What is your grant request missing?

There are many more nonprofits seeking grant funds than there are foundation or corporate grantors with money available. Some categories, such as human service-based nonprofits, are numerous enough to resemble the competitive atmosphere found in the for-profit retail world. Others are so niche-specific that they don’t have many funding sources. You have to stand out from your competition to compete successfully for the finite amount of funding available. One of the ways you do that is with evidence-based reporting.

I was recently contacted by a smaller (less than 30K annual income, 4 staff members, 22 volunteers) nonprofit that works with teens and young adults aged 14 to 24 to provide career and educational assistance. Their mission statement was clear, concise and very compelling. They had a five-year organizational history, well-documented financials, an adequate website, and a few locally well-known supporters. They are far more credible as funding targets than many smaller nonprofits.

The problem?  They were constantly being passed over for grants. They did have some events that supported their basic needs, but they just couldn’t attract money for program support, much less capacity building. They were slowly losing the excellent volunteer base they had, as people became disillusioned with the rate of progress. They had submitted nine applications, and all had been denied (or ignored).

Upon closer inspection, there were two things wrong with their funding appeals. They had only one program narrative. They had crafted a basic boilerplate narrative to describe their entire mission (as opposed to program), and it went out to everyone, even when it didn’t appear to quite match the grantor’s own mission statement.

But more importantly, they couldn’t prove their claims of success. Yes, they had anecdotal statements from current and former program participants, and even a nice letter of support from a business, but there was no hard evidence. There was no evidence-based reporting or documentation of the results, and no ongoing performance reviews for the program.

Initially, I met with considerable resistance to my suggestion that they set up a data collection and reporting system that would provide such commonly requested information as demographics, completion rates for the program (which actually turned out to be two programs and are being re-stated to reflect that), and measurements such as before and after income or before and after hiring-to-application ratios for the older group. For the younger group, I suggested that they use measurements like truant day improvement, grade point increases, or disciplinary problem reductions.

It is a lot of paperwork. The initial resistance was in the form of “If we spend all that time on paperwork, we won’t have time to help the kids.”  My response was “How many kids can you help if you don’t exist anymore?”

There is software available that nonprofits can use to record all types of input, but it is not absolutely necessary at first. Look at the requirements of the grants you are applying for, and set up a basic spreadsheet to capture information. Design some simple survey forms for participants, family members, school and employers to capture the raw data. Set your program up with specific goals, and capture the results as measured against the goals. For instance, let’s say that your goal is to place 20 young adults in full-time jobs every 6 months. Show how many people you have in the program, how many completed the whole program, how many interviews they went on before entering the program, the number of times they were hired, their average earnings from each jobs pre-program. Contrast that with the interview-to-hire ratio post-program and the earning increases.

They are in the process of compiling this information, and dividing their programs so that the data will more accurately portray their results. When the data is complete, they should be able to show prospective grantors that they used $5000 to create X full-time employees, earning X income, which was an increase of Y percent in each category pre-program. They will even be able to say that the increased employment, coupled with less public assistance dollars spent per participant has had a positive impact of Z dollars in the community. They will be able to document grade-point improvement, graduation rates and behavior improvements in the younger group. That’s going to present a cost-benefit ratio that will be hard for any grantor to ignore. 

Grant Alert for Animal Rescues

Attribution:  Philanthropy News Digest

The American Humane Association provides financial assistance to animal welfare organizations and breed-specific rescue groups responsible for the temporary care of animals before they are put for adoption into permanent homes.

Due to the overwhelming number of abuse cases nationwide, Second Chance Fund grants are offered only in select cases of animal abuse or neglect. Funding may be used only to cover medical procedures for animals that have been victims of abuse or neglect and require medical treatment before being placed for adoption.

Funding to any one agency is limited to $2,000 per year. Applications are accepted year-round but must be received no later than six months following the date of intake. Individuals, businesses, and corporations are not eligible to apply.

More information about Second Chance Fund grants, including stories of animals who have benefited from getting a second chance, can be found at the American Humane Association Web site.

Unintended Consequences

Structure without stricture - A winning strategy for nonprofits

My clients and my blog (http://cloudlancerwriting.blogspot.com) readers know that I am a proponent of nonprofits becoming more “business-oriented”.  Cloudlancer Writing Services exists because there are too many small or newer nonprofits on the edge of failure.  I firmly believe that to both survive and succeed in your mission, your organization needs to have some elements of the business (for-profit) world within your organization.  You need simple things like having a plan to move forward, defined programs that you can easily articulate to supporters and budgets so that you can assess how much impact the program will have on your mission.  You need boring documents like contracts and personnel manuals to keep your organization legal and good financial records to keep the IRS and your donors happy.  You need a board that will help your organization succeed, not just take up space in the board room.

Those things are structural.  It’s sort of like building your dream house.  The framework and the foundation keep the house upright, and allows for intelligent expansion. Still, a house with just the concrete and 2x4’s in place looks pretty much like every other house.  What will make the house your home are the things you add to give it personality.  When you add color, lovely finishes, a yard and friends and family, you have a home.

When I tell clients that they need better organizational structure, some of them feel that approach will mute the message about the mission.  They feel that focusing on “the bottom line” will prevent them from moving forward.   My view of the business side of their nonprofit feels confining.  They feel strangled by the “rules”. In reality, the structure will support and advance your mission.  It’s a lot easier to go out and give a passionate speech about your cause, if you are sure the lights will still be on next month.

