Responding to the Funder’s Decision
It is inevitable: funding decisions will be made. When they are, you and your organization’s staff will either be jumping for joy or holding your heads in your hands. Believe it or not, you need to move forward with your relationship-building regardless of which way the decision falls.
When the Proposal Is Funded
There is nothing like getting that call, letter, or e-mail informing you that your organization’s proposal has been funded. It is the best, regardless of the size of the grant. So after the yippees are shouted, you need to get back to business—remember, you are building a relationship. A telephone call to your program officer is certainly in order as soon as you receive word that your request is being approved. As busy as program officers are, they all want to hear about how the programs—and organizations—they’ve funded are progressing. In most foundations the process of the grantmaking system requires program officers to advocate for the programs they are recommending for funding. Your program officer has gone to bat on your behalf to get you those funds, so consider her a partner and keep her apprised on a quarterly basis with a brief note, an e-mail, a call, a personalized newsletter, or whatever form of communication you think is most effective and appropriate.
I like when grantees take the initiative to schedule a site visit for me at least once a year. This allows me to be in touch, without feeling overbearing or intrusive, and to feel like I am doing a better job of monitoring my docket. Also, I really appreciate it when a grantee calls me to get input on an organizational issue they may be facing during the course of their project. It helps me to stay connected with the organization, and to understand how the project is proceeding. Then when I get the regular written evaluations of the grants, I am seldom surprised by anything in it. I have always thought that if a funded project didn’t change during the life of the grant from what was anticipated during the application stage, then something was seriously awry in either the implementation of the project, or the reporting on it.
—GWEN I. WALDEN
Principal, Walden Philanthropy Advisors
Former Director, Center for Healthy Communities
The California Endowment
Principal, Walden Philanthropy Advisors
Former Director, Center for Healthy Communities
The California Endowment
Following your telephone call to the program officer—and within three to five days of notification—you need to send a formal letter of thanks to the funder that is signed by the executive director or the board chair, or both.
In general, funders expect some sort of public recognition of their grants. Standard forms of recognition include a feature in the grantee’s newsletter and inclusion on a donor list on the recipient’s website or in the annual report. Consider the level of recognition in proportion to the amount of funds received; that should guide you toward choosing the appropriate recognition level. A large grant may warrant special recognition at your organization’s annual event, if there is one, a ceremony of some sort, or a media announcement. Ultimately, if anything beyond a newsletter mention and inclusion in your donor list is being considered, it should be discussed with the funder in advance of making any decisions. You do not want your organization to engage in “surprise” or unwanted donor recognition.
If the funding institution (or the grant) is to remain anonymous, the funder will clearly stipulate that fact in its grant award letter to you. Of course in such situations the funder’s name should not be mentioned anywhere publicly, and care should be taken in all internal records to mark the grantmaker as anonymous.
When a grant is awarded, the nonprofit will
• Receive initial notification of the award, usually informally through a phone call or e-mail.
• Receive official confirmation in the form of a grant agreement letter.
• Have your organization’s executive director and other appropriate staff (such as the person responsible for program implementation and the person responsible for organization finances) review this document to ensure that the nonprofit will be able to comply with all of its stipulations, as it is a legally binding agreement.
• Return the letter—signed by the executive director—within three to five days of receipt.
• Provide quarterly, semiyearly, or yearly progress reports. Each funder has different requirements, but these will be spelled out clearly in the grant agreement letter. Timely reports are especially critical if the nonprofit hopes to be eligible to reapply to this funder for further support.
Notify the funder of all major changes or issues you have identified in your program as soon as possible. Staffing changes, a particular method that is not working, and participant recruitment that is well below what was originally targeted—these are all examples of situations about which your funding partner should be informed.
When the Proposal Is Not Funded
Your mail comes and there it is: an envelope from the funder. Upon reading it you find that your proposal was not approved. There will be dozens—and in some cases hundreds—of other organizations just like yours that receive the same declination letter. So what happened? Why was your organization’s program not selected? On average, a typical foundation can make grants in response to approximately 8 to 10 percent of the total requests it receives in every funding cycle. Sometimes the approval rate is even significantly lower than that, especially for the largest foundations in the United States.
Your organization’s declination letter will likely be very general and provide you with only vague reasons for the denial. So you might want to follow up with your program officer via e-mail to see if you can get more detail as to why your organization’s proposal was not funded. Consider asking the following three questions in your e-mail:
• Were there any parts of the funder’s guidelines that you missed? (You want to find out up front if your proposal was disqualified for any reason.)
• Was additional information or further clarity needed in your program plan or grant proposal to make it more competitive?
• Is it recommended that you resubmit this proposal for consideration at another time? If so, when?
You also want to thank the funder for considering your request and for taking the time to respond to your e-mail. Let politeness be the rule, and remember that there is always the next cycle.
The reality is this: there are many stellar programs that do not get funded. There are compelling grant proposals that do not get funded. The demand for foundation and corporate (and government) grants is simply too high—and competition for these dollars grows more stiff each and every year.
So how can you make your organization, program, and proposal stand out? Be organized, truthful, respectful, consistent, and persistent in your grantseeking endeavors. It is vital that you keep in mind that a denial from a funder does not mean that your program lacks merit, nor does it mean that your program will never get funded.
There are more reasons than pages in this workbook that might explain why the funder has denied your proposal; just continue building your relationships. Consider keeping all the funders you’ve identified as a match for your programs—even if they have denied your request for funding—on your mailing list; also invite them to your events, and continue to share organization successes with them via periodic updates through e-mails and other communications.
Reality Check
Be persistent. One human service organization in Northern California was turned down by a certain local foundation well over a half dozen times but continued to cultivate a relationship with the program officer over a five-year period. When the foundation launched an initiative that happened to be closely aligned with the nonprofit’s mission and purpose, the program officer actually initiated contact with the nonprofit, because they now had a relationship. And you know what happened next. The nonprofit submitted a proposal and was funded—and has a relationship with that funder to this day.
The takeaways from Winning Grants Step by Step, Third Edition, are twofold. First, we wanted to provide you with the time-tested, nuts and bolts of proposal development and a framework for how they should come together. Much of the material in the second edition also remains relevant now—it works. Second, we wanted to provide some additional context for the grantseeking process itself. As we have mentioned in several places in this workbook, a well-written, well-organized grant proposal is a critical component of the funding equation, but there is more you need to do to ultimately “win” that grant. We wanted to provide you with the knowledge that grantseeking is a process that in many cases spans months—and in some cases years—of cultivation and relationship building.
In other words: grantseeking is a marathon—not a sprint.
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