 Again, welcome to Building a Grant Strategy. Welcome to TechSoup. I know a lot of you are new here. You might have got the link, so it may be your first time wanting to welcome you. My name is Aretha Simons. I'm the webinar producer here at TechSoup. This is being recorded, and it will be emailed to everyone who registered within 48 hours. We want you to watch the replay on YouTube. And when you do watch it, hit the like button and subscribe. We greatly appreciate it. So, today, I'm excited that you're all here in the chat room. But we know how this goes. Please type your questions in the Q&A, because the chat just moves up so fast. So if you'd like a question answered, type it in the Q&A. That's how you can participate today. Again, check your email in a couple days. You'll get the video replay. You're going to learn something new today. It's not a if. It's not a when. You are going to learn something new. Why don't you share it on social media? All hashtag, Facebook, Instagram, all our social media is TechSoup. So share it on TechSoup. And if you need the CC button, the closed caption, go right there on the screen. Attach the CC button and make sure that you get this transcribed for yourself. We will have this, what do you call it, the transcriptions on the Zoom webinar that's going to be played on YouTube. OK, good tongue tie. Again, this is your first time at TechSoup. Welcome at TechSoup here. We bridge the gap between technology solutions and services by partnering with over 100 tech companies to provide software, hardware, free webinars, discount on software. And GrantStation is one of our partners. So I'm so happy to introduce the CEO of GrantStation. Ms. Cynthia Adams is here with us today. I need to tell you a few things about Cynthia because you may see her and you're going to hear her and you're going to be amazed about what she has to share today. But she's been dedicated to helping nonprofit organizations for over 45 years. She helps them secure funding they need to do the work that they do. She's found at GrantStation because she believed that I want to make sure I take my time. She believed that grant seeking requires a thorough understanding of the funders and sound knowledge of the philanthropic playing field. And that is so true. Her life work has been to level the playing field, creating opportunities for all nonprofit organizations, regardless of their size or geographical location to secure grant funding. I love that Cynthia about you. Cynthia also gives back to her community. She serves on the advisory board for the Northern Alaska Environmental Center, as well as does volunteer work for numerous non-profits, many of whom serve to protect the world's environment. Cynthia, thank you for all that you do and welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm looking forward to hearing you today. Thank you, Arisa, and hello, everybody. It's so nice to meet you. And thank you for joining us today. Let me share my screen. Oh, I can't, there we go. Well, take your time. Take your time. I'm going to do this. All right. And while she's getting ready to share again, get ready to type your questions in the Q&A. If you need any questions answered, type in the Q&A. We have some people in the background, Eli and Kevin to hear the help. Thank you, Cynthia. Thank you. Thank you, thank you so much. Well, welcome, everybody. I want you to sort of fasten your seat belts because we've got a lot to cover today and it seems like a long time but it's actually a fairly short amount of time. I always enjoy spending time and sharing experiences that I've had over my 40, 45 years of being immersed in the world of grant seeking. So much, so much of what I have learned has been the result of experimenting with new ways of really approaching a particular problem. In fact, most of what you'll hear today from me stems from my testing different approaches and finally settling on the approach that I felt worked the very best. I'm gonna figure out how to change my, there we go. All right. So our learning objectives today are pretty straightforward. I started writing grant proposals in my 20s working as a fundraiser for a small but it was a really dynamic grassroots environmental organization in Alaska. And I had no clue really what I was doing but as many of you know, when you get thrown into the fundraising world you have to learn and you have to learn quickly. It took me maybe another 20 years before I fully appreciated the importance of actually establishing a grant seeking program, a real program built on clearly articulated goals and objectives as well as the importance of creating a specific strategy around each and every project that required funding. It took me a while to learn that. So throughout that first 20 years I developed a systematic process that I use to this day to help me identify the most appropriate grant makers for the programs and the projects that need funding. What I hope is that each of you walk away through today's training with an understanding of just how important it is to keep the grants pipeline full and that to do that you have to adopt a process and you have to use that process consistently. So today, this is our agenda for today and at each agenda break, I'm gonna stop for just a second and see if there are any questions about the information that I just covered. So if you have a question as we go along and cover each item in the agenda, just chat. Don't do that, put it in the Q and A. That's what Arisa told me, put it in the Q and A. Okay, we're gonna start today by talking about a simple tool that you can design to help determine the most productive grant opportunities to pursue. And I call this tool the grant decision matrix. If you belong to GrantStation, if you're a member we just launched a tool on our website that the matrix on our website so you can just go in there and use it. But what I'm gonna teach you today is not only how to use it, but how to build it. And then we're gonna move on to the process I used to guide my grants research so that I'm really identifying the most appropriate grant maker or grant makers for each program or each project that needs support. And then of course, we'll talk about how to take this information and weave it into an overall grant strategy to help you really secure the funds that you need to support the work that you're doing. The strategy you develop will guide you as you set up your calendar and the tasks that need to be done over the next 12 to 18 months. And just a side note here, I like to work in 18 month increments and I'm talking about grant seeking because grant seeking has such a long lead time and such a long award time affiliated with it that I feel it's important to work maybe 18 months out. So today we'll be talking a lot about tools and processes but keep in mind, this is just the way I do it. You wanna take this information that I share with you and create your own process that reflects how you work, how you think. Nothing is set in stone here. So the first thing you may want to consider doing as you launch or build out your grant seeking program is to develop an analytical tool that can help you make quick decisions about which grant makers to pursue and which ones to not pursue. It will take a little time and thinking to develop this tool but you're gonna be glad you have it at hand once you begin reviewing grant opportunities. You can refer to this tool as the grant decision matrix and this matrix can be applied to, requests for proposals from the government or grant application guidelines. And the matrix consists of a set of criteria each of which has assigned has been that you'll want to assign a weight and that can be easily built in like Excel. This tool relies on simple addition and subtraction which when applied really will provide you with a final score and your score will influence your decision on whether you will apply to a particular grant maker or via a particular funding opportunity. Now over the years, I figured out that it's wise to develop one decision matrix that you can use for government grant opportunities and one for private funding because the process and I don't know the importance of different criteria like the relationship to the grant maker that can vary depending on