to uninsured children to receive medical care. So from there, I would also want to have some demographics so national demographics state demographics so go for me I would go to the Department of Health and pull statistics, so that that way I could prove that there's a need. That's the other thing that you're going to want to do is you're going to want to not only be able to justify the need that you're solving the problem. And also, how you're unique in what you offer. So, unfortunately, these days, there's nonprofits everywhere. It's amazing how many there are. You want to stand out from being the unique person in your area. So like here in the central Florida area there are six organizations that I can think of that do HIV AIDS. But each one of them does something unique and different. So when you're writing your grant be prepared to sometimes have to be short and sweet. If it's an online application, those are going to be either character limited or actually word limited. So be prepared to have to chunk things out. I'm actually going to want to client stories to that's another thing you want to start capturing, because some of them want to know. So what, how did, how did you help Susie get through to be able to go to first grade because that way she was able to have all of her shots updated for each of the programs you're going to have a bowl. So you want to have at least 80% of the clients or children will have their inoculations so that they can go to first grade. You always want to have it with a qualifier so make it. Like we will end hunger or we will end homelessness that's just not realistic. It's like saying there's a unicorn in my backyard. But you want to make sure that your goal is something that is attainable. So that you have been able to be successful with next would be going through and doing your whole logic model or justifying how you're going to do these goals and objectives with your outcomes and your measurements. So your objective would be connected to your goal, but it would be, you know, increase decrease expand. It would have been what when where and how in it. So who would be the children. What is they would get their inject their, their necessary medic or injections to start school with when annually, where at our clinic and how, how much actually. It would actually, that's where you start putting dollar amounts in, or you can actually just answer how. And then from there you would talk about the methodology so how are you going to be tracking this. Do you have a database that everybody's information gets put in. You're doing like pre and post tests surveys. What exactly is that your, your, your tool you're using to be able to track and justify that you can attain your goal. Another thing would be identifying the people that will be involved. So is it just the program staff or will the CFO have to be involved, will the board participate. And know who all is going to be the key positions. So not like the front desk person, you don't have to go that detailed. But you want to make sure that you you're letting them know who all is going to be involved because nine times out of 10 you're probably going to have them in the budget. And then from there you'll be able to have a timeline. Maybe your program might be ongoing annual, or it might just be a summer program, or it might be, you know, twice a year, it really depends. That's why you want to have the timeline. The next piece would be your evaluation. How are you measuring that you're being successful. How are you having, you know, quarterly are you looking at your numbers, or monthly are you looking at your numbers. And from there, are you tweaking how you do things. So, another way to do your tracking is, I'm going to say, I'm going to try and make sure I say this right. You're able to do it manually, which is through surveys or interviews, or quantitatively which is numbers and data, or test scores. And you want to have a tracking available so that that way you can, you can say yes our evaluation method is quarterly, we look at the surveys that we're receiving or That way they know that you're not just throwing some spaghetti against the wall and hoping it sticks. Funding is another question that the question you're going to get so you're going to want to have your operational budget, and then you're going to have it broken down into the program. So if you only do one program then that's your operational budget you're lucky. If not then you'll want to have it to where if they ask. And again this is reading the RFP to what all you're going to need to give them. Sometimes they just want to know that you have a the program budget or that you have the overall organizational budget, and this is how much you're asking. The RFP or really help with that because it kind of guides you. I always tell people to read the RFP three times once all the way through, and I understand whenever you get up to the federal level they're like 300 plus pages. Yes, that is bedtime reading, but nine times out of 10, they repeat themselves. The second time go through with a highlighter, and then the third time go through with those little page stickers, the little ones that you can tab it through, because then you're going to need to make a task list so that that way you know what all you're going to be doing, and or who you need to be getting it from so the budget will probably