Individual giving or grants? How do you prioritize? Let's talk
It can be tough to know how to prioritize your fundraising. I have been there. There is a lot to consider. When it comes to grants and individuals, I will try to help make it simple. (Not easier, but simple! LOL)
Here are the facts:
70% of all giving comes from individuals. That's $300 billion.
17% of all giving comes from foundations. That's $75 billion.
There are only 120,000 private and institutional foundations and over 1.7M nonprofit organizations in the U.S., so to say it's competitive is an understatement.
Those stats are annual giving in the U.S. according to Giving USA.
I'm about to save you hours, weeks and months of research and learning-the-hard-way about the truth on grants:
Most foundations do not accept unsolicited or uninvited RFPs (request for proposal) or grant applications. You usually need to know someone.
Even if you get invited to submit an LOI (letter of inquiry) or RFP, you spend weeks working on an application and may not even get a dime in the end.
Foundations want to see that you have diversified revenue streams. Hint: you need individual giving to boost your chances, especially from your board members.
Foundations give to organizations that have proof of success. Metrics, data and history of program success. It's rare to find startup, seed funding for smaller nonprofits. If you are just getting started, do NOT prioritize foundations and grant writing. You aren't there yet.
If you DO win the grant, it may take months to receive an answer and then an additional 3-6 months to receive the cash. It depends on the foundation's board meeting schedule, which often times is on a quarterly basis.
More often, grants are funded to program specific requests, not general operating support. This ends up being more of a burden than blessing for the nonprofit in the long-run. Not to mention the rigorous reporting on how you invested the money and how the program is going!
Here's the truth:
➡️ We prioritize grants over gifts because it's less intimidating to apply for a grant than it is to look someone in the eye and ask them to give their personal money to support your mission.
We don't do it because it's more strategic. 😬
I'm not saying grants are bad. I'm saying don't prioritize them over individual giving. I would suggest prioritizing grants over individual giving never. It should always take a back seat to people.
I know that fancy foundation is soooo enticing, but if you want to raise more unrestricted 💵 that you can rely on, focus on asking people.
