Blueprint Fundraising

Tip of the Week: 11 Tips for Success in Grant Seeking

My friend and talented fundraising colleague Lorna Visser, Principal of Carmanah Strategies, has put together this super smart advice for grant seekers. Follow it — you’ll save yourself time and be much more likely to receive funding for your work.

11. Focus on quality, not quantity. Carefully preparing a few well-written proposals to funders with whom your work is an obvious fit is time well spent. Sending a blitz of formulaic requests to every funder in a directory is a poor use of your time – most, if not all, will go into the recycling bin.

10. Do your homework — learn what a foundation has funded before. Most have web sites that list their grants for several years back — easy to Google by foundation name. Take note of grant amounts, geographic range, and types of projects or organizations supported. (In the U.S., foundations are required to list their grants in their filings to the Internal Revenue Service on the Form 990. In Canada, the T3010 form contains useful information and can be accessed from the Canada Revenue Agency.)

9. Do your utmost to establish contact with a prospective funder before submitting a proposal. Be respectfully pushy — it may take several phone calls, e-mails or faxes. Ideally, meet in person, but at the least, have a telephone or email interaction with the funder to raise your profile and ensure that you have a chance of success. If you can’t get through to the program officer, try to reach her/his assistant or secretary. Ask what your best approach would be and what an appropriate grant request would be. If all your attempts to establish contact with a funder prospect fail (becoming more common in this era of voicemail and email), learn what you can from the other grantees you researched (see item 10 above).

8. Follow application guidelines closely. Don’t give the funder an opportunity to toss out your proposal because you forgot to convert your budget to US dollars or you didn’t include the required references or letters of support. Flouting a funder’s proposal-submission rules is a form of disrespect and likely to result in a one-way ticket to the recycling bin for your proposal or letter of inquiry.

7. Don’t try to bend your work to fit a funder’s criteria. They’ll spot you a mile away, quoting the famous line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet “the Lady doth protest too much, methinks.” If your project doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit.  And you do your organization a disservice to chase grants that require you to “mission-shift.” Don’t waste your time and the prospective funder’s.

6. Focus on outcomes, not tactics. Be clear about what will change as a result of your project (but don’t promise the moon). Understand the difference between outcomes (what will change, e.g. how people will change their behaviour) and outputs (how many times you do something — numerically measurable factors).

5. Be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-specific. Many proposals never reach the boardroom for consideration, because their objectives are too vague to warrant serious consideration. If you follow the SMART formula, your proposal will be sure to warrant increased attention.

4. Don’t promise the moon. Be realistic about what could be achieved in the timeframe of the grant and with the amount requested. Funders are usually more realistic about this than grant-seekers, who feel they need to dazzle with grandiose promises. If you over-promise and under-deliver, you are going to have a terrible headache at grant-reporting time… and your organization’s credibility will be lowered.

3. Set internal deadlines to complete sections of the proposal well in advance of the funder’s submission deadline. We all know this one, but yet somehow we’ve all been in the position of working on a proposal at midnight that has to go out the next day and then discovering that we need two letters of support from community partner groups – letters we don’t have. Check the funder’s proposal requirements well in advance and set deadlines for gathering data and completing each element required.

2. Make sure someone else reads your proposal and checks your budget before the package goes out. This not only ensures that typos and math errors will be caught, but it gives you a clever way to draw other people in your organization into fundraising. Ask them to be tough: will this idea fly? Have you presented enough evidence to prove your approach is credible? Will it make sense to an outsider or have you assumed the funder will understand your acronyms and organizational jargon?

1. DO THE BUDGET AND FUNDING PLAN FIRST. There is no point spending hours writing a proposal until you know what the project will cost and whether you can get the revenue to support it. Doing your budget and funding plan will get you focused on exactly what you need to do the project. Again, this gives you a chance to draw others in your organization into the proposal-writing process, because they will need to tell you what things cost. Once the budget is done, when you write the narrative portion of the proposal you can be clear and specific (e.g. “We will be hiring two outreach officers for three months. They will be making 60 site visits to landowners”, instead of “We’ll talk to landowners”).

And finally…

You’ve done all of the above, and you still didn’t get the grant. Remember that some of it IS just plain old luck. Don’t beat yourself up. Funders often have many times more worthwhile project proposals on a docket than they can fund. Picture them wringing their hands and weeping, wishing they could fund all the wonderful proposals put before them, but not having enough dollars to do so. Do follow up and try to find out why your proposal was rejected, as this will put you in line for more serious consideration next time, and allow you to refine your proposal to better meet the funder’s needs.

Happy grant hunting!