come from your state CFO or your CEO depending on how small your organization is your statistics you're going to have to get from the program director. That's why you want to have the task list, the budget, like I go back to that sorry will depend on what the how much details they want. Sometimes they'll give you an outline of what they want in the budget other times they won't so that way you can be as simple as we are looking to purchase ex equipment, or we are wanting to hire, you know, X number of employees. Other times you're going to have to give the full program budget. It really just depends. Your board list, you want to have in three different ways you want to have the complete board list of everything where what their title is where they work what their home addresses what their gender is what their ethnicity and races. How long they've been on the board when they're due to expire from the board. And this is because that way you are totally covered on any board question that you get. Some foundations will simply say I want to know the name and the position others will want to know name position and industry. So that's why you need to know where they work because if they work at a law office and they're in the legal industry. If they're a doctor they're in the medical field. Read that list again please. You want to have their name, their position. Where they work, their home address, and I've only had one foundation ever asked for their home address which kind of made me a little wiggie but I think they just wanted to know that they were here in the central Florida area. Then the next question or the next part is race, ethnicity, gender, and then when they got on the board and when they're due to be expired from the board. Can I ask you a question. Actually I want to stop and ask if anybody has any questions at this time, because I know there's different types of learners. And so, if it's your first time writing a grant you knew to the grant world, you may want to stop and stop and ask questions and since we have a small group. Let's do that, because I know it went really fast somebody asked what an RFP was. Oh, sorry. I put in the chat room, it's a request for proposal. You can expand on that Melanie, usually press proposal ask you certain information you go ahead Melanie request for proposals always going to give you the outline of who the organization is the foundation grant or what they're wanting to fund. So some of them are very specific or some of them are very general like we want to fund children or we want to fund homelessness, and then some are very specific as to we want to fund in this zip code. And then the next one is LGBT is the RFP the same as an LOI know a lot of a letter of intent is. It's kind of like your intro. I'm kind of like sending your resume before a job let's put it that way. They've been sometimes will decide whether or not to ask you to write a full proposal. And then the RFP and then the RFP will actually give you an outline of what all they want you to submit with the grants for new nonprofits is their minimum board number. Yes, it was on your application you have to have at least three. And they cannot be family members. Let's see what else. I think that's pretty much for an RFP. And then there's also notice of grant funding so and NGF they've got I I'm not a acronyms kind of person I usually don't use it I apologize. I always tell people don't ever use them because in some industries it means one thing and another industry it means another and you can really get in a lot of trouble. Rita. Yeah. Yes, I want to ask anyone if they have any questions so far before she proceeds. Feel free to unmute yourself. I have a question. I wanted to know exactly do you have to have your board members expire I mean they have to have a beginning and end date. It should be in your bylaws that way you never want to have a board member stay on for more than three years. Everybody has different term limits some have three years. I've I've seen organizations that have been around for 100 years and they may have a board member who has an emeritus position meaning forever, but they do not make the business decision their name is there just for image alone. The reason why you don't want board members to stay on forever because they get comfortable. They no longer are really being your champion. My philosophy is a board member needs either give get or get off. And also to there's a rule where some people put in their bylaws. If you're on the board for three years you get off for one year and then you can come back on and be voted back on. But that's internally how you want to do it. Yeah, you can set up your bylaws however you want the organization to run is the best way to put that answer. Okay, go ahead if there's no questions. I have some more questions. The staff resumes. You want to get your CEO CFO HR director program directors, you want to have at least a one to two page resume of them, or CV, however you want to put it that way whenever grant comes around you're ready. This is trying to get you completely ready for your first grant and you, you're ready to run. Once the RFP will come out and you will have anywhere from two weeks to, pardon me, two weeks to six weeks sometimes to write it in. And sometimes you'll have a day, which is really freaky but if you're already set up, then you're ready. Online ones