 Good, good, okay. Welcome everybody to Executive Directors. We call it ED Chat here at TechSoup. Today is gonna be a special session. We're gonna be talking about grant writing tips and more. My name is Aretha Simons. I'm the webinar producer here at TechSoup. And I'm excited that you're here. I'm always excited that you're here with me. Just spend this one hour and get to know you and then share. Again, this is all about you. So if you're new to TechSoup or this is your first time to ED Chat, put a one in the chat room. I kind of wanna know where I need to go. Put a one to chat with, great, Julie. Oh, great, Tim. Oh, lots of people, very new today. I love it. This is fantastic. This is fantastic where you're in the right place. And if this is your first time hearing about TechSoup, I do wanna welcome you and let you know that TechSoup is much more than a marketplace where you can get great deals on hardware. But we also have online and offline communities where we collaborate with each other. We have technical support. There are courses, there's blogs. There's so much that you can get here at TechSoup. And we welcome you, we welcome your ideas. We love hearing from you. Still lots of people saying, hello, first time here. Fantastic, I love it. I just wanna give you an idea of some of the partners that we have here at TechSoup. We have over a hundred partners that provide hardware and software, either free or at a reduced rate. And over 75% of nonprofits say they always check with TechSoup before they make a hardware or software purchase. So I wanna let you know you're in the right place. And those of you who have been a member of TechSoup, you can probably share in the chat room and let people know, you know, how you've fared with use and technology during the pandemic. So before I get started, just do a little bit of housekeeping. Everybody's on mute. I would love if you would continue to stay on mute that will keep the quality of the recording. There's an option to raise your hand and unmute yourself. I'll allow you to come on a little later. I have a special presentation today and we want to hear your feedback. So when you unmute yourself, just let us know the name of your organization and you'll have one to two minutes to respond or ask your question. Otherwise, feel free to engage in a chat room and love on each other. That's what we hear today. We need a little love. We need a little encouragement today, right? So I notice a lot of you are new here. We want you to know that we are all in this together and that's why we developed this ED chat. We wanted executive directors to come and chat, see each other face to face. But I personally would like for you to become a featured nonprofit because I know that all of you wear many different hats and there's so much that you can share with other nonprofits to help them. And of course, we want to hear your topics. We want to hear some of the ideas. Today, we're going to talk about one of the most requested topics. I'm going to share with that and share with the presenters in a moment. But if you would, go ahead and type in the chat room, maybe one topic that you would like to hear about. And again, I know we just started, but feel free to share this link with any other nonprofits and let them know that we're on. They can come on and join us. So today, as I said, we're going to talk about one of the most requested topics and that is grant writing. I would like to introduce you to some of the members in your community. We're going to feature three nonprofit executive directors here with us today. We have Carol who's going to tell us about her path in the nonprofit sector and what she's doing now. And then we have Kimberly Burke, you guys wait because there's a lot of people that cannot see you first, Carol and Kim. And then we have Matt Cherry, who's going to tell us also about his path in the nonprofit sector. And if I were you, I would take a screenshot. You may want to get to know these people, take a screenshot or write down the information because they could become your very best friend after today. So we're going to start with Carol. Carol, would you tell us about your path? And everybody, if you would mute yourself for the quality of the recording, that would be great. Tell us about your path in the nonprofit sector and what you do now. Hi, my name is Carol Millette and now I'm the executive director for the Find Your Light Foundation, which was founded by the singer Josh Groban and his family. And we support arts educations for youth across America. I started in nonprofit as a student in elementary school and volunteering with the sisters, little sisters of the poor at the St. Anne's home for the aged and continued that path my entire life. I've been very fortunate. This is my first gig that I agreed to take a paycheck and I'm 64 years old and I did that two years ago. I've been very fortunate. My husband and I, you can always use extra money but I really didn't have to support a family on my income and I thought it was fair to leave those funds out for somebody else that needed to. But I have been involved from HIV AIDS, Children's Hospital, PTA to university. I was a CEO of a women's organization of 900 women at the University of Southern California called Town and Gown and we have a $60 million endowment and give a $1.5 million annually in scholarships. So my passion is education obviously and so welcome and nonprofit. I also was a volunteer with the Annenberg Foundation. I was a community champion and trained over 200 nonprofits in the Los Angeles County area to be in compliance, to get governance in order to build a better board, roles and responsibilities, give and get policies, all different actions in the nonprofit sector. Welcome, I'm so excited to be here. Wow, you wore a lot of hats and you've been in rooms where there's lots of money given. So I'm definitely gonna ask you a little later about the job scope. Actually, you know what? Let's do that now. Anybody have any questions of Carol before we get started? Cause I don't want you to forget your train of thought. You used to raise your hand option and you can then unmute yourself. Anybody have any questions for Carol? Okay, excellent. You probably will a little later. So Kimberly, would you introduce yourself? Yes, hello everyone. I am Kimberly Berg. I'm also known as Kimberly Gales. I'm transitioning. So if you see that name, you'll know it's still me. I am with HRI Consulting and Training Services. I'm the president and owner. In addition, I'm the founder of Heaven's Rainbow Inc, which is a nonprofit for young teen and single moms. And pretty much my journey starts in grant writing with actually started out doing a daycare, a small home daycare and seeking some funding, some startup funds, and was able to identify those fundings, begin to write them, was very successful and actually pretty good at the writing process. And that grew on to other individuals coming to me and asking me to help them with some startup funds, going on to churches, other nonprofits and helping them. And again, very successful in helping them with some startup and then some, you know, continual operation funds. Eventually my life threw me in the direction of needing to go back into the work field. And at that point, I got into nonprofit management. My background, my degree degrees is in organizational