whether they're a private funder or government funder. And again, it really doesn't take much time to develop an initial decision matrix that you can utilize but you will discover that over time, you'll refine it. You're gonna refine it over and over. It's very much an organic document. So you will refine the matrix over time. So you wanna start by defining the matrix components and each of the components can be as complex or as simple as you feel is necessary. First, you want to develop a set of decision criteria and I like to think of them as both subjective and objective criteria because it sort of helps you consider what you want in the matrix from different angles. So for example, a subjective criteria might be your relationship with the grant maker. And whereas an objective criteria might be that matching funds are required and something like that. So think about subjective and objective criteria when you're developing your criteria and the criteria should really reflect the size and the shape of your organization. So for example, let's say you're a two-person team trying to run an entire organization, your criteria could focus to some extent on the amount of time it takes to write a proposal. An important criteria for you might be that the opportunity has to have a simple application process, which pretty much knocks out any government applications. Or you could say, if you wanted to make it more subjective, you could say a proposal development has to be less than 10 hours or 20 hours, whatever you feel you could dedicate to it. After you develop your criteria, you want to assign a weight to each criterion based on the importance in the final decision on whether you're going to give this opportunity a green light or a red light. Assigning the correct weight to each criteria takes a bit of time, takes a bit of thinking and it does deserve some attention. But again, over time, I guarantee you you will adjust those weights. Next, you need to divide what total score gives you the green light to move forward with a grant request. Again, it can be a little tricky and maybe requires some discussion with other leadership or other staff. And again, you will adjust it as you go forward and use to using your matrix. So after you've developed a matrix, then you want to run a few test cases against it. And what I like to do, you guys, is I like to use a funding source that has funded me in the past. If you have one and take their application guidelines and run it against the matrix, because that'll give you a pretty darn good idea if you've done a good job and it will help you sort of shape the final criteria and the weights. Okay, the other thing I like to do, and this took me a while before I finally figured this out, was that to make the process easier, you can establish an initial set of criteria and you can do this for both the government matrix and the private funding matrix, which I call mandatory criteria and there's no weights assigned here. And these mandatory criteria are simply those items that you must adhere to in order to apply via a particular funding opportunity. So for example, if the funder only gives to individuals, not nonprofits, then you probably don't need to pursue it any further. These are mandatory criteria and this is gonna become second nature. You probably won't even reference them as time goes on. I mean, that's, you probably don't now, you already know that if you don't meet these mandatory criteria, then you probably shouldn't apply. Now, let me share with you a simple matrix that I built that has the full criteria. So what we just looked at were sort of the mandatory criteria. Now, these are the full criteria and you'll note that on the screen there on the right hand side of the screen, those are your scoring, how you will score everything and this final scoring allows you to make quick decisions without agonizing over a particular funding opportunity. You'll see that I like to add a section that requires further discussion or leadership approval. And that was one of those things I learned over time. I thought, ooh, it's not that cut and dry oftentimes. So in this case, in the case of the example I have here on the slide, that discussion would happen if the score falls between 35 and 39. This means you have to decide if this opportunity is worth the time and energy of developing a proposal. Now, obviously these are just some of the criteria you might use in your matrix. You will probably have other criteria you'll want to add that will guide your decision to apply or not to apply. As I mentioned, you can put an initial matrix together fairly quickly and then you will continue to refine it over time. But do note that there are times, there will be times when you ignore the fact that you're getting a lower score than you'd like and you're going to move forward with the application. Nonetheless, I encourage you to develop a set of criteria to create a grant decision matrix and always run each opportunity through it. Okay. So running the opportunity through your matrix, it's going to result in a thumbs up or a thumbs down almost all of the time. If it falls within that yellow zone, then you step back and you reanalyze the opportunity before you move forward. Now, before we get off this topic, there are two important side notes. One, once you've established a set of criteria and this is really important, you guys, be sure and get it approved by your director or your fundraising committee or your board of directors because by and from leadership, that will allow you to make quick decisions when new opportunities present themselves without fearing any backlash. And that's important because a board member oftentimes brings a funding opportunity to the table and your response should be, let me run that through the decision matrix. They've already approved it. And if you don't go forward, then you have a reason why you didn't and something that they've approved. And secondly, the second reason is because when you run into something that continually makes you ineligible to apply, whether it's government or private funders, then you have to figure out how to address the issue. You can't just ignore it because you will continually hit this same roadblock over and over. And these pitfalls often show up in the mandatory criteria part of your matrix. Some of the most common roadblocks are your location. You're located in a rural area or a town that you just doesn't get any funding or a neighborhood, but your lack of history or the perceived inability to fiscally manage a grant award, which may be linked to your not having an annual audit or something like that. So let's just briefly talk about a few fixes that would help you address these sort of roadblocks that often show up within your mandatory criteria. And let's start with fiscal management. If financial management is a stumbling block for making grant applications, then you may wanna consider engaging a fiscal sponsor. Now, remember, your organization is still responsible for understanding and conducting ethical business practices that doesn't leave you off the hook, but you now have a fiscal sponsor who has the history and the ability to manage a grant award and the grantmaker will recognize that. The most important criteria when entering into an agreement with a fiscal sponsor is mission. Does your mission fit with their mission? The mission of your project must further the mission of the fiscal sponsor. So that has to be a strong link. And the fiscal sponsor relationship requires sort of ongoing active participation. I can say that participation. See, I even said it fast from both parties. So from both you and the fiscal sponsor, that means regular communications and attention to detail and really holding each other accountable. Those are all sort of critical components of such a relationship. And the formal name of such a relationship is called a pre-approved grant relationship sponsor. Long name, pre-approved grant relationship fiscal sponsor. And in such a relationship, the fiscally sponsored project does not become a program of the sponsors. That does not happen. It's a separate entity, right? And the fiscal sponsor is responsible for reporting to the grantmaker, but you are responsible for your own tax