 

On the other hand, if you are so focused on the structural portion of your dream house that you never get the yard planted, or the walls painted, you will never live in your dream house.

Get the framework in place, and like the 2 x 4’s in your walls, you won’t have to think about it much in the future.  Yes, you may have to watch for dry rot(complacency) or make sure you don’t have termites (outside threats),  but mostly, you are then free to advocate confidently for your cause.

 

Confidence is attractive.  If you feel good about your organization it will be evident to donors.  Desperation is seldom a good public relations tactic.  If you find yourself constantly asking for money just to survive, people will be fearful about investing in your cause.  On the other hand, if you can make your appeals all about achieving your mission, you will allow your donors and grantors to share in that passion and vision with enthusiasm and commitment.

Structure without strangulation is a winning strategy for nonprofits.  There is a point at which you can deviate from a strict business model, and you should.  Once the structure is supporting your organization, you can focus on your real goal of achieving your mission.

   

The sneaky price hike - downsizing products to upsize profits hurts nonprofits.

The sneaky price increase hurts nonprofits, and the rest of us too.  Warning – this is going to look like, sound like and smell like a rant.

 

I buy a certain store brand of cereal.  Yes, it’s cheaper than the name brands, but it’s also better-tasting.  And like most shoppers I sort of casually register the price as I pick up a bag.  A couple of days ago, I grabbed a bag and my hand knew what the price tag didn’t say…there’s less cereal in here!  When I got it home I looked and sure enough, there was four ounces, or 12.5% less cereal.  It’s still sold for $3.29, but in reality, it now costs $3.70 per bag.  That doesn’t just cost more in price per ounce.  I will now run out of it sooner, so I will have to spend the time and money to drive down and buy it more often, assuming that I keep using the same amount at each meal.

This has been going on for decades.  I first noticed it some twenty years ago, when a certain feminine product suddenly only had ten items per box instead of twelve.  Same size box, same price but they cost more at the per/each price.  Then it was tuna fish, which went from 6 ounce cans to 5-1/2.  Three pound cans of coffee went to 32 ounces in the same size can, and on and on.

The point of this is, not only does inflation cheapen the buying power of the dollar, so that it takes more dollars to buy something, but the sneaky price hike lessens the quantity of the product received.  As far as I can tell, this isn’t ever reflected in the Consumer Price Index, which is how government tries to tell us whether we are losing ground in terms of buying power.  It skews the already unrealistic “facts” about what our dollar buys.

How does this affect nonprofits?  Well, if you are a food pantry that normally buys a bag of that cereal, expecting that it will provide one week’s breakfasts for a family of four, now you have to buy more bags, or fill in with some other type of breakfast food.  And the chances are, you don’t even notice it, so you don’t even mention to your clients that they need to use less per meal to make it last a week.  Ergo, the budget you had carefully crafted for purchased food items just doesn’t go far enough.

So, if you are a nonprofit that is suddenly finding that the products you buy don’t seem to be achieving the same results, it’s very likely that sneaky price increases may be the reason.  At least if the manufacturers and retailers would just raise the darn price, you could make informed decisions.  I get that there are serious cost pressures on businesses.  If you have to raise the price to stay in business, I get that.  Just don’t cheat me and then expect me not to notice.  Just price it where you have to and at least we would have honest information about the buying power of our dollar. 

Free Handout - Starting or Fixing Your Nonprofit

I have a free, 3000 word handout - the title is self-explanatory. .  It's yours for the asking to the first 100 requestors.   Email me at granthelp@ida.net or connect with me on Twitter @RLBaischwriter to request a pdf of the handout. 

We Can’t Afford...

If I had a dollar for every time I have heard this opening gambit from a nonprofit, I could retire and live large on some private island. 

“We can’t afford an executive director.  We can’t afford to pay a fundraising professional.  We can’t afford marketing. We can’t afford a website.  We can’t afford to hire employees.” 

What this says to me, and more importantly to any donor, is “We can’t afford to achieve our mission”. 

The very first thing you need to do ask yourself is “Why would anyone give us money?”  The answer is NOT “Because we are broke”.  The answer should be “Because we are a well-run company that can leverage donor dollars to achieve a mission result we both believe in”.

Donors and grant-makers want to know that you have an organization that is capable of actually achieving results. That means that your charitable business must be a business first, and a charity second. 

If you think that identifying a need and offering services to fill that need is the beginning of your successful nonprofit, you have it backwards.  You MUST have the structure to support your mission. Whether you are just now beginning the process of incorporating and forming your nonprofit, or you have been in business for ten years, if you don’t have a successful business, you have nothing to offer a donor. 

I have nothing but the deepest respect for the motives of all the people out there that are unselfishly trying to fill niches in our society that are under-served.  You are my heroes. But even heroes need their cape, or their spider-web shooters, and your super-hero tool is organization. 

Whether you are new or established, please sit down with your board of directors and decide to succeed.  Do a SWOT analysis. Compare yourself to a similarly-sized for-profit business.  Develop realistic programs and set a budget for them.  Set up realistic funding goals.  Get over the idea that your organization should not make a profit. In fact, other than using it as a descriptor, lose the word nonprofit completely. You have to make a profit, or you’ll be out of business, and you won’t be able to help anyone or anything. Start defining yourself as a charitable business instead of the defeatist term, "nonprofit".

Cloudlancer Writing Services can help you  achieve your goals with strategic planning, program development, personnel and policy manuals, and grant writing when you are grant-ready. Give me a shout at granthelp@ida.net.