development and organizational leadership. So I got into the nonprofit management where I went on to help nonprofits increase their revenues, developing programs, designing programs, helping them to manage the contracts to draw down maximum amount of monies. Cause once you get the monies and start the program, you want to keep the monies. So I helped them to be effective in being able to implement their programming in a way that they would continue to receive those fundings. And so that just began to stretch out a broad range and through several trainings and certificates, just developed my skill sets and grant writing and went on to start the consulting business where I also helped with program development, program design, board development, leadership training. And my passion really falls in two areas. One with the team moms, helping them to build strong and stabilize. But also seeing a lot of the nonprofits. That's where a lot of great work is happening in the nonprofit, especially the small grassroots and they just are lacking the funding to do the work that they're very passionate about doing. And so I'm very passionate in that area and helping them by helping them get grant ready to pull together their profile and a portfolio so that they can come to the table effectively and present a very great proposal and ultimately be awarded. So that's where my passion falls in. I continue to just do this grant writing on and on. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. And we have Matt Cherry here. Welcome Matt. Matt is the director of philanthropy at Ability Central. Matt, I would love to hear from you. Thanks, Aretha. Let me give some general background because I've been in the nonprofit sector for three decades in three different countries so I could go on and on and I'll try not to, I promise. When I came to the US as an executive director 25 years ago, I very quickly realized and had the point made to me that executive directors live and die by their ability to raise money. Even if you have a development director, the buck stops with the ED or the CEO. And I've devoted myself to that aspect of the role ever since and I actually greatly enjoy fundraising. I've mostly worked with nonprofits that are either less than a million dollars or just two or three million dollar budget. And I've also started nonprofits on scratch and built them up either as a board member or as an executive director. In one case, I took an organization with a budget of a third of a million a year and within three years had raised more than eight million dollars to run a ballot initiative in California. And I actually enjoyed that so much that I decided to become a full-time development director and I've taken several roles during that for different organizations. And I'm now director of philanthropy at Ability Central which is a division of the California Communications Access Foundation. And in that role I'm responsible for raising money but also for giving it away. And it's I think the third organization I've worked for where I've done both of those roles, raise money but also given out grants. And I've tried to use that perspective to help me in both roles, to make grant giving easier for applicants and also to try and make myself more successful as a fundraiser by seeing things from the perspective of the organizations who are giving out grants. And I think one lesson I've learned from that and one thing that runs through all my work is that it's important to be passionate about your work. One of the reasons I work in the nonprofit sector is because I am able to work for causes I'm passionate about I would never consider working for an organization where I didn't care deeply but if you can tap into that passion and share it with all of your potential funders be that individuals or foundations or even corporations you will find you have the key to getting support. It makes the work easy. I don't feel like I'm asking people for money as a favor and feel like I'm giving them an opportunity to support a cause that's really important. And it also helps to articulate the reasons and the principles and the goals that will help them achieve their own goals and support things that they're passionate about. Wow, wow. I'm gonna piggyback with something you said, Matt. First of all, everybody was going crazy in the chat room as you all were speaking but when you said that, basically you wouldn't do anything you wouldn't love doing. I mean, I think that's probably why we're all here or why we stay with it is because we love it. But I'm gonna go to some of the questions in the chat room, feel free to go ahead and use the raise your hand options in the reaction section while I read some of the questions here. Someone wanted to know, first of all, great comments, lots of good feedback. How do you get operational grants? And I will leave that for any of my three panelists to answer, all of you can answer or one of you can answer. How do you get operational grants? I can go. We, on our grant application, we just need you to specify if it's programming or if it's admin or in what area it is. We do not restrict to any part of the funding. We fund a specific what you've requested. Right, so basically it's not how, it's who provides operational grants because now every grant will say, they will specify this is not for operational or it is for operational. So that's really how you find them. Matt, leaders and energy wanted to know, I would love to hear more on how you make fundraising enjoyable and fun. Well, the main thing is to work for an organization you're passionate about. And as I said earlier, if you share that passion, the fundraising will follow. If you're working for an organization that not only has a good cause but has really great programs to achieve its goals, then I find it's easy to share that information and don't get bogged down in lots of details and all the operational details. Sell the vision, show why your organization can achieve that and get people excited about what the end goal will be. I mean, if you're operating a kitten foster organization which is a group I volunteer for, you don't sell all the details about the cost of blankets and buildings, you show them a picture of the kitten's purring. You let them see what the end result will be, which is the whole reason they're interested in you in the first place. So I think the key is just to focus on that and not to get bogged down in a lot of the details and building on that, the question about operational funding. I know that's often a difficult challenge for organizations because a lot of funders want to focus on programs with specific end goals and not just support the overhead. And as organizations, we're always looking to make sure we can support the overhead and how I approach fundraising is I really divide it into two different fields in my head. One I call fishing and the other one I call farming. Fishing is when you send out lots of inquiries and go through the usual procedures and you do your foundation searches and you look for foundations, for example, that support your cause or foundations that support operations. But farming is more about long-term cultivation and building relationships with those funders. And I find that you often have to do the fishing to get the connections to then build relationships but it's by building relationships that