reporting and for any liability issues. Anyway, to learn more about this, if this is a problem you run into, to learn more about it, then you can go to the National Network of Fiscal Sponsors. It's a great resource, by the way. The other roadblocks that you might run into is geographic location and the length of time you've been operating. Both of these issues can be addressed by developing a collaborative partnership with another or several other organizations and finding like organizations that work in other areas of the country. So for example, let's say childhood education is part of your mission. Then you might want to partner with an organization like the Association of Childhood Education International which is based in D.C. In some cases, simply partnering with an organization within your own state will make a significant difference or within your own city or town or with organizations in several small towns located near you. The idea here is, of course, to find a partner that will not only enhance the work that you're doing, but that will also help deal with that pesky criteria problem and truthfully collaborations are considered a smart move even if you don't have an issue with history or with location. There are a number of types of collaborations that you can fall into and I've got a list here and you all receive a copy of this recorded webinar. So you can take a closer look at this later on but the idea is that don't be intimidated when someone says collaboration. It doesn't have to be a super complicated relationship. You just wanna find the one that really fits well with the work that you do and with the work that you intend to do. So for example, if you're working in the area of climate change, you probably already belong to a formal or informal network of organizations focusing on the same global issue. Are there one or two of these groups that you might want to work more closely with that will perhaps provide you with a broader geographic focus when you're trying to make application to grant makers. So when you have an opportunity, I want you to study this slide a little bit and really consider who might make a good collaborative partner or partners in which type of relationship might work best for you. Okay, now we're gonna set aside the grant decision matrix and talk about a process I use to conduct research really, to identify those grant makers that are most likely to fund a new project or an expanded program or my general operating costs, right? Before we move on, Aretha, do we have any questions I should address now? There were lots of questions in there. So, and they're coming so fast. Just a lot of comments about, people say they wish they would, funders would tell them why instead of sending a general letter saying, we had a lot of people apply and so we can't choose everybody. So, but lots of confirmation on what you're saying or affirmation on what you're saying and good points that you're making. So I think you can continue. Q and A is being answered. Okay, I will continue, but I will just say to those folks that say, why don't they tell me more? You know what, ask them. They are, to some extent, yes, they're a private grant maker. A government has to tell you why. And so if you ask them, they will tell you. If you ask a private grant maker, they should tell you. And it doesn't have to be, it doesn't, you don't want to leave it open like a general question. Why didn't I get the, you know, why wasn't my proposal funded? You want to ask very specific questions. So if you felt in your heart that your statement of need was weak, for example, then you might say to them, I felt as if my statement of need could have been more thorough, was that one of the areas where you felt we fell down? And that will start a dialogue with the grant maker. So don't ask them a general question, go back to them, don't ask them a general question, ask them a specific question about an area of the proposal that you felt was weak. And then that should start a dialogue. Okay, let's keep going. So one of the most prevalent problems facing nonprofits when trying to stick to your grants is simply identifying the right grant maker for a particular program or project. In fact, that's why I built GrantStation. So why is it such a daunting task? You know, why is finding the right grant maker so difficult? And where do you begin to conduct your research? So in our recently published state of grant seeking report, which by the way is a public report, you can get it off our homepage. We did a survey and I think we had like 3,500 nonprofits responded. And one of the challenges that nonprofits face when it comes to grant seeking really comes down to, well, two of the biggest problems are really time and information. So when you look at the report, you know, when we asked what in your opinion is the greatest challenge to successful grant seeking, we found that the greatest challenge stems from the lack of time and staff for grant seeking activities, as well as that it's just difficult to find grant opportunities that match a specific mission, you know, your specific geographic location, which we just talked about, and of course programs. So as I said, I started GrantStation for this very reason. And we strive to address both of these issues by making the grant seeking process as easy as possible. So to start with, we created a worksheet that you can use to identify the right grant makers for or grant maker, as well as addressing the critical challenges of significantly reducing the time you spend on research, as well as the time you spend on writing a letter of inquiry or a full grant proposal. So let me share with you some of the tools that we've developed. And by the way, we do have a new tool that's on our homepage today in the slideshow. It's called the Benchmarker, and you do not have to be a member of GrantStation to use it, and it will help you compare your grant seeking activities in the area of your mission with other-like organizations. And it's a free tool, so feel free to hop onto the homepage after the webinar and take a look at that. Okay, so in order to make your research efficient and yet very, very productive, I want you to follow these sort of three specific steps. First, you wanna prepare a worksheet for each project. And this is a step. I have to tell you this, I'm so bad. I mean, how long have I been doing this? And every single time, I think I can skip it because I know what I need. And every single time, I have to go back and do the worksheet. It's just a great way to get, well, for a couple things, it gets you a head start on writing the letter of inquiry or a full proposal, without that pressure of trying to write something just perfect and put it in the right order, et cetera, et cetera. The key here is to develop a worksheet for each project that needs funding. So for example, if you're considering doing a series of financial literacy workshops next spring, you would develop a project description worksheet for that project. Or maybe you need to completely replace the computers, printers, other hardware and software in your office, as well as update your website, that deserves its own worksheet. Or perhaps you have a general operating shortfall for this year or maybe next year, that deserves its own worksheet. So you wanna do a worksheet for each project that needs funding. Don't try to combine everything. And then you wanna include as many details as you can in each worksheet. And you don't have to be a great writer to draft a worksheet, no one's gonna see it at this point. It's really your working document. And you'll continue to add details to the worksheet even as you're doing your research. Someone walks in the office and says, or sends you an email and says, hey, I found out that we're gonna need to have at least five volunteers, not three volunteers for that project. Then you change it in your worksheet. And this is a good thing because every detail may provide new funding leads and every detail you add will make writing that letter of inquiry or the full grant proposal so much easier. However, one area you wanna develop as fully as you can from the get go is the budget. And we'll talk about the budget more in a few minutes. But I want you to have fun writing with