Grant research 101: a quick start guide to finding funding opportunities
There is a lot of money floating around out there to support the missions of a wide variety of nonprofit organizations. But how do you locate those funders and their cash?
Identifying funding opportunities is as much an art as a science. There are a number of different ways to go about the process of locating grants. Most involve a computer and an internet connection. But it may surprise you to learn how many potential grant opportunities you can find in your community, just going about your life – and leveraging your social and business connections.
Keywords, keywords, keywords
The simplest way to start your grant search is to generate a list of targeted keywords matched to your organization’s mission and goals. Make sure to include the geographic location, as some grants are specific to certain states, cities or counties. For example, “Grants, women, Denver, CO.” To further narrow your results, add appropriate keywords such as “domestic violence,” “homelessness,” “maternal health,” and so forth. Then sit down at your computer – or grab your phone – pull up your favorite search engine, and enter your keywords. Your results using this method can be somewhat hit or miss, but it will give you a starting point.
Grant databases
Grant databases have a broader scope than search engines and should absolutely be part of your toolkit if you are searching for grant funding. Most of these are available by subscription. How much you spend on a database subscription depends on the size of your nonprofit, as well as how many grants you expect to write. At least one offers a free subscription, while others can run into the thousands of dollars for a yearly plan. One way to get around this if your organization is short on cash is to check with your local public or university library to see if they have a subscription to one of these databases. If they do, you can use it for free if you are a library member.
If you decide to subscribe to a funding directory or database, it can be well worth the investment if you plan to write a lot of grants. On the other hand, if you work with a freelance grantwriter, most of the time the cost of the subscription is rolled into the grantwriter’s professional services.
Each of these databases works a bit differently, has its unique pricing structure, and has its advantages and drawbacks. Here is a list of the most popular ones. Take a look and decide which — if any — are right for your needs.
Foundation Directory Online (FDO) One of the original grant databases, Foundation Directory (now known as Candid) offers a two-pronged approach: information about funders to help nonprofits support their work, and Guidestar, a directory of nonprofits that enables funders to verify and research organizations that are aligned with their priorities. Much more than just a database, Candid offers tools and resources that provide insight into funding trends, and provides one of the most comprehensive data sets about the social sector that’s available. Although free at one time, Candid now is subscription based, with a starting plan of $1599 annually ($219.99/monthly) for a single user. It’s not the cheapest option out there, but you get a lot of grant research bang for your buck – as well as the opportunity for in-depth learning about the field.
Instrumentl comes in a close second to Candid (though for many a nonprofit, it is the preferred option). Blending three key functions of institutional fundraising – grant prospecting, tracking, and management – in one platform, it makes researching and applying for grant funding as seamless as it gets. Its tracking system and organizational tools alone make it worth the subscription cost. The database marshals a diverse list of grants from a variety of sources, including state and federal governments, corporate funders, private foundations, community foundations, and clubs and societies.
Like Candid, Instrumentl offers a comprehensive educational component for nonprofits, including free courses, guides, ebooks, templates, and more. Subscriptions start at $179 a month, paid on an annual basis, for small nonprofits with an annual budget of less than $500,000. The higher-dollar Standard and Pro plans offer additional services to turbo-charge your grant writing strategy.
Grant Station is a popular database in the mid-price range. With an annual membership that goes for $179, it offers a listing of grants from a range of sources including government databases, private, corporate, and community foundations, corporate contribution programs, faith-based funders, and association grant programs. The platform allows you to search for relevant grants by state, category, and keyword, and provides profiles of funding agencies that include detailed primary contact information, geographic areas served, current funding priorities, grant guidelines, application deadlines, and "insider" information on selected funders.
A subscription to Grant Station is $179 annually. You can also get a free Grant Station membership with a 1-year subscription to The Chronicle of Philanthropy
Grant Gopher. This no-frills but mighty database offers grant searches at a price that will fit the tightest of budgets. With a free Lite plan for five searches per month, a Pro plan that offers unlimited searches for $9 monthly, and a Pro Success Plan for $49/month, Grant Gopher will meet a large swath of your grant research needs and is easy to include in your grant database arsenal. Although it lacks the educational resources and grant management tools of platforms like Instrumentl and Candid, it’s a useful option for nonprofits that primarily need a tool to search for grants. Some grantwriters prefer Grant Gopher over other sites, as it includes grant opportunities that are hard to find elsewhere – including foundations that lack websites and require a letter of inquiry to apply for funding. It also boasts a stellar customer service team that is swift to respond to questions and offers support on various aspects of grant research.
This list is a small sampling of the grant databases out there. Other sites worth looking into include Grant Watch, Grantscape, Funds for NGOs, Grant Forward, the Catholic Funding Guide and Devex, Just be sure that the focus of the site you’re using aligns with your organization type, mission and goals.
Community Foundations
Community foundations are another good place to look for funding. These are grantmaking public charities that focus on improving the lives of people in target areas with financial support to nonprofits. Find community foundations close to you with the Council on Foundations Community Foundation Locator.
Also check the member list of your regional association of grantmakers.
Patrons of the arts (and other causes)
Step away from the computer and go out for the evening. Funding opportunities are hiding in plain sight. Do you attend the symphony, the opera or the ballet? As you page through the program, find the list of patrons on the front or back pages. These donors are people and foundations who support community initiatives. You may also see them listed in a display on the wall in the lobby. The theater may even be named after a big donor. Take note of these names, and do some digging to learn more about them and determine if they accept letters of inquiry. If they don’t, find out if your board members have any foundation connections, and if so, if they will inquire on your behalf.
Keep in mind that donors usually have a variety of cause areas that they support. So just because ABC Foundation is a patron of artistic organizations, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t also making gifts to nonprofits of all sizes that focus on youth programs, homelessness, healthcare, veterans issues, food security, environmental causes, and so forth. In fact, they very likely are.
Is it spring, summer or fall in your area? If so, you may be attending outdoor fairs and festivals. Look for the banners at the event entrance to see who the sponsors are. They will either be local businesses or large corporations with a local presence, or a combination of both – with a few individual donors sprinkled in. Look up the websites of these companies to see if they have a foundation. Or type “XYZ Company Foundation” into your search engine of choice and see what results you get.
Make a list of large nonprofits that have a similar mission as yours. Go to the websites of these nonprofits and see if they list their donors. Then see if these donors have websites, and see if you can learn about the process of for applying for funding from them.
If those donors don’t have websites, don’t give up. You may be able to find them on grant databases anyway. Grant Gopher, for example, lists many foundations that lack both a website and a formal application process. For these foundations the site provides a physical mailing address along with instructions for submitting a letter of inquiry. The listings are kept current. However, if you reach a dead end with any of them, contact Grant Gopher’s site administrator for assistance. You will usually receive a quick response.
The 990 search
Nonprofits, per IRS rules, are required to submit their financials on a Form 990. These forms – which are available to the public – are a goldmine of information, providing a snapshot of the foundation at a glance. In some cases, a foundation’s 990 will include a list of nonprofits that the foundation has funded for any given tax year and the exact grant amounts. Parsing these numbers can give you a sense of the size of grant awards, what kinds of nonprofits are funded, and how many nonprofits are funded within the foundation’s preferred geographical area – as well as outside it. Often a foundation will state that it awards funds “primarily” in a certain locality, but a glance at the 990 can tell a different story.
990s also contain a foundation’s mission and programs, a list of the officers and board of directors, and its governance structure, policies and procedures.
Form 990’s are available at candid.org, propublica.org, and irs.gov,
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