you find long-term supporters. And it's often those relationships that lead to operational funding. I find the approach of just sending out inquiries and grant proposals tends to be more based on programs but if you can build long-term partnership with foundations that invest in your success and who know that you'll make great use of the money, you'll find a lot of them understand and are willing to support operational funding because they realize that that is what keeps the lights on and makes everything else possible. Well, this kind of leads into the question from Will. He says, I've been told many times not to give up on foundations that state quote unquote unsolicited request for funds not accepted. Well, how? That's his question. Can you repeat that again, Aretha? I've been told not to give up on foundations that state unsolicited request for funds not accepted. He says, well, how? I guess he's saying, how do you not give up? Or you know, when you see those grants that says unsolicited request not accepted you have to know somebody to know somebody to know somebody. Go ahead, Matt. No, I was gonna say the same thing. You have to find another way to build a relationship. And sometimes that's because you have a board member who's connected to them or knows someone on the board. But over times it's about just keeping them in a loop about what you're doing, not asking them for money but sharing the work you're doing and then asking them how they think you could get more support for that work. And sometimes it's saying, do you know any other foundations that would support this? And they may give you answers, but they may also think these guys should be people we asked for a grant proposal from. So just find opportunities to connect and don't always start with a request for money but start with building a relationship towards a shared goal of creating a better sector. And then they'll start thinking about you as someone they can call upon perhaps for a proposal or perhaps to speak at a forum with other funders and just use social media, personal connections and everything you can to build those relationships. And I would just like to emphasize on what Matt was saying that is really the key is building relationships and networking with funders. If you see they're having events or hosting different type of events, you wanna be there. So you wanna create any opportunities you can to show your face, to be able to introduce who you are. And it is really about building not that first time. If they're putting that message out there, then money is not the first thing you wanna come at them with. But really building those relationships with them is very important. Excellent. Alicia said- I also think- Oh, go ahead, Karen, go ahead. I also think, and this is being a funder, I think it's very important that you find your match in besides building relationships because if there are organizations that will definitely not fund anything but programming and just becoming a relationship with them if it's not within their scope or mission. And it might change in a year. I've been in a group where they flip-flop each year. One year was for programming and one year was for admin. So I mean, you just have to really realize just because you wanna be connected to them. And if you're not within their scope, no matter what friends you have, it's not gonna happen. Very good advice. And Alicia says I'm looking to get a building donated for an All Girls Community Center. Any information would be appreciated. Everybody wants building. Anybody, any feedbacks from my panel on how to get buildings donated? It's definitely possible. I actually with my organization, that's what happened. We've seen a building and was interested in it. And it was really about going to the owners and presenting our mission, our goal, our vision of what it was we wanted to do. And based on the fact that even though they had other individuals came, proposed to give them money for the building, it was the vision that they liked. So you wanna do a very good job of demonstrating to them that you have a great vision, you have a great mission and you have a plan to implement it. And so it's definitely doable, so go for it. And I would add to that that you can often get buildings donated by individuals. There's a lot of tax benefits to them to do that, but usually it comes down to their motivation. They may have a home that they want to see to go to a good cause. And so don't ignore your individual donors. Also don't ignore working with your local council or other authorities because often there's funding and tax credits available to commercial owners who can give buildings and get a lot of tax benefits from that if they give it to a nonprofit. And finally, don't forget about naming rights and other ways to credit your supporters. Whether they donate the building or provide the funding to buy a building, you can put the name on that building and that often provides an extra motivation or an extra opportunity just to publicize your need and let people think about how they can help you meet that need. Now that was a goal. Now make sure you have a strategic plan for five years how you're going to maintain that building and how that plan is all in place. The funding is there to maintain it and to continue. That's to me is a very important factor. Wow, I picked some of the best panelists. Can y'all give me a hand? I'll pat my own self on the back because y'all are doing an amazing job. Y'all are making me look good. Kimberly, Carolyn, y'all are making me look good. This is fantastic. Okay, so Abdul says, how does a newly established nonprofit organization raise funds or receive grants if it doesn't have any financial audit report? I can start with one way that you're doing that because it is good that you are building a history and being able to demonstrate that you have done some of the work and you have the ability to manage the fundings. One way, and I'm sure Carol and Matt want to add, but a fiscal sponsor or a fiscal agent, if you can identify organizations, individuals, businesses that will act as a fiscal agent and then you're able to submit your grant requests for the fundings off of the backings of their financial statements and off of their history and their revenue. So you definitely want to look into that, make sure you write that down, fiscal agent or fiscal sponsors. There's a lot of, we work, we grant a lot of people who have had, are through fiscal sponsors. And five years ago, there was a lot of controversy about fiscal sponsorship. And I think it's come full circle now where people are really seeing that it's really adventations for the small nonprofits and it's really a great check and balance for them to really be able to fulfill their mission without all the daily nutcracking, crazy paperwork that has to be done. And I think I agree with you, Kimberly, fiscal sponsorship has really come a long way and if you find the right one, you're really fortunate. That's great advice. And fiscal sponsors are a great way to start an organization. I would add as a funder, we do ask that all our applicants have audited accounts, but we understand that may not be the case for new organizations. So we are actually flexible about that, even though we say we want it, if you came to us and could show that you've been in operation for three or four years and that