writing the budget and writing and developing, drafting the worksheet because this is where you can kind of think big. You may take some of these things out later on but you can think beyond just what will this grant maker give me? If you have application guidelines in front of you and you're writing a proposal, you're limited and you know you're limited. The worksheet is where you can think broader and bigger. So you wanna have fun with this part of the exercise, especially with the budget where you can go on kind of a mental shopping trip and really buy the things you need to make that program really work. And then your final step will be to use that worksheet to guide your research. And having that worksheet in front of you is gonna help you keep focused when undertaking any kind of research. You're gonna find that you get distracted. So let's say you're looking for funding for that series of literacy workshops that you're gonna do next year and bam, you run into a funder that actually looks pretty good for that partnership you're planning with the school district, right? And the next thing you know, you're off doing that research. Having a worksheet for each project and needs funding like the literacy workshops or that new collaboration with the school district, even general operating, that's gonna allow you to simply focus on that one specific funding need, knowing you'll come across those other funders when you begin research on that other project. So the project description worksheet is sort of key to doing any of your grant research. So let me share with you some components of the project description worksheet. The worksheet represents the foundation for the program or the project that needs funding. So you wanna adopt a project name, you wanna determine a lead contact person. That's usually the person who's gonna run the program because that's the person you're gonna turn to with questions that might be you. You wanna develop a draft statement of need. You want a project description, you want that budget. All this information will result in your identifying key search terms. And most of your key search terms will come directly from the language you use in your project description and the statement of need. Be sure to fill out a worksheet for every project that requires funding, using it to guide your funding research. Don't skip this step, you guys. After 40 years of grant research and grant writing, I can tell you it's super important to actually spend some time doing this, not only because it makes you stay on point, which it will as you do your research, but because this is the fodder for developing your letter of inquiry and full proposal. If you're a grant station member, you can work on the worksheets in your dashboard, in your personal dashboard. If you don't just build your own and be sure and add the grant makers that you find for each one as you go forward. Okay, let's let me quickly show you a sample project description worksheet. So, you know, so that you can visualize what this looks like, right? This example is completely fictitious. I just made it up. I use it, made it up using a different number and different number of sources. So don't try to find this organization because it doesn't exist. Some of these numbers probably don't exist either, but I want to show you how your project worksheet might look. So in this case, it's an opioid outreach program. And as you can see, it's fairly brief summary of what the program will look like. Note the two major components of the program are outreach and prevention, that's right at the top. And we also note that the timeline for the project, which in this case is a conceived three-year program. So you'll see, you know, keywords popping out like outreach, prevention, children and youth, families, collaboration, and of course the word opioid. And so you're gonna, you want to note those key words. Then after you summarize the project and yours, your summary will be longer than that. I'm just doing this as sort of an example. You'll have your draft statement of need. And again, it should be longer than this, but you get the idea. And you'll find other key words in that statement of need like public health and mental health, substance abuse, epidemic, okay? So you're going to have different keywords that are gonna sort of pop out when you read through your project description worksheet. And you're gonna make note of those key words. Then the more you also want to develop your budget and the more detailed, again, that your budget is, the better, the more likely that you'll find the right funding sources for the project. And the more detailed the budget, the more funding sources, part of that means that you're gonna be wanting to add brand names. So look at those green arrows in the orange boxes. I've added brand names here, Apple, Sony, MacBook Pro, Camtasia, right? Those brand names will help me identify funding sources. And oftentimes, and I don't know why I do it this way, and you may not wanna do it this way, but oftentimes when I start doing my funding research, I start with those brands, so I might go to Apple just to see if they have a grant making or equipment donation, software donation program. And if they do, voila, I'll be able to add them to my overall grant strategy. So I like to go to those brand names first, but you may not wanna do it that way. So you're gonna be pulling up key search terms. And the key search terms are sort of the last piece of the worksheet. You've got your project description, your statement of need, your budget, and you've circled those key search terms, you're going to be using. Now you wanna make sure you're covering all your bases with your search terms. That means first focusing on your geographic area. And then of course, there's gonna be target population and other key areas that you need to look at. But when you look at your geographic focus, you want to make sure that you're looking not only at your primary impact area, which may just be your neighborhood, but also any secondary impact areas. A common comment I hear from grant makers is that the organization applying often confuses where they are located and their specific service area, but often forgets to include who benefits from their work. So for example, with this opioid outreach and prevention program, they will be serving the St. Croix Islands, maybe even focusing on Christian said, but their prevention efforts, such as public service announcements, will reach a much broader area, extending in this case, all the way to St. Thomas and St. John Island. So it's important to identify both your primary and your secondary impact area. And if any of you have trouble figuring that out, it's a great and sort of fun board discussion to have. Okay. Then you're gonna want to identify your key search terms. And we've talked about those already. You're gonna pull those out of your project description, your statement of need and your budget. And these terms are usually, what I like to do is I like to use the same terminology that grant makers are using. And on the GrantStation website, we have an area where that lists all the key search terms that grant makers use these days. And if you wanna know where that is, just put it in the Q&A. And Kevin Peters, who's online with us from GrantStation, he'll tell you where to go on the GrantStation website to pull down that list of key terms. So it's interesting to look at it too, but you probably wanna reference those as much as you can. That's to help you really understand the search terms you should use under areas of interest. So you're going to do that. The next thing you're gonna think about is target population. You want to understand what is my target population? And let's say you're an environmental organization and it's climate change. Well, hello, I mean, it's everybody, right? It's the human population, but it's also animals and ecosystems. And so you have to think a little bit differently when you think about target populations. If you're doing something that's not specific, like with the literacy project, you may be focusing on immigrants or adult learners, right? So that would be your target population and then types of support. That's really sort of the fourth question you need to ask