Click to download a PDF of Lorna’s tips.

Tip: Simplfy collaborative writing with Google Docs

It’s time start working on the annual Christmas appeal. You’re pulling the lists together and writing the fundraising letter. Five different people need to review the letter and each sends it back to you with their comments and changes. You send a new version back to them. They send more comments. Everyone gets frustrated with the process, losing track of which version of the document is the latest.

Google Docs to the rescue!

The video below explains how it works. With Google Docs, your document, spreadsheet or presentation lives online. You invite people to access it (with different levels from read-only to full editing abilities). They make changes (which you can see). They make comments. They see what other people have revised and said. There is only ever one version of the letter. You can even get an RSS feed of the changes people are making.

I’m going to start using this with clients. I’ll need to convince them to get Google accounts but I don’t think that will be difficult. Proposals, letters, reports… It’s going to make life easier any time collaboration is required.

There are some limitations to be aware of, particularly when it comes to formatting. Google Docs doesn’t have the sophisticated formatting abilities of Word and doesn’t have a “Page Layout” view option (where you can see how the document looks on the page). To make the final document pretty you will need to bring back into Word. That’s a pain, but the real value of Google Docs is in the collaboration and sharing possibilities.

Tip of the Week: Track yourself online with Google Alerts

It’s important for nonprofit organizations to be aware of their online identity — and not just the stuff that you create yourself.

Google Alerts provide a simple way to be notified by email whenever your organization, its staff or programs are mentioned online. I’ve been using it to track online mentions of my clients and it works so well!

You design the alert to search blogs, groups, news and the web (or all of them) and you set the frequency — as-it-happens, once a day or once a week. Searching for your organization name, campaign names, staff and board members would all be worthwhile. To set up an alert, you have to have a Gmail account (by invitation — if you don’t have an account, email me and I’ll invite you).

Tip of the Week for freelancers: hourly rate calculator

When I started Blueprint in 2000 it was a challenge to determine my hourly rate. I was torn between what I thought the work was worth, and what I thought the kind of clients I like to work for can afford, what others are charging and what I knew I would need in order to make a living. It’s a balance that every freelancer struggles with.

This hourly rate calculator can help. It’s from one of my favourite blogs: Freelance Switch. An excellent place to poke around if you are thinking about becoming a freelancer in fundraising or any field.

Check out their list of 13 Types of Freelancers and 12 Types of Clients. Which are you?

Tip of the Week: Communicate with donors through RSS

How do you communicate with your supporters? One of the very best ways is by adding RSS to your website.

If you’re reading this, you know at least a little something about blogs. You might even be viewing this through an RSS reader such as Google Reader (which is what I use). I follow hundreds of blogs and websites through the magic of RSS feeds.

Here’s an explanation of RSS.With RSS, a visitor can “subscribe” to your website or blog. They will then be automatically alerted to new content on your site. Their RSS reader shows them your new information, so that they don’t have to visit your website to see what’s new.

I see RSS as very useful in fundraising. It is so important to engage and involve supporters — and it isn’t easy. By offering an RSS feed, you can stay in touch with supporters by sharing frequent and interesting news about your organization’s work.

Tip of the Week: Cool photography resources

Have you noticed that many nonprofits use very poor quality imagery for their fundraising materials? Anything you’re designing, from a case for support to a brochure or website, needs fantastic photography. Giving is an emotional choice — words have to work awfully hard to match the impact of a well-chosen image. So what to do if all your photos suck or you’ve been using your only good shot in every brochure and proposal since 1994?

My favourite way to find photos is to search Flickr for photos that are Creative Commons-licensed, meaning that the photographer permits free usage within certain terms. With proper credit most shots will be appropriate for use by a nonprofit organization. The quality is amazing and you can search on any terms you like. Need to show sadness, happiness, kids, nature, a situation, place or even abstract idea? Flickr has it all.

Here’s a Flickr shot I found with the search term “happy.” It’s by “shoothead” and is called “like a record…”

Another option is to use stock photography — some is free and works really well (but don’t overdo it or your piece will look like a mutual fund ad). A good source for free stock photos is stock.xchng. You’ll find a huge library of good quality shots to choose from.

Here’s one more resource that is especially good for graphic designers: Flickr Color Selectr allows you to search Flickr’s Creative Commons-licensed shots within a specific colour range. If you want free photos that will compliment a particular colour this will give you all sorts of random and interesting options.

Tip of the Week: Eliminate temptation to steal from your group

If you think that your nonprofit is immune to embezzlement, don’t be naive!