your funding had gradually grown, that you were successful and you were planning to do audited accounts, but weren't there yet, frankly, because your budget may not be big enough to justify it, we would understand that and we would consider you for funding even though you don't have audited accounts. On the other hand, if you've been in operation for 20 years and have a multi-dealing million dollar budget and didn't have audited accounts, we'd be very worried and I don't think we would consider you. So at some point you should get audited accounts, but you don't want to do that if your budget is just 100,000 a year or even more than that. So be open to explaining why you don't have audited accounts. Don't just turn away because they say they require that. I'm not on the panel, but can panelists give feedback? I'm sorry? I'm not on the panel, but can participants give feedback? Absolutely. I was gonna say, some people used to raise your hand option and then you put your hand down, raise your hand if you have a question. So if you would like to provide feedback at this time, Clyde, the floor is yours. Okay. I don't see the hand option on my phone. Sorry. It's okay. Well, what I have found helpful is that because for your 990, if you're under 50,000, you could do the electronic filing. And that's what I explained to some funders that we're an agency that's under 50,000, but we have provided our balance sheet. And somebody has received that. They said, okay, that's fine because it shows your income and your expenses that we just want to get an idea of how you're handling your money and where is it going? So some have received that and has given us funding. Even though we have not turned in an audited letter or anything, they saw the balance sheet. Some thought that was okay, along with the electronic confirmation that we filed the 990. Okay. Thank you for sharing that. Mr. Nobody, I think I'm gonna start, I'm gonna change your name just for the day. I'm gonna call you Mr. Somebody. I'd say Mr. Nobody, Mr. Somebody, I see your hand raised. Go ahead. Yes, some people call me Mr. Special. They feel more comfortable that way. Where it comes for us is we look, here's the thing. Everything we give away in kind actually affects what our 990 is. So if I don't track all that, it's in kind and it's not cash. There's two levels we have and when we have, we give away, I mean, this last year it was like $300,000 worth of stuff and that's at our cost in kind stuff. That's not like the full value of it either. So don't underestimate tracking that stuff because that's important to track all of what you're giving away as part of on your 990, what your value of your organization is. Ask your accountant how to do the details of it, but that's really, really important and it makes you look a whole lot bigger when you're able to jump into bigger grants because of it. That's great. I just wanted to add- On the back of that, okay, raise your hand and let your panelists, unless your panelists, please raise your hand. Go ahead, Kimberly, because I do- I'm heading to that Mr. Special. In addition, definitely. Definitely want to keep track of all those in kind donations, they do matter. And also in your grant writing, you want to make sure that you're doing a good job of also keeping track of all your successes. You want to keep good numbers, measurement, outcomes. All of that information is going to be very valuable when you're going to the table in front of a funder. So yes, you want to keep track of anything that's representing revenue, anything that's representing your numbers on what type of successes, what type of outcomes in your programming, your volunteer, you want to keep track, you want to keep those numbers. How many volunteers you've had and how many you've worked with? Those volunteer hours actually translates into kind of like a revenue income there because it's money that you save by not having to put out a salary, but those numbers are important also. So very, very good thing that he's speaking about, but I stress it across the board, make sure you're keeping track of all of those types of things. When you're ready to come to the funder, they're going to want to see those things. And it all helps in the approval of getting potentially getting awarded. Sherry, I see your hand raised. I hope it's Sherry or Shirai. Yeah, Sherry, that's correct, thank you. One other thing I want to mention is don't underestimate the value of the partnerships that you do in the collaboration that you do. Oftentimes we neglect to mention how much collaboration happens in our communities, and that's really key in a lot of funders. They're looking not just at what your organization is going to do, but they're going to look for who are you collaborating with? What is the value of that? And the more you can collaborate with other organizations and other community stakeholders, I think the more successful you are in your grant writing. I agree, Alicia. Thank you. Good morning, my name is Alicia. I'm the director of the Spanish-speaking Seasons Foundation, which is a non-profit in the food but all plants. But I'm curious what the panelists think. I can see that there was an increase in wanting to support organizations like ours, who are serving the minority low-income people of color in our communities during the pandemic. I saw an increase in wanting to support organizations, but I'm not seeing much after the pandemic. And I'm curious to know what do you think? I mean, what am I missing? You know, it was an emergency. The emergency is almost over. What will happen after? Like any leads or advice, because those of us who made it, now need support to strengthen our organizations. What's the plan on the funder side? Thank you. Good question. I could speak for Ability Central because like a lot of foundations, when COVID hit, we just continued supporting the organizations we have been supporting before. We invited them to extend their grant application and that helped them survive and flourish. But of course it meant we weren't open to new organizations to apply. And now this year, we are moving on from that. So we are opening it up to new organizations, but I think we learned a couple of things through that experience. And one is to be more flexible. Another is that we are more open to multi-year applications where we will keep supporting things. And a third item is we had traditionally asked for 10 or 15% to go to overhead and operations and nothing more than that. And for this year, we decided to increase that to up to 25% going to administration. Partly in recognition of the fact that organizations are still struggling with COVID and the impact on their operations and the impact on their services. And I think a lot of foundations are still thinking through this process. So don't give up on them if it looks like they haven't learned all the lessons from COVID because I know from my own experience we're still trying to figure out the best way to move forward and how to incorporate the good lessons from COVID as well as overcoming the many challenges that nonprofits had to face. I'd like to jump in on this one. We had our grant application and we had twice as many as normal, this for the 21-22 year. And I included the PPP questions in that application because we have a donor that has given us a large amount of money for restricted organizations