yourself, what types of support do you need for this project? And since this, the one we're talking about, the opioid project is a three-year project, that's gonna require support for quite a while. So in my mind, I would select project support however you may also, that group may also need a small planning grant. So they may wanna put planning under types of support and they're gonna be doing workshops and seminars. So they'll want that and they're going to be doing a lot of media outreach. So they probably want film video projects and they may need some new equipment as we saw. So they will want that and their types of support as well. Thinking through your project in terms of key terminology, everything from geography to target population, areas of interest, types of support, that's gonna make a big difference in what shows up in your project description worksheet. And so just remember with project description worksheets that you wanna be as thorough as you can, but even if you have to start out pretty thin with the information you have, go ahead and start, you know, draft up as much as you can, but remember one worksheet per project, even general operating deserves its own project description worksheet. Okay, before we talk about, you know, identifying the right grant maker, Arisa, are there any questions I should answer at this point? Lots of questions about the key terms. Somebody who wants to list, where can we find the list of key terms? Is there a list on their website? Right, okay. So Kevin will answer those questions. He's on Q&A or on chat. He'll probably provide you with a link that is to our homepage or to the page on the Grant Station website that talks about our key terminology that we use. And it is a very thorough list and it's open to the public. So we'll make sure and get that to you guys. Okay, should I move on? One more question Elizabeth asked earlier. How often do you completely restart a worksheet? You know, for example, for ongoing project, go ahead. That's good, that's a good question. I find that it's actually a really good question. Because what I have found over the years is that a project description worksheet, you know, if it's just to upgrade computers and technology and stuff, once I'm done with it, once I'm finished with that, I should say, I am finished. But if it's a program like this three year program that we're talking about, it's going to morph and you're gonna be updating it on a regular basis. And then it may become an ongoing program. And again, you would hang on to that. So it's a document that probably is very organic and will grow over time. I hope that answers the question. Okay, let's talk about process. Consider adopting and consistently using by the way, a research process that you undertake every time you need to look for funding for any project. Again, this is a process I use. You may wanna adopt it or adapt it or throw it out with the bathwater. But however you approach it, just make sure you use the same process each time that you do your grants research. And again, you may change these steps, but come up with a set of steps and follow them consistently. Don't try to skip any one of them. The way I do it, there are basically six steps. You know, you need to look for government and private sources and I use Grant Station for that. But you may have access to another database. I review background materials on each funder. I determine the questions that I'm going to ask each funder and believe me, there are always questions that you'll have. You wanna create a script, an email script and a phone script. You may be getting in touch with them via email or via phone in either way, you'll wanna have a script ready. You'll wanna contact the funder and then you're gonna build your strategy. So those are sort of the six pieces that I go through when I'm writing, when I'm doing my grants research. And as you begin your research, you really wanna be looking for four distinct types of support, cash, which is what we all go after first, donation of products and services and technical assistance. So cash, products, services and TA. Each of these types of giving can provide really key leverage points once you begin developing your own strategic approach to funding a particular program or project. And it's easy to overlook both product and service donations as well as TA when you start doing your research because we tend to all wanna go for the cash. But I like looking for these types of donations up front for three really specific reasons. One is because product and service donations as well as TA can be really fast and easy to make application and to secure. It's usually a quick and simple process. Well, oftentimes there's no deadline so you can weave them into your overall strategy up front. And when you get this type of donation, you can use it to help leverage those cash awards. It shows that there's someone already investing in the project or the program that you have in mind. And of course they can serve as a match when you go after government funding as well. So when I do, well, I do two things, primary and secondary research. In my primary research, I mainly review the grant makers profile on GrantStation or in the case of government funding, I'll look at specific program listings. And in this initial sort of program review, I'm looking for very, very specific things. And I'll cover those in just a second, but just know that there are all types of potential government and private support and government will often have TA or technical assistance that's available. So these are the types of funding sources you wanna consider. But in that primary research and that initial review that you're doing, I want you to look for, does your program or your mission align with the grant makers? Are you in sync with them? Does the financial information which involves the size of awards that they give, the average award that they give, does that really fit in with your project? And then of course, eligibility. If you're eligible, am I eligible to apply for this award? And if you're not eligible and you think that maybe you could be if you had a partnership or a collaboration, then you may wanna move in that direction. And if you truly fit with the grant makers guidelines except for eligibility, then it's always smart to call the grant maker to see if they would make an exception because sometimes they do. They might not put it in their application guidelines but sometimes they will make an exception in the area of eligibility. An example of that would be if you're a chamber of commerce, you're not a 501c3, will they give to you? They may say, yeah, we don't like to advertise it but we will. So you wanna ask that question. And then of course deadlines. Deadlines for letters of inquiry and full proposal submissions, those are set in stone by the grant maker usually and you need to determine if their deadlines actually work for your project. So if it doesn't, then you should set them aside for now. Okay? Okay, so those are the items I'm looking at when I'm doing my primary research and I'm developing my initial list of potential funding sources. Then I also like to start primary research by looking at all potential government sources and I look at local government first, then I look at state and provincial government and of course I look at federal or national government if you're in Canada. So I like to look at my government sources and I start at the bottom and I go up smaller awards and easier to make application local and it goes up to state and then of course federal. If you have access to grant station, you can do all of this research from our website except local government. You can do the state grants and loans and you can do federal grants and loans. So both of those are pretty important to look at and I like to look at government first and why do I like to look at government sources first? Well, I like to look at government sources first because if they do work for me, then they might be one-stop shopping so to speak, right? If you find a good source, it oftentimes will fund the whole project. However, you may have to have matching funds as well, but it can be a fairly significant award. Second, if you do secure government support, then your