are the most. I'm not going to say that. Online applications can sometimes be easier and sometimes be more difficult. It really depends. I always tell people to type everything in word, and then when you copy and paste it into the actual online application, go back and reread it. Because some of the online applications will change an apostrophe to an amp or Stan. Like dollar sign. I mean just wiggie things. So always type everything in word so that that way you have it documented, and then go back and check to make sure that everything copied and pasted over. So sustainability. You always want to tell the funder that you're looking for other funds yet you're not depending on them. Maybe don't put it that way fluff it up a little. You want to let them know that you are looking for other funds constantly, and that you have diversified fundraising streams so you're wanting to do events, you're have online request PayPal or a donation button on your website. And you are not wanting to be sustained by them, because after 911 grand tours no longer give to the same organizations year after year. They want to spread their money around they want to help the community. They want to be able to build up the community. They want to have staff positions CEO CFO HR director and the program directors. Those are the ones that are typically ever going to be asked of you, because they want to know who that key players are. And sometimes you want to have job positions descriptions that didn't come all right job descriptions, because if you're planning on hiring somebody. You don't have job description in because you don't have somebody in that position right now. An example would be. If you wanted to hire medical assistant. Then you would put in their the MAs job description because you don't have enough medical, you don't have you don't want to be putting in all your medical assistants. Resumes so you want to put in that so that that way they know what you're looking for is grant writing. The job position full time more money or can they do. I'm sorry, can you say that differently. Yeah, sorry, I meant to say that in the grant writing process. Do you specify positions at your upcoming company that are full time positions, which would cost more money or can they be part time positions. Both you can you would put in FT or PT depending on which one you were looking for. When you're writing your grant you're telling them what you're looking to get funding for so it's up to you on how you, if you want to take a position that's normally full time and split it into two part times. And this is being recorded so this may come back and get me, but that way you wouldn't have to pay benefits. But you have to be thinking of the organization and some organizations don't offer benefits so that's no big deal. But yeah, let's see what else. I went over the budgets I went over the sustainability evaluation, the timeline and be patient, because I've been doing this for, we'll say 20 plus years. And they're still, I still read books, I still go to conferences I still go to classes, I'm, because you go back and you're like oh I forgot about that, oh I haven't thought about that in a while. We actually have a local group here that people will talk about who they got funding from. And then you're like, I haven't gone to them in like two years, I need to try them again. And I'm also, I don't invent anything. So I go to my competition, or my clients competition, and I see who they got funding from. Because guess what, they obviously funds, you know, HIV or pediatrics, or homelessness. That way, when you're doing your research, you're not having to do a lot of research. And when you, when you say you go to them, how do you find the information. I'm just, I know, but I want you to share with them. So I go to GuideStar and look at their 990s and or look at their annual reports some up some nonprofits actually put their annual reports online and you can see who they got funding from. Although lately, some nonprofits are getting kind of sneaky on that so they're doing like the pie chart and says who all they got, they got, you know, foundation funding and donations. And another thing that you can ask of your board is for them to be on the lookout of what's going on in the community, they're supposed to be your advocates. So if they happen to see that XYZ organization got a grant. Now granted, you may not be able to go to XYZ organization because you may not fit into the criteria for their RFP or for their funding process. And some boards are like, but they got a million dollars, we should get a million dollars. Well, they, they wrote it differently. They had a different demographic. There's something in the RFP that would make you go, we don't fit for that. And you'll learn how to read an RFP quickly scan through it and be able to say yep, nope, this isn't for us. They only fund in this county or they only want, they're only giving up to advocate to awards. So there's no way we didn't fit. What else, usually the location, usually the amounts or how many they're going to fund. Another thing that they that can kind of throw you off is they're not going to be funding until next year. Well you need it now. That's where your budget comes into play. And also off your budget. I would suggest doing a wish list so that way you're when you hire, when you use your grant writer or hire grant