that did not receive any government assistance. So it was very interesting how the donor has flipped that he didn't want, it was all his donations in the past and it's a six-figure donation. So all his donations in the past were just for anything we wanted and this is restricted just strictly for non-PPP loans or any government assistance. So I think the applications are gonna look different this year because of that and not just ours but I think everybody else is also. Wow. Darlene, I see your hand raised. Please unmute yourself. Hi, yes. So I'm the executive director of a organization in Reading, Pennsylvania. It's called Berks D'Excendito and I just, so we are relatively new. We, I actually started my position about two weeks before the pandemic. So what we have spent our last year on has been a lot of strategic planning and much of that has been invested in or one thing that has been important for us is developing our website. But we feel a bit challenged with the website in terms of the situations that we've had specifically with our designer. So I guess overall, our goal has been to have the kind of website that can attract, obviously as the image of our organization can attract identity fund or it would show identity funding and also have a program value where people can register online and whatnot. But in terms of attracting funding, I'm wondering from your perspective on its importance in terms of identity of having a strong website, what are features that can stand out other than showing partnership or having an organized and image quality. And the reason I say that is because I feel that there's been a lot of payroll dollars invested in developing this website even though we have contracted a designer. Wow. I'll let my panelists answer that, but I don't know if you know that TechSoup has a free service where they will evaluate your website. Oh, I did not. Yes, we'll put a link in there in just a moment inside the chat room. And I'm gonna go into the chat area. Carol, I see you unmuted your line if you would like to answer that for her. Hi, with Find Your Light, we have an independent grant reading team and every grant application is read by two people independently and evaluated. And one of their directions is to go to social media and website to really find out and to dive into the organization. So personally, I think website needs to be clear, concise, be a brag, be a storytelling of a place so you can tell your story, have your hook, grab them, have your kids, whatever your program is, whatever your hook is, do that. But also, I wanted to recommend what I found is many universities are giving degrees in social media and website now. And we got our first web, our webmaster through a university student doing their masters in social media and came in and did it as their thesis project. So there are many avenues here in an area there might be a university around that you can get these students to be able to come in and give them volunteer hours because they all have to have internships. They all have, and it's not paid internships, but I mean, it's really important to go to that resource in my opinion. That is amazing. Thank you for the suggestions. Darling, another thing too is this really gonna be also beneficial on your website is collecting testimonies. The testimonies of the clients you served and all and how effective it was, the services were to them. That's also important. Wonderful, thank you so much. Okay, I'm gonna go back to the chat room. I see there are lots of questions that we haven't answered and our time is flying by. Someone asked, this is Alicia. She said, some grantors only ask for a letter that includes the description of our organization. What are some of the most important elements we can include in the request letter? I think she might be thinking maybe of a letter of intent. So what are some of those things that she can include in that letter, the request letter? I'd give a very quick hint on that because obviously it depends on the terms that they're asking for, but what I always try to do is reflect back their language. So we often have a lot of canned material that we can use and we should have canned material which we can just easily roll out and use, but look at the subject matter, look at how they phrase things, look at the areas they focus on and reflect that language back at them. So you sort of adjust what you're already doing to highlight the parts that clearly appeal to them and sometimes unfortunately funders are basically looking at checklist to see if you meet certain criteria and if you explicitly use the criteria they have stated themselves, it makes it easier for them. So always bear that in mind to look at their specific language and use it yourself in explaining the work you're doing. Okay, Deborah Mansfield, she said, can you elaborate on writing to the reviewer as well as the due diligence done by the granting organization? I'm not sure I understand that question. Can you elaborate on writing to the reviewer? I don't know if she's talking about a grant reviewer as well as due diligence done by the granting organization. Maybe that's it. Yeah, I can answer that. I think the most important thing and is that you answer the question and you really not answer it in what you think is your terms, but like you said, it's to answer in their language because that's what they're looking for because so often people read the question and don't answer the question correctly, they answer what they think we're asking for and not what the words say. Does that make sense? Make sense. Kimberly, did you want to add anything? I see your face. No, absolutely. I'm glad on what Carol Matt said. And I share a little story. It has nothing to do with grant writing, but it's the same concept and Carol Matt, again, they test on something very important that a mistake that often individuals make is not being specific and paying attention to the specific requirements and details of the funders. That is a huge mistake. And it is a process that they will use to eliminate what you're submitting because right away, like Matt said, there's a check off list and they're saying, you got to remember, there's a limited amount of funding that they can give out and you have tons of people submitting. So they can't get to all and you don't want to put yourself in an automatic elimination because you fail to follow those guidelines strictly. And my short story is, I remember I was taking a public speaking class when I was in college and the first day of class, the instructor said, listen, if you follow my instructions to the T and do what I'm telling you to do, you will get an A, you will pass. But if you decide to do something on your own and add whatever else you want, you will fail. And I literally watched students in there saying, I'm gonna put it like this and I'm gonna be creative and no, don't do that. Give them just what they're asking for. And sure enough, they added the additional, didn't follow the guidelines, they failed the class. I passed, I listened closely to that and I applied that in the grant writing process. And I'm sure Carol, Matt, again, as funders can definitely validate that. Awesome, thanks for sharing that story. Ann says, how do you build a relationship with big organizations where you're in a rural area? Anyone need to, sorry, we do virtual visits and we do