I learned grant writing from my mother, an arts administrator extraordinaire, so it’s perhaps understandable that I sometimes think of grant funders like parents and we grant seekers like their kids. We nervously write our requests–as respectful and polished and thought-through as our crayons can make them–to an authority figure whose flaws we hope are outweighed by strength, love, and an aligned mission of care.
Let’s face it: the application processes that funders design always have flaws. Too many questions. Unrealistic word counts. Cloudy instructions. Complicated portals. Too many questions! Yet somehow, year after year, these imperfect mechanisms (do they all have to be so unique?) are channeling significant money to significant nonprofit missions: $103 billion in 2023, according to Giving USA. Pretty generous parents, right?
Here’s another thing to think about. Grant funders, like good parents, give us more than money. If approached with curiosity and a willingness to learn, grant applications and reports offer nonprofits the opportunity to:
- Inventory resources,
- Test new ideas,
- Raise awareness about community needs and potential,
- Promote brands and beliefs,
- Encourage consideration of marginalized perspectives,
- Improve measurement of program success,
- Strengthen alignment between mission and implementation, and
- Logisticize new short- and long-term goals.
At its best, the grant application process can function as a mini-strategic planning session, pushing us to define and refine our approach to “doing good.” Even when the immediate outcome isn’t what we hoped for, every grant encounter can strengthen the process, the team, and the overall work we do.
What’s a takeaway practice here? Print out the bullet points above and keep them somewhere handy. The next time you get a grant win and you’re preparing to announce it to your board, pull out the list and run through it. Can you add a non-monetary value to celebrate? How about writing or emailing the funder to tell them what you learned, and thank them? You can do this even if your application was declined: we’ve seen great funder relationships develop from a gesture like this. You might find that funders, like good parents of grown children, value an honest exchange.
Ultimately, that’s the goal: nonprofits “growing up” to be sustainable change agents, partnering with funders who also seek to continuously improve, truly transforming the community at large.