writer. They kind of have an idea of what you're looking for. So, say you have a, you, you feed homeless individuals, and you need to start by, you need to have a pantry. You need to have shelving right. So that could go on your wish list. You need to have carry out boxes to be able to put the food in. Always be thinking of the next grant that's coming about. What do you, what do you need want and desire. In addition to grant writing, do you help companies refine their goals. Yes, that is actually what in my wheelhouse I always I love to help people with their outcomes measurements and outputs. I actually am a volunteer here at the local college where they have a grant writing course, and that is something that I'm always like, okay, you need to think outside the box and really look at your whole program. And then you can see what is it that you're doing that you can prove a b you have something, a tool that you're using so like I said before, a survey, a pre and post test demographics, something that you can have that's tangible that you can look from this, this time period of this time period. And I always tell people to pull their demographics at least quarterly if not by annually. So that way your grant person has them right then and there. So that way, again, the grant comes about two weeks later you can have it submitted. And then there's a study where you help someone from beginning to end tell us a story that comes to mind where someone was new in the nonprofit sector and what happened, how did you help them. I've helped everyone from concepts to I like five year old nonprofits. That sounds funny. At the beginning stages, either you have the idea or you've been doing it for years. Now, if you only have the idea. Unfortunately, the lot of the grassroots funding is not as easy to get to as it used to be. So that's whenever I tell you to start looking at your board and start getting donors and go to corporations in your area. For me, I like to work with like they said the five year olds because they have the, they have the statistics they have the demographics they have the proof that what they're doing is sustainable. And what they're doing, they can go forward with. And then I can help them tweak that because say they've been doing. Outreach to homeless and they've been feeding them every Saturday. They're just kind of get loosely what what they're doing. So then that's whenever I would help them like design a either a survey or a checklist so they can say, okay, Mr Smith. How often do you come see us so that's kind of a questionnaire and be prepared to kind of play with things and see how you can help. Okay, you mentioned the five year olds the one who will be in existence a little longer but what about new new nonprofits you mentioned the best way they can find grants through corporations and local organization. Tell us about that. So for new organizations, the things that are going to trip you up is you're not going to have an audit. You're not going to have a full blown 990 you're probably going to have a postcard. And from there, you're not going to have a lot of data, you're going to either have say six months, or even not even that. It's the process of getting you grant ready and getting you grant prepared. So, if they're, if they're just just baby they're baby steps. What kind of what kind of corporations does they be reaching out to Walmart. Walmart on the local level Walmart on the state level. Think about the. What I always tell people is a look at who you're already dealing with business wise so your banks. Go to local grocery stores. And then start driving around so go out from where your organization is, and look what companies are near you. Like here in the central Florida area we have TG Lee, which you can get milk from. Chick-fil-a loves to help kids. There's an example. You can be prepared to get cash. Sometimes it's trade. So like with Chick-fil-a they'll give you meals. We have another restaurant here called for rivers and they're willing to give food from their garden. Another idea is like home Depot or lows, if you're wanting if you're building. I always tell you to do the need that want need and desire the wish list, because that way you can be thinking outside the box of, Oh, that's right. Mr Smith is on our board, and he happens to work at XYZ company, well XYZ company gives out funding. Another thing to think about is match grants or match funding. So some organized companies will actually match a donation. If your board happens to work for my mind just went blank. We'll say Disney. They don't do this, but we're going to say it. Disney, the board member donated $100, then Disney would match that $100. If you search if you Google company match, it will actually bring up lists of the companies that will match. You talked a lot about Chick-fil-a giving food and Forbes getting food. Those are called in kind donation so you mentioned you know having your wish list your needs and your wants. A lot of times organization will give you instead of money, they'll give you a desk or chair or a band or things like that so you can always ask for in kind donations and basically in kind donations of anything that's not money. Yes. So anything that's not cash. Any questions so far for Melanie. A lot of great questions in chat room any questions. And I know that I just firehosed you all with all this information. But