Multiply Your Institutional Giving With Major Grants

If you mention major gifts in the nonprofit sector, no one will question the reference to your most significant individual donations. Do the same for major grants, and you’re likely to get some puzzled looks.

In both cases, what your nonprofit considers “major” is relative. At a community-based organization where I am a donor, a $50,000 foundation grant has been the largest to date, while some nationally-oriented nonprofits benchmark a figure 10 times that amount.

Size matters less than your approach. Many development shops treat each large solicitation as a narrow effort to court a single investor. That makes some sense, since foundations have wildly varying protocols. 

But in my experience, teams that think broadly about major private grants find more success than those that don’t. They use the tools and strategies they develop to benefit all of their institutional prospects. Many further repurpose them to use with individual donors.

Set the Course

The larger the grants you pursue, the more substantive the organizational plans required. That goes for unrestricted funding too. Your goal is to help your funding partner envision an ambitious destination. 

If your nonprofit has not yet landed on that long-term target, advocate for the need to do so. Deliver a couple of years’ worth of action plans to advance your organization toward that destination, and you’ve got a powerful mix of aspirational and operational selling points. 

Brand Your Journey

This may not be “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” but that title gives resonance to the power of a name. It screams adventure. Let your colleagues know that you’re up to something big by branding it. 

Give a name to “major grants” internally, and you conjure up the parallel to major gifts. Your leadership, peers and colleagues will know intuitively that you’re raising the bar.

When you establish a major grants initiative, you create space to elevate your body of work. Every resource you develop, from annual plans to funder communications can then be tweaked for your more modest funders. 

When you work with your largest investors in mind, you take that powerful case for support to others who will appreciate your depth of thought. The process rarely works in reverse.

Brand your destination too, and you create a powerful way to talk about the long-term goal you share with your funders. Their investments become a means to fuel your voyage together.

Find Your Passengers

Who will most want to join you on this adventure? 

Your existing funding base is most likely to invest substantively in your organization. Start there. These are the funders that already find your nonprofit credible and trustworthy. 

Even your lapsed funders are more likely to come in for major grants than new ones. Often, a foundation moves away from a grantee simply because priorities diverge. Come back with a freshly conceived vision, and like-minded funders might give you a new look.

When prospects are capable of major grants and align with your nonprofit’s interest areas, go after the few as opposed to the many. The percentage of new grantees at many foundations amounts to the low single digits annually, so maximize your time by planning accordingly.

Keep Your Eye on the Road

The biggest benefit of a major grants mindset — outside of increased revenue — is the idea that when you think big, the benefits trickle down to the rest of your portfolio.

Help your colleagues see the value of an organizational North Star, and that destination becomes the focal point beyond your largest foundation asks. It excites your modest grant makers, and it inspires supporters of all types and sizes.

The preceding post was provided by an individual unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of NonProfit PRO.