A new study by researchers at Villanova University explores the extent of embezzlement within the Catholic Church. They surveyed chief financial officers of 78 Catholic dioceses in the US (that’s half of the dioceses in the country). They found that 85% reported embezzlements from 2000 to 2005. Seven reported losing $500,000 or more!! A copy of the full report is available online.

That is a shocking amount of theft. The researchers point out that churches offer an ideal setting for internal theft because in a small operation one employee may be responsible for everything — giving them access to both assets (often cash) and the financial records. Sound familiar? This is a problem for any small nonprofit.

I’ve worked with some very reputable organizations that have been the victims of embezzlement, primarily because of poor internal controls. Here are a few ways you can improve controls (from Wayne Amundson at The Canadian Association).

Internal Control Measures

The internal control measures that should exist in associations and non-profits include:

• Whenever possible, segregate duties. If one person has access to, or processes an entire transaction (e.g. payment and processing), the risk of fraud is high.
• If possible, rotate work duties. Often, the embezzlement scheme requires constant cover-up activity, and rotation of duties will make that difficult.
• Obtain insurance, and when necessary, bond employees.
• Control the addition of new vendors.
• Control changes to the payroll.
• Watch for signs of addiction and/or increased affluence in employees/volunteers.
• Have your bank account statements delivered directly to the executive director.
• Ensure that effective policies are in place to manage refunds.
• Keep blank cheques secure, and maintain number sequence.
• Control access to the credit card processing.
• Have all invoices approved prior to payment.
• Have policies in place for expense reimbursement, and ensure all claims are approved.
• Get the auditor to provide a management letter with particular attention to internal control measures.
• Ensure that reconciliations are prepared and reviewed.
• Ensure that policies are in place to address gifts, freebies, trips, etc.

Some common fraudulent activities include:

• Theft of cash receipts
• Under-the-table payments, bribes or kickbacks.
• Recording false discounts
• Theft of incoming cheques
• Tampering with cheques issued (forged signatures, altered dates, adjusted amounts)
• Stealing blank cheques or counterfeiting duplicate cheques with altered payees
• Creating and paying fictitious vendors
• Creating inflated or phony expense vouchers
• Altering billing records
• Theft of inventory
• Altering purchasing, receiving or shipment records
• Paying non-existent employees
• Skimming payments on account. Typically, an employee records a contract at a lower amount than actually owed then steals or “skims” the excess.
• Falsifying receivables, and stealing the payments.
• Altering accounting records to hide the theft of funds
• Cash disbursement scams
• Credit card refund schemes

Charity Village also has a great article on this with tips to improve your procedures: Nonprofit fraud: Focus on segregation of duties and good reporting procedures.

Photo via Flickr: “Money offers” in Thailand by zzen.

Tip of the Week: AFP Toronto’s online resources

If you can’t attend the annual Fundraising Congress in Toronto in the fall, you can still access many of the presentations online. AFP Toronto has a great website, with lots of handouts and session notes from the annual conference and Fundraising Day.

Tip of the Week: IdealWare reviews nonprofit software

Making intelligent decisions about software for your nonprofit is 1000% times easier with the help of IdealWare. This is a Consumer Reports-style website with software reviews, comparisons and information.

I especially like their series of reports on A Few Good… Accounting Packages, Online Petition Tools, Online Donation Tools, Email Newsletter Tools, Databases for Membership Organizations.

Sorry my posting has been rather infrequent over the last two weeks. I’ve been preoccupied with a family visit and then the flu… but I’m back now.

Tip of the Week: How to evaluate major gift fundraisers

The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s latest feature on how US public television stations have built successful major gifts programs has been fantastic. So many great ideas. I thought would share how they formally evaluate their major gifts fundraising staff.

Many organizations seem to shy away from evaluation — after all fundraising is about relationship-building right? And that can be hard to quantify. Gifts can take years to come to fruition. Nonetheless, I think it is good for organizations and fundraisers to have very specific targets.

Here’s a summary of the system developed by Richard K. Dupree , Executive Director of Development at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and being used by public TV. Fundraisers are given a rating out of 25 on how well they perform in each of these four equally important areas:

1. Meeting a specific dollar goal of funds raised/pledged
2. Making a minimum number of formal proposals to major gift prospects at minimum gift levels
3. Making a minimum number of contacts and recording the details (the prospects for future fundraising)
4. Overall quality of work — this is a flexible criteria but could include things like how well the person engages volunteers in their work, their success rate with proposals, their ability to cultivate relationships, and their management of their budget

According to Dupree, the fundraiser should achieve at least 75 points to be considered “satisfactory.” Those who achieve 80+ points are eligible for a bonus. You can download a detailed PDF explanation of the system here.