organizational credibility just took a giant step forward. So let's say your project is $500,000 and you get 250 from USDA, then you have taken, you've funded half of your project and private grant makers will look favorably because they feel as if the government funded you, then you've been prescreened and you're probably a pretty good bet. Third, if you don't identify any government funding and this is important and this is why you need to do your government research, then when you apply to a private grant maker in your cover letter, you can let them know that recent research indicates that at this time, there are no government programs that will support this project. It's always smart, you guys, always smart to include a statement about government funding in any grant requests in the cover, in any grant request you make to a private grant maker so that they understand that they're the only avenue of funding open to you, right? So the bottom line here is being transparent about potential government sources when you apply to private sources and always look at government sources first just in case. So how do you find those private sources? After researching government funds, dive into researching private grant makers. Again, you can use GrantStation for the primary research. If you subscribe to another database, you can use them as well. You wanna be looking at all different types of private grant makers, local, business, regional, national, global corporations, religious grant makers, associations, clubs. I could go on and on, the list is fairly long. You wanna be looking at all these different types of grant makers, but I wanna draw your attention to a few that are sort of overlooked on a fairly regular basis. And one of those types of grant makers are clubs, association, societies. They're kind of a hidden treasure. They're often overlooked. And there are amazing international and national associations that give away some very fantastic items. One of my favorites is the Toy Industry Association. They have a warehouse. They call it the Toy Bank. It's full of toys and games for children. And they give those out regularly. And I believe they do a drive every year asking thousands and thousands of their toy numbers to donate items to that warehouse. And it's a very simple application process. So don't overlook associations, clubs, and societies. We list those all in our databases, the ones that give on GrantStation. Another area that you may wanna consider are PRIs and loans. And PRIs are program related investments. They're usually made by grant makers, private grant makers. And they can be used from anything for, they're like low interest or no interest loans. And they can be used to like fund an event you want to do that you're gonna make money on. And then you pay them back and then you have your profit line, right? The same with loans. These types of investments are primarily made to achieve foreign organization like yours to achieve programmatic rather than financial objectives of the grant maker, not of you, of the grant maker. So private foundations use PRIs to help organization, seize time sensitive opportunities or scale their efforts for a maximum impact. And I've noted a few here on the slide, but we have all of the PRIs and loan opportunities for nonprofits in the GrantStation database. And I don't know if other ones do or not. I should know that, but I don't, sorry. And then you wanna consider donations of products and services. And now you have to go back and look at your budget here. Remember on that worksheet, you had some brand names. You wanna check out those sources. For example, if you're looking for a Sony video camera, check out the Sony corporate giving program to see if they give away equipment. And if the brand doesn't have a product donation program, then go to one of these clearing houses on the screen here, TechSoup, yay, my favorite. Good360 and the National Exchange for Industrial Resources. And these are industrial resources. So that's where like the non-woven fabric industry makes their donations. So if you're looking for donations of products and services and I encourage you to do that upfront because you'll have some successes right off the bat. Go that route. Okay, we gotta dive into secondary research here. After doing all that research, you're gonna have a solid set of funders that you can work with. So now you have to do secondary research and you're gonna look more closely at each one of these grant makers. So where do you start? I like to start by reviewing the funders website information beyond their profile on GrantStation or some other database or their information on our state or federal website. And I look closely at the application guidelines because reviewing the guidelines really gives me a sense of whether I'll fit or not with that grant maker. And at this juncture, if you do fit, if you look at the secondary research, you see that the application guidelines are something you can conform to, you can work with, then you keep them on your list and you move forward. The next place I like to look is at the annual report. And the annual report gives you a clear sense of their mission, of the grant maker's mission and their vision. And I like it because they have basic language, I've got references, it's wrong, we have three senses. It's a new word, you guys don't know it. You can look it up, but you ain't gonna find anything. So I like to use the basic language that the funder is using in their annual report. And sometimes that the CEO will have a message in the annual report and that really reflects what they intend to invest in the next year or two. So it gives you a lot of good information. So I like to look at the annual report. If you're a grant station member, if they have an annual report, it'll be on their profile, you can just click on that. If it still looks like a good funding source, then you're going to want to look at grants awarded. And again, if you belong to grant station, there'll be a link on the right hand side of their profile about the grants awarded and you can just click on that. If you aren't, then go to their website and look around to see if you can find, if they have a list of awardees that they've made in the last year or so, that grants awarded list really gives you good indication of the types of organizations they're funding, where they're located and the amount of money that they're dedicating to each one. So it will really help you understand that particular grant maker better. If it still looks good, then you want to move on. Or if you're looking at government, for example, then you want to look at the enacting legislation. I like to look at enacting legislation, very few grant researchers do this. I like to do it because I like to pull the language that they've used in the enacting legislation because that's usually the direction the agency gets and it's not necessarily used in the notice about the grant opportunity. So if it still looks like a good source for you, then it's time to develop questions about the grant maker. What should I, well, actually let me step back and I'm saying this incorrectly. While you're doing all that research, you need to be making a little list of questions about each grant maker, you know. And I've got a couple of examples of questions. You might ask them if you haven't come up with anything else when you're ready to send them an email or make a phone call. But you have to ask the right questions, which means you have to do all that review that I just talked about. You don't want to be asking them questions if that those answers are already published in the materials they have, their website, their application guidelines, whatever. Make sure you're asking the grant maker questions that are specific to the funding opportunity, specific to what you want to know and that aren't already answered in their published materials. That's super important. And once you have developed a question or two or a set of questions, then I suggest sending an email or contacting them by phone. If it's a local business or a statewide business, you probably feel comfortable making a phone call. If not, an email works just fine and most grant makers are pretty open to emails these days. And I like to put in