virtual in a great views. Very good. Okay, Matt, were you gonna say something? Yeah, I was just gonna say, I think the principles of building relationships are the same wherever you're located, which is to just connect with people and increasingly you can do that online and to share what you're trying to do. And don't feel like you're on a lower footing because of where you're located. What people care about, what funders care about, are the quality of your programs. So don't hesitate to reach out if you feel that you have something to offer them. Good, this is a great question from Deborah. She said, most of the nonprofit platform tend to exclusively focus on grants. What about restricted and unrestricted gift income to support nonprofit operational costs? It's a question. And there are some unrestricted grants out there, but my question is, what about them using them to help with operational costs? I guess, can it be done? I think you just have to read what the qualifications are and the limitations and fill in to that. I also think this is probably where that my farming metaphor comes in, is if you look beyond just applying for grants and look at building those relationships, a lot of foundations will provide operational funding to organizations they have a relationship with who they have funded before and they see the need for capacity building. I also think for this kind of funding, individual donors are ideal. And a lot of the principles that apply to applying to foundations, to cultivating foundations, certainly apply to individuals, build up those relationships, people give to organizations they know, like, and trust. And a lot of individual funders aren't looking to restrict their funding, they just want to support you doing your good work. So never neglect the potential for individual support. Very good. Okay, we gotta do a fire around. We have six, 10 more minutes and I see like 36 new messages. I don't know if there are questions, but let me do this. What should a new nonprofit do to be grant ready? This is from Claudia. Let's let one person answer. How about that? I'll just pick you. I'll just pick you. Kimberly, what should a new nonprofit do to be grant ready? So definitely you want to pull together vital information again about your organization. You want to make sure first of all, you have all your paperwork, your documents filed accordingly to your nonprofit is set up correctly. And then you want to make sure that you're pulling together what I call like a profile, a portfolio of your organization, the history. You want to make sure that you have information about the staff or volunteers, the CEO, what their background is, their experience. You want to make sure you're pulling information together what you have done in the past, what type of program you provided, what are some of the successes there, what type of dollars you have spent, what type of monies you have collected. So you want to make sure that you're going through and collecting all the valuable information that gives a clear picture. So remember when you're submitting a proposal, an RFP, that is your picture, that is your overall picture of your organization. So what all do you think is very important about your organization that the funders need to know? And that is all the information you want to make sure that you're including information about your board. You want to have all the information about your board, how they're supporting your nonprofit all the way down the line. You're going to collect all the way down the line, develop a checklist, and make sure you're following that and filling in all that information. Thank you. So Matt, here's a question from Jerk. What's the strategy to use with foundations or corporations who do not accept requests from small nonprofits with lower than $100,000 budget? That's a challenge if they say that's their criteria. As I mentioned earlier, sometimes the published criteria are a little flexible although they don't say that. So you could still reach out and ask them if it is possible to still apply. And if not to ask them if they have suggestions for foundations supporting similar work who could do so. The other option is to partner with other organizations so that collectively you have a larger budget and you can show greater depth and breadth because you're working with one or two or more organizations in a specific partnership or in a broader alliance. And then hopefully between you, you qualify for those organizations. And I think you'll find you also gain invaluable experience by partnering with other nonprofits and working collaboratively on a joint program. Yeah, that's good stuff. Carol, Isabel says, what are some of the tasks to maximize bandwidth for a lean organization? Is there any advice on outsourcing to consultants who may be more experienced in fundraising? Yes, I think sometimes when you look at it in 990 and you see heavy fundraising expenses and consultants for fundraising who take a part, a cut of the, a part of the cut, we kind of look at it like, yeah, is that really necessary on the amount? Does the payout equal what they paid? So I think you have to be really, really careful that way, how much you're spending if you, and then, I'm sorry, the dog's part. Let me go outside. So I think you have to be very, very careful with the idea of how much you're paying your consultants to how much you're getting back. And most funders don't want to see their money going to consultants and wondering, in my opinion, that I've worked with many funders. They don't like seeing going to consultants on that avenue. Now on four, to have independent contractors is a totally different situation. You know, to do your, to independent CPA to run that would be great. You know, things like that. But just for strictly fundraising, I kind of shy against that personally. I think if fundraising is the name of the game, then nonprofit. So I think every board has to grasp it. And I know when I was with the Annenberg Foundation, there was a mandatory give and get or give or get and a meaningful gift because every gift is different to each person. Their meaningful level is different. And so a meaningful gift to each person to me might be one number and to the person next to me might be another number. And I think that's an important factor. And part of it in the women's group by men, it's a total volunteer group. And our budget is almost 2 million a year. And we all have a responsibility for fundraising. So it's something that we have built in and we're 119 years old. So it's our history and our tradition that the ladies fundraise. So I think that's something that is part of nonprofit. Everybody has to do it and jump in and grasp it and know that this is gonna keep you alive and follow your mission and change the world. Awesome, awesome. We're gonna put that link for your website to be reviewed if you need your website to be reviewed. Lots of people say they have a part-time grant writer. Thank you for saying that. I'm gonna share my slide again so you can see the presenter. Some of you want the contact info for our panelists. I'm gonna share this. Can you see my screen? Take a screenshot of it, of their contact information, how to reach them if you have any additional questions. A wealth of knowledge here, a wealth of knowledge. So I would definitely reach out to them. I mean, this is our