don't worry it once you get it all down. And then you get into the rhythm. It is so much easier I promise it's not like eating an elephant sort of kind of the first time. So the first time somebody is looking at a RFP Eureka, you can unmute yourself to ask a question. Hello, it's actually Erica. I love it. Make sense. Thanks. But my question is because I'm a newbie I've been around for about a year and a half. And as far as like employees right I'm the executive director I'm everything right. So, and I also, I mean I'm a professional outside of this is like my side nonprofit if you will. So my resume, it would say now I'm the executive director of shades of autism, but my full time job actually work for fidelity investments and I'm going to financial advisor. So I was like, how does that look when you when you show that know you you're a full time worker somewhere else and then this is your other effort. And nonprofits are passion nonprofits nobody's ever going to make a million. Well, there have been but they get written up. You're never going to make, you know, a million plus dollars nonprofits are for passion and heart. So they understand that in the beginning you're not going to be able to pay full time employees, you know, a CEO a CFO and HR director. You're not going to be able to do that. So in the beginning they understand that you're volunteering your time, or you're splitting your time. And I actually think your, your resume looks great because it shows that you're professional. Yes. Okay. Great and then also to really have one person like so like it'll be my resume, then I would say I would contract out for the additional needs I need. What about your board members. One of my board members mean also professionals which are great so I do have a great board list is more so I was concerned about, but some of them would not necessarily be doing the day to day work on the project we're trying to get grant funding for. So I'll be the one doing the actual delivery of the service, but, but one of them would be like a facilitator for one of those things. That she utilizing volunteers which is another huge thing that boards love to see that you have volunteers that you're not just trying to. You're going to them and asking them for $50,000 of that $50,000 you want to feed the homeless and then hire a outreach coordinator. But then you can also say that to be able to feed those homeless you have five volunteers that come out every weekend. So that that way it looks like you're that's in kind, but there's actually a dollar amount you can associate with volunteer hours. If you Google volunteer average hourly rate, and I can't remember if it's charity navigator or somebody actually puts out a new number every year of what the value of a volunteer is right now is $27 and 20 sets this year. Yeah, and so you're you're depends on what kind of grant you you're looking for they're going to ask for the board members info, and some will ask for the, the, you know, actually the people who are working so you still need the board members info as well. Great. Thank you. Okay, great questions. Anyone else have a question. Feel free to unmute yourself. I have a question. So the nonprofit that I'm just getting started on July 1 will be launching with the program where we're going to pretty much allow like larger companies and brands to give 4,000 or more and be a part of our founders club before we kind of launched to the rest of the world. So we won't actually be going after grants for our first few months. But what we do is we are helping foster people that are aging out of foster care to become experts in their industry. So by doing that they're actually going to be working through the processes of our nonprofits so I know that's a little bit different than most nonprofits because the people in our program are actually going to be privy to the back end operations and be a part of everything that we're doing, because we're teaching them how to be able to move around in the corporate world and you know how to become successful and whatever industry they want to go into. So I was wondering, once we do start applying for grants. Is there a certain way to kind of let it be known that some of these funds that were that we're actually getting aren't just going to pay. You know, random Joe over here that's going to do the work it's actually going to go back a lot of it's going to go back into the pockets of the people that are in our program to get paid to actually do the work with us. And then you go in your program narrative because you would be explaining when you do your narrative on your programs. Think about the clients journey so from them walking or finding you on the internet or however they find you word of mouth, newspaper, etc. And then how do they go through the process, you know, is there an application process you need to walk me through it as if I have never been there. That's the whole point of a grant is that you are trying to entice them to fund you because they want you pulled at their heartstrings. You've made them see little Susie who needed to get that shot or you made you made them see Jason who's got out of foster care and is trying to get in to be a cook, because he wants to have a restaurant someday. We're able to get him a mentorship and a stipend to be able to go to culinary school. Exactly. That's pretty much what we're