the subject line, something like, you know, I have a quick question or two quick questions, something like that that says to the grant maker, this isn't going to take forever. And you want to make that email short and easy for them to answer a specific question. If you're calling, you know, tell them exactly how much time you need, you know, five minutes, 10 minutes and stick with that amount of time when you're on the phone with them. But if you're writing them an email, make sure it's short and quick. Same with when you're, you know, scripting that phone call short and quick and don't go over the amount of time. You guys, I learned this lesson the hard way. I, you know, I lived in Alaska for 40 years. So when I would call a grant maker, they always wanted to talk about Alaska. And of course, you know, I'm in Alaska and so I wanted to talk about it too. So five minutes, 10 minutes into the call all we'd done was talk about this state and then I might get my questions answered. But the next time I would call them, they wouldn't take my call because we talked too long. So you want to keep it super short. And remember, you're not trying to sell them on your project. You're not trying to sell them on who you are. These questions aren't, they aren't like, well, you fund us. This question is, you know, do you, this is a fairly technical project we're undertaking. Does your board, are they comfortable reviewing technical language or should I make it more of a lay person language? Ask them very specific questions about that. Do not try to sell them on your project. Don't give them very much information about who you are at all. You know, this is Mary from the literacy board in Illinois and I have two very quick questions and that's it. And you ask the questions about the project or about application. Not about, don't try to sell them on who you are. Okay, and don't be shy about this. You know, research is the key to securing grants. So you have to be real confident and bold. You need to either ask those questions via email or via phone. Make that call or send that email. Okay, we're getting close to the end. We're also getting close to the end of time. So I'm going to move on, Aretha, without asking, taking questions yet. And then we'll take them at the end. And I can stay on as long as we need to stay on. Okay, let's talk about generating a strategic approach. So after you've narrowed the field to the best possible set of grant makers, you know, via that phone call, via that email, then you need to develop a strategy. And that's the sixth step in that process that we looked at earlier. And you know, I began writing proposals in the early 1970s. No, I guess it was the late 1970s. Thank God, I was relatively successful. But much of that success was based on the issue which was environment conservation, the location, which was Alaska, and the decade, which was the 70s. And it wasn't based on my skills or, you know, how well I was doing and researching and writing proposals. So in a way, I was blessed because I was achieving success. But then in another way, I was hindered because I was securing grant awards, but I really wasn't learning as much as I could about what I now think of as intentional grant seeking. So I mean, it was great for my ego, but it wasn't necessarily, excuse me, wasn't necessarily great for, you know, learning what I needed to do. So luck is not a strategy. It's important that you know that to develop a successful grant strategy that you need to sort of step back and think strategically. But thinking strategically can be a bit of a brain twister. You know, I often find myself sort of scratching my head when someone says, oh, we need to figure out a strategy here. You know, are they talking about tactics? Are they talking about a broader view of policy? You know, what are they referencing? I really don't know. And it seems that if you introduce the word strategy into any conversation, clarity kind of goes down the drain. Thinking strategically, you guys, you know, creating a strategic grant seeking approach is really just a matter of being able to project, you make projections really based on the information that you've collected so far. And grant strategies are always based, you know, in fact, it's all the information you've collected. But of course, now you need to make assumptions. So it's based in fact, but you need to make assumptions. Make sure that your strategy for each individual project, each one of those project worksheets that you've developed stays goal-oriented. What does that mean? It means you have to raise that amount of money to do the project. So always keep that in the back of your mind. And, you know, you're gonna be referencing all that information that you've dredged up so far about each grant maker because those are the facts, that's what you know. But then you're gonna be weaving that all into assuming, making assumptions about who can give you what, which one of these grant makers will fund you and when and how much they're going to give you. You have to stay somewhat flexible in your thinking here because you're gonna change things as you move forward. An award will change things just as much as a denial of a proposal. So once you have your strategy in place, you've decided who you're going to go to, how much you're going to ask them, you know, what date you're going to submit your proposal, all of that kind of thing. Then you wanna map out your timing. And, you know, you're going to, I mean, the main concept driving this is that you're gonna hit up all of these different people, but let's say you need $100,000. Now look at this list, right? You're applying for a lot more than 100,000 or let's say you need 200,000. You're applying for a lot more than $200,000. Well, yeah, you are because you're going to receive denials. So you always have to apply for more than what you will actually get. So this just, you know, harken back to that, that outreach program that we talked about. Our funding strategy for that was to secure a planning grant from the Department of Health and Human Services, then apply for product donations to Apple. Then we were going to secure seed funding from some local and regional funders so we can show there's a real commitment at the local level. And we're gonna use that local support to leverage the municipalities investment. And then we're gonna submit to community foundations and a couple of other funds and associations before the end of the year. And then if we still were needed funds towards the end, then we're going to apply to the nonprofit finance fund for either a grant or a short-term loan. That was our strategy. I know I'm moving fast here, but I wanna make sure I get everything in. I could talk really fast if you want me to, but I won't. So what you wanna do there, let me go back for a second. What you wanna do there is create this kind of strategy. Just lay it out for yourself on how you're going to move forward. Then when you get that call from, I don't know, the municipality and they say, yeah, we can see that you've got that planning money from the feds and you've got some seed funding, but how are you gonna get the rest of it? Cause we can only give 50,000. Then you can share with them the rest of your strategy. And you may get that call early on or the grant maker may ask you, how are you going to fund this three-year project? So you wanna have that strategy in your back pocket. It's just a smart business planning to do that. Okay, final thing, establish your work schedule. So what you wanna do is you wanna create a calendar. Now that you've got one project description work sheet and all these different funders, you need to step back and create a calendar. You can use Excel, you can use a Google calendar, or you can buy something like Grant Hub, which I like a lot, but it's costly. So you could, if you're a smaller organization, just stick with Excel or Google calendar and start building your calendar in that tool. And you will, when you build the calendar, you just wanna make sure that you're accurate with your time estimations. It's real easy to think, oh, that's a month away, I'll put that right there. I'll get that done in a month without stepping back and looking at what else is on your calendar during