community, right? This executive director's chat, this is our community. So reach out to peers in your community. That's why we wanted to bring you all together. I'm reading in the chat room. Again, grant writers, Melissa Gabeson, great advice, start with your local community foundation. I'm gonna stop sharing my screen so I can multitask much better. Start with your local foundations and start with your local area. Great, everybody's giving great feedback. I'm gonna put a link to the survey here in the chat room, it's just four questions. Everybody's saying thank you, great conversation. I'm going through, there's lots of things coming in. Do me a favor, write down your one takeaway. This is great feedback for the panelists. They like to know, I already patted myself on the back for inviting them, but let them know how well they did. Write one thing that you learned today. Give one good takeaway. Everybody's saying thank you, Matt, thank you, Kimberly, thank you, Carol, everybody's saying thank you. This is really good, but tell them your one takeaway. One thing that was an aha moment for you that Matt said, that Kimberly said, that Carol said, what was that one aha moment? Would love to do this more often. We do this every month. We have ED Chat every month. I'm gonna send you out. This is being recorded. It's gonna come to you via email. If you register in four to eight hours, it'll come to your email. If you share this link with a friend then you can share the video with them. But please make sure you register for the next ED Chat. Somebody was saying something. Somebody said, I heard a voice. It was me. Oh, sorry. It was Carol, I think. The only thing I would say, I heard somebody in the beginning talking about how do they know that their mission is right for them. And I just wanted to suggest we do a personal, any board I'm on, I've always done a personal passion statement annually by each person so that they are still connected to the organization. So they're still there for the right reasons. And it's just their words and their feelings so that they can really think about what their commitment is and really be engaged to your organization. But you can't write that for them it's something that they have to do themselves. That's powerful. Terry Knox, I see you're unmuted. Did you have a question or a comment? No, they might be asleep. I'm sorry. Okay, all right. Okay, great. Okay, so Matt, Darlene said, what she learned today was fishing versus farming. That was a good one. That was new to me too. I like that. It came to me in the shower this morning so it's new to me as well. But it summarizes what I've been doing all along. I love it, I love it. Okay, everybody's saying thank you. Don't forget the survey link. Chris says, build relationships before asking for money. I mean, yeah, right? Like you, when you have a relationship with somebody you go ask your friend and you're a family member for it. You don't go to a stranger at Chick-fil-A and ask them for money, right? Yeah, same thing. Annabelle, see your hand raised. Go ahead, unmute yourself please. First I want to say thank you to everyone. I just had a quick question. In regards to with ransomware and hacking, getting so bad, what is there things that TechSoup or grants that you recommend for nonprofits to be able to forward protection? Yes, we have lots of antivirus software and we're going to be talking about that. There's Norton, there's Abbas. Please go on techsoup.org and look on the products page, look for antivirus. We're going to be talking about that next Monday. So there's a webinar next Monday about lots of different softwares that you can use. And I think Chloe's here from customer service. She may put the link in the chat room but yes, great question. Great question about what's hacking, all the hacking that's being done in the community or actually nationwide, worldwide. So thanks for asking that. We're definitely going to be talking about that a lot. Gee Townsley said they learned about building relationships. We have two more minutes. Anybody else want to ask a question? You can use the raise your hand option. Ask a question or have a comment. I see your comments, my ah-ha moment. Can I be heard? Excuse me? Can I be heard? Yes, Galaxy phone. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I'm just not, I'm new to all of this. I belong to a newly developed 501C3 and I've been all but appointed as the director. So I'm very appreciative of all of the information. Today we talked about how to get a building in kind donation or in the benefits of that. We talked about operational grants and program grants. What I, my concern is we just recently purchased a building but now we're faced with the rehab and updating as well as the simplest things like furniture. Are there grants that will assist nonprofits for those things? Yeah, you maybe want to look for capacity grants because I don't know how big the building is and how much you need or just ask for in kind donations from corporations or builders or things like that. My panelists can feel free to jump in. I'm trying to remember the name but there are some organizations that take donations from corporations of office furniture which may include just sofas and tables and stuff and then clean it up and provide that for free to nonprofits. So you may want to look for those in your area because corporations, whenever they move off is get rid of all their old furniture and especially the bigger organizations have very good quality stuff and it's possible to get a lot of that for free. Okay. I was involved with an, I helped an organization LA and they just got a building needed furniture and they went to, I think it was the Hilton Foundation and they gave them furniture from a hotel they just remodeled. So they got a whole conference room set and they got a waiting room and desks from a hotel. So there's a lot of options out there for that. Also, you might want to, if it's kind of a larger project you might want to kind of break some of that work down some of the items that you need you might want to break it down into rooms or areas or different categories and present to funders in different ways instead of maybe trying to go after the full amount. That's just another strategy because all of those different smaller funding dollar amounts you're bringing in could fund a particular project maybe it is just getting seats for the lobby area maybe it is just getting computers for your computer lab. So you can take it and break it down and present your funding request in that way too. Okay, Tammy, you want to know how you can get on the email list. I'm not sure if you got the email for this one but I'll double check. But if you go to techsoup.org look under community and click on the links this is events you'll see that you guys don't want to go home. Oh, you're already home. I see. Okay, that's why you want to stay online. Okay, because the questions are still coming in. If you want to stay online, I don't mind. Okay, Alicia, I see your hand raised. Go ahead and unmute yourself. If you need to go, you know. Yeah, I'm sorry, I couldn't find the microphone. I just wanted to share, we have a building and in regards to the previous question what I have learned in the last six years is make a plan of what you really need and just wait for the moment when you get it because we ended up