doing. Yeah, something like that. So the idea is to, I guess what you're saying is I got to take my 20 something page proposal and turn it into something much shorter. Yeah, that will specifically pull out heartstrings instead of going into all these crazy details. Yeah, because that's the business plan. Right, you want to chunk it down and make it to where you're doing more heart and a business plan you're doing more business and finance versus in a grant you wanted to do the heartstrings you want them to understand. How, you know, Jason found you and that, you know, he was in foster care and now he has a plan and we're here to help him make that plan to be a sustainable human in the community. Okay, and is that kind of the same thing as a case for support right. Yes. Cool. Okay, thank you. And once you get the dead. Once you get these synopsis or narratives down. Like I said, it becomes a can is a canned response that you can then go and change up every single time to fit into how whatever the question is for the RFP. That's why I said at the beginning with the federal government, they're going to ask you the same question, at least three to five times, just to see how you answer it differently. That makes sense. Thank you. It's good question. Any other questions. Go ahead. Thank you. One of the things you mentioned was about how a granting organization might provide grants for a specific state or even a county. And I have heard of that before. But what if you wanted to pursue grants for programs nationwide. Does that mean that your nonprofit can be set up differently or set up in a certain state that is more beneficial for nonprofits. Your 501c3 covers all 50 states. So it's not like you have to set up a nonprofit in Michigan and Florida. So when you're looking for and I'm going to let her answer when you're looking for funding, it depends on the type of funder so community foundations only serve in certain communities. But when you start branching out to just foundations and they go broader they serve anybody in the state of Florida anybody in the state of Texas. And then there's different types there's federal the federal is nationwide. So, Melanie, you want to add to that. Yeah, there are actually like, some foundations want to give just to a specific county just a specific city someone will give to a specific state. Some of them will even give here in the United States they only want to give you know to South America or wherever. It's how the foundation set it up. And then corporations now have their own foundation so it depends on how they set them up. It's just a matter of doing research. Google is good, but it's not going to give you the details that you need to be able to do the extensive research that you'd want to do. I read the said though your 501 C3 covers the whole United States. So please sign up for the course where to find grants. I just put the link in the, I think this missing a on Florida so if you click on it may not come up but I just put the link in the chat box, sign up for that course and I'll be showing you where to find grants through organizations, community organizations, private foundation, family foundations, different foundations. Anybody else have any other questions before we close out. Yes, go ahead and read yourself. I'm not sure if this is from a Melanie Rita. You talked about tech soup and the different tech softwares and different things that are available. How do we find out the different things that we need like if you set up a website. Is there a grant for that or go to Texas and do that. We're trying to, I don't know, set up a donation link. You know, setting up a financial account to account for all the monies are, you know, that we're getting a donation. About setting up all that stuff to make sure we're protecting and not doing it the wrong way, you know, separating it from my personal to. That's a great question. Yes, if you go to tech soup.org and you click under the services link. They actually have a program where they will walk you through how to set up getting donations your website and things like that and they'll actually do. The board is not study but basically walk you through the steps of setting up properly. It's an evaluation that's what it's called. Yeah. Anybody else have any questions. No other questions. Well I thank you all for coming on tonight again make sure you sign up for the other courses that are coming up and I appreciate you could be doing anything else. I don't have time of day evening night morning wherever you are but you took the time to spend this hour with us and do me a favor type and chat one take away that you got from the day one thing you learn from today. I have one more quick question if it's possible. Sure. So we're going to start in Sacramento but we're going to be moving to Las Vegas and Oakland within about a year. We already kind of have it all set up. As far as like me being the CEO or even like there probably be one other position that will kind of be not city specific but over the whole thing. Do you apply for grants. Like, how do you apply for grants in such a way where you're ethically saying like okay I'm going to I'm the CEO and I'm trying to pay myself this salary which is the proper salary, but I'm trying to get grants from all three cities to share in that situation. How like how does that like how do you make sure that you're