that month. And when you realize you have an event and you have a board meeting and you're taking a three-day vacation, you think, oh, wait a minute, maybe I can't get that done within a month's time. So just be accurate with your time estimations and schedule those high energy tasks near the beginning. So if you have to create a collaborative relationship for the new organization in order to apply, they've said, yeah, they wanna do it, but you wanna get that underway. That's a high energy task. So you wanna schedule that near the beginning of the calendar as you start working forward to write this proposal. And then you develop a routine and really stick with it. Adhering to a calendar, that's really going to help as you move forward. And when I develop my calendar, I almost always, and you will too, and you probably do this now, just take out the application guidelines for each of the, let's say five funders you're going to go to for the funding this project. And then identify those areas that are gonna take the most time and energy. And in here you'll see I put them in red. And that allows me to get those things done first. You don't have to write your proposal in order you need to write it so that you're doing those things that are high energy first. And then, yeah, it's gonna get messy. You're gonna have a lot of tasks that need to be done and each grant maker is going to have a list of things, maybe not a long list, but a one or two things that you need to do so that you can apply to that grant maker. And you see how on this slide, how it's sort of somebody putting sticky notes on printed out information. That's actually how I do it. If you're real tech savvy, you can do it all on the computer. I need a visual, I need my hands on paper. And so I do it actually a lot like this. It does get messy before it all comes into focus and you can actually plot out your working calendar for the year because now remember you're going to have a project description for each one of the projects that you have. And so, and each one of those projects is gonna have two or three or four or five funders. So you have to look at their application guidelines and you have to plot that on your working calendar. But you're gonna do that for each one of the projects that need funding. So that's gonna be a lot of plotting and planning and moving things around. I'm gonna give you a tip here though, something that I like to do. And this is just as an example of what a master calendar might look like, you're gonna have sort of a working calendar and then which will probably be on Google calendar or Excel or something. And then you're going to have a master calendar. I like to take the master calendar. If you're in an office, you can post it on the wall because it keeps you kind of on task. It's easy to read, it's easy to reference. And other people walking into your office can see your deadlines and that, that your plate's already pretty full and maybe a little cognizant of that fact when they ask you to do something else that they need done. So I like to have the master calendar posted if you can do that. Do that if you can't maybe post it on the web if you have an office area. So you wanna build this program slowly. You wanna make sure your master calendar gives you a visual of the upcoming work and you wanna make sure your working calendar is on your computer and you is on Google calendar or something has all the details in it. Once you've done this for let's say you've done three project description worksheets and you are looking at 15 or 16 funders and all the tasks that need to be done, you may feel that you've overloaded your plate and you probably have. So you need to step back and say, what can I let go? What can I do differently? And this is the tip I was referencing earlier. What I do when I'm working with one project, one project description and let's say I have three funders, all three funders are going to ask for a budget. I oftentimes will work on the budgets for all three funders at the same time because budgets are tricky and you might add something or take something away and you wanna make sure that they all reflect one another and also the budget can be one of those things that you can get done ahead of time and then you don't have to go back and work on it over and over and over again. So I like to sort of clump my work together so that if I'm writing the needs statement I might try to write all three needs statements at the same time. One may just want one page, one may want five pages. That way I can do it and have the same information but summarize it for one and expand on it for another same with the budget. Okay. You know, this is just how I do things. It's my process. You can adopt it, you can adapt it, you can throw it out. You know, just try out different components of what we really talked about today and then when you get stuck on something and you should feel free to email me it's just synthia.adamsatgrantstation.com I love answering questions and helping people out so don't be shy about that. And I think I'm going to say that, thank you very much. I know it was a lot of information a very short amount of time and I will take questions and you can take the screen back if you want it. Alicia, I see you. Yeah, it's okay. It's funny we've been teasing each other about my name. All right. This is all day so much. Yeah, that was amazing. Thank you so much. So much good information. Can everybody see my screen? Because I do want to remind you of the Grant station special coming up September 21st and 22nd, $99. I was a former grant writer and a grant reviewer for 15 years and I was paying $200 a month just to have access to a grant database. And some of you guys may be using that same database but here as TechSoup, our partner here at Grant station, $99 for the whole year and you've seen the things that you have access to. So make sure you take advantage of that. Only on these days, September 21st and 22nd, there's a link, we'll put the link in the chat room. Going back here, Kevin and Julie has been amazing with all these questions being answered. I mean, they've been like rapid fire with all these questions. Lots of comments in the chat room. Tell me one thing. Oh, good, good, good. Everybody's saying thank you so much for the information Q&A. Yeah, it's a zoom thing. I'm so sorry. The chat feature, I can download it. Everybody's saying this has been great training, incredible, lots of lots of comments. Yes, please leave a comment. One thing that you took away from the day, we're putting the links for the Grant station special right here. If you cannot get it, because I know you're saying something, the links are not working, you can email me webinars at techsuit.org. Can't download the chat. I'm so sorry, it's a zoom thing, it's not us. So I will be getting the chat at the end. As soon as I close it out, we'll have the recording and the chat. So this will be available and her slides will be available as well. Immensely helpful. Lots of thank yous in here. Lots of thank yous. You can start my video if you want. Althea. Your video? Yeah, you can start it if you want. So I can say goodbye. Yeah, of course. So sorry. Yeah, see we get so caught up. You gotta be quick, quick, quick paying attention here. Okay, so you, yeah, you're able to, so your video, how much you got close to remarks? I have some closing remarks. This was fun. I haven't had this much fun in weeks. I can tell you love it. You guys really, I do. And really you guys, Cynthia.adamsatgrantstation.com. I, if you, I had to really go fast. So if there's information that you just didn't quite get or understand, please do feel free to email me. Great, thank you so much. And please complete the survey. It's gonna pop up as soon as you close your window. Still lots of comments. We're gonna let those comments keep rolling. Just let them keep coming in because when you give this much, it's exhausting. So Cynthia, thank you so much. I don't know what time it is where you are, but thank you so much. This has been great. It's nap time. It's nap time, it's nap time. Yes, I get it, I get it. Bye-bye. All right, well, you all thank you so much. Make sure you take care of yourself while you're taking care of everybody else. Have a great day.