receiving, I would say yes to everything and oh my God, to get rid of things that you don't need is a pain in the neck. That's my two cents. That was good, thank you. Abdul, did you put your hand down? Abdul, you can unmute yourself, please. And then I'll go to Colleen. Okay, well, he's trying to get that. Colleen, go ahead and unmute yourself and ask your question. It's not a question. I was just going to also respond to the gentleman. I actually had a, I'm in Houston and one of my friends from the city of Houston is called and they get building supplies donated. The city of Houston does and they put them in a place called reuse and it's building supplies like nobody's business that are there for the use of nonprofits. And so I'm not sure where the gentleman is but you can get building, I mean, it's everything from sheet rock to fans to cabinetry and it's for the use of nonprofits free and all you have to do is go pick it up. So whatever city he is in, they may have the same thing. Wow. Great information, thank you. I'm actually in Detroit, but I appreciate that. You may have the same sort of thing instead of going to the landfill, it goes there. Yes ma'am, thank you. Absolutely. Look at this community, just sharing. Abdul, are you unmuted? Hello, Abdul. Okay, Audrey. Hi there, yes, thank you. This has been wonderful. If you do need something like furniture, for example, would you recommend when you're submitting your org budget to a funder that you include that in your revenue well your expenses but also projected revenue if you need to purchase it? Is it something that if you know a funder funds tangibles that you can already include in your budget or if you're going to them for that request, do you in fact leave it off in the hopes that they will see it as an additional need and expense? Is that clear, does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense to me and my panelists can chime in but if the requests say that you can include things like that then include it but if they're specific on what you can include then don't include it. But absolutely, if it's something you need then include it in your budget. Okay, and include it as if you've already let your budget is going, your income will cover it somehow whether it's them or someone else. I don't know about that, that your income will cover it. When you're requesting money, you're requesting it based on the budget that you need to spend, which includes the furniture, does that make sense? Yes, yes, okay. Yes, thank you. You're welcome. Alisa. All right, I was going to say though using that budget that you're submitting to the funders is specific to that particular funding that's being offered. So if that's an item that you're wanting to purchase through it then yeah, you would include it there. So it's not always your overall budget for everything that you're doing. Got it. Abdul, are you unmuted? Yes, hello. Hello. Yes, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Yeah, I would like to say thank you to all the organizers and then the resource persons for this meeting. And this is my first time of attending a TechSoup meeting and I've really learned a lot, especially on the issue of building relationships, valuing the partnership and then crediting funders, whereby you have to, they have given you funds to build a constructed school and you have to put the funder's name on it so that you can give credit to them. And then also projecting your success to enable you to be able to build funders to give you funding opportunity. I'm really grateful for this meeting. But the question that I would like to ask has to do with the fact that TechSoup helped in raising funds for non-profit organizations. We do not do fundraising. No, great question. Great question. And where are you from? Yes, I'm from Tamali, Ghana. Okay, thank you. Yes, we have our parent organization, Fountain of Blessings Foundation, based in Grand Priory, Texas. Okay, all right. Awesome, thank you. Thank you for joining us. Thank you too for having us on board. Okay. We really appreciate it. All right, take care. Okay. Alicia, how are you? I am blessed. How are you? I'm blessed as well. All right, you guys have really blessed me this afternoon. I am a beginning non-profit, but I've worked for other non-profits and was just blessed to get my 501c3. I wanted to know if, does anyone have any information on leads on how I can get, say, donated technology, such as maybe copiers or printers or just anything to help me get started. Of course, I'm working with the zero budget here, but I'm faithful that I'm gonna build this because I feel like I'm walking in my purpose here. So I just wanna know if anyone has any information on how I can go about asking for technology donations or something like that, equipment. Beautiful, and I bet everybody here has an answer. Go ahead, who was that? Carol, my local Office Depot every year gives away all their floor models, all of their stuff to local non-profits. So check with Staples or Office Depot and see if they would give you something. Awesome, thank you. One of the areas I've seen happen in the past is sometimes the schools are getting rid of their equipment and bringing in new equipment, and sometimes you can acquire some of their old technology equipment from now. So check some of your public schools. Okay, thank you. Okay, there are still tons of questions in the chat box. If you wanna stay, raise your hand. Okay, I only see a few hands. So that means the majority rules. Wow, Cassandra, go ahead. Please unmute yourself. No, I was raising my hand to stay. I'm sorry. I love it. I love it. This has been awesome. This has been really, really great information. So thank you. Okay, you're welcome. I'm so glad. Thank you for sharing that. We love that. Wow, Sim Shalom, you raised your hand. Did you have a question? No, that was to stay awesome. Okay. Okay, I love it. See, they're following directions, Kimberly. They're following directions. But for the sake of time, we did say that we would do this for an hour. I could go all day. Well, no, for another 30 minutes, but I wanna respect your time and I wanna thank you for being here. Evidently we need to do this again. We need to have a part two. So I wanna invite my panelists back because there were lots of questions in the chat room. I'm gonna pull the chat. I'm gonna highlight things that were not answered. And the video will be available within 48 hours. You will also have a link to the chat. So in case somebody put an answer to something, a question that you could use, then you'll have it available. And I'll always say, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, you all take care of everybody else. Please make sure you take care of yourself. And I'll see you next time, okay? All right. Can I say one quick thing? I'm so excited. I got Carol Millett. I got a chat saying that artists for here Humanities does a website for one of the people online and we support them. So we have given our grants for many years. So it's a full circle for me. Look at that. That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to my panelists. Thank you to Kimberly, Matt, Carol. Thank you to Chloe who's behind the scenes. Thank you to everybody who is here. Shannon, thank you everybody. Have a good day, everybody. Bye-bye. Thank you, Aretha. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.