doing that the right way so that you don't either get in trouble or so that you don't kind of like be unethical. Well you can't be unethical if you don't have the money to pay yourself so if you raise the money and most of the money is going to your programs, then you can pay yourself a salary. I don't understand that I just didn't know if like, if it's like unethical for me to say like okay I'm trying to get this grant to pay my salary from Las Vegas and this grant to pay my salary from Sacramento and this grant to pay my salary from Oakland, and try to get the counties or the cities of each of those places, and they're all giving grants. I don't know if that's unethical or not. When you say you, all the money is going to the program and anything that goes to the program belongs to the program and it goes through the program so you can only pay yourself one salary. It's not that you're getting salary from here or there or there or there, it doesn't work like that and as far as writing multiple grants, you can put your salary request in multiple grants if they allow you to put that in there but you only pay yourself one flat salary you're not getting three different salaries from three different states. Right okay I understand. That's what I thought I was just trying to clarify if there was a certain way that you have to do that. And let me jump in also because I had this happen to another I well I saw this happen to a nonprofit. So they wrote to two different foundations for the same thing a van. And they got it from both of them. And it was unheard of. So that they had to go back to the one fun, they went back to both funders and they said look, we wrote these two grants we got funded two different ways, is there another way we can utilize the funds, and some funders are going to let you do that and some funders aren't. But you always want to be open honest and transparent. That's the key transparency. Thank you so much. Because the other thing you need to know is that foundations talk to each other. It is definitely a. It's kind of like a sorority or fraternity, they know each other they talk so they would say, ooh, you know that nonprofit that just opened. Yeah, you don't want to fund them. They're not ethical. Or did you get a grant request from such and such, we did too. That's interesting. So just so you know, they, they do talk to each other. That's great I come from a background of Las Vegas market, which where nothing is transparent so I'm actually looking super forward to making everything transparent I think it's, I think it's very freeing and, and I think it's awesome to be able to move that way. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Sandra Stanley, you have a question your hand is raised. Hello, Rita. Hello. Yes, I wanted to contribute to his question, can he do a percentage of if he had a, a, all that money going into one pot for, for those different divisions, couldn't he do percentages of salary when they're doing for allocated for each position that he's doing a percentage. He's not increasing his percentage. And let me explain your salary should be set for the year. Mm hmm. And, and that's what he's getting he's getting what he said he said his salaries got be $35,000, then that's what his salary is just because he's getting more money he doesn't increase the salary because your memory your nonprofit is supposed to mainly serve the community and yes you're going to get paid to do the job but I hope that answers your question. Yeah, I was just wondering if he could, when he said his salary, I guess he's already said it but say someone else was setting their salary, and they had different areas to cover when they're allocate that they have the transparency and percentages of what the salaries being paid for. Is that what they do. Every grant is different. And remember you're reporting this on your 990 so if you you're going to be reporting all your salaries on your 990 so if you're 990 says, you know we raise 100,000 but I paid myself $20,000 from this grant from Las Vegas I paid myself $20,000 from this grant. That's not gonna look good. Oh no, that's not what I mean, I guess I'm not saying it right. Okay, want to try again. Like on your salary percentages go for programming percentages go to directorship percentage when you're, I guess that's something you wouldn't put on on the 990 but when you're allocating your salary on what you're doing. Then you're breaking it up percentages I don't want to confuse everybody I guess I'm not saying it right. So, on what you're doing. I'm still, I'm still not sure. Okay, well, okay, just, are you picking up what she's putting down. I think she's saying like, so the program is $100,000 of that 20% goes to salaries. Well, then if you write a grant and the program goes up to 150,000, then does that change the 20%. Is that what you're saying Sandra. No, just get squashed. Okay, I guess my bookkeeper needs to be here to explain it. Okay. If you think of an email one of us. Okay, I will. Okay. I did put my email in the chat for you guys. Okay, bye bye. Bye. Thank you all for your comments for the takeaways. This is great information. Again, I want to thank you for being here. There are no other questions we're going to close it out again this this webinar was recorded and it'll be available within 48 hours we'll send to your email. All right. Have a great day. Bye bye.