The Hidden Work Behind Finding the Right Grants
One of the most common requests I receive sounds something like this:
“If you happen to see any grants that would work for us, send them our way.”
It seems like a reasonable request. But it misunderstands just how large the grant funding landscape really is. Good grant prospect research is mostly the art of saying “no.” The value isn’t how many grants I find. It’s how many I confidently eliminate before you spend dozens of hours writing a proposal.
Why grant prospect research takes more work than you think
Finding grant opportunities isn’t like scrolling through a job board or waiting for the perfect opportunity to pop up in your inbox. It’s a process of narrowing an enormous universe of possibilities into a manageable list that’s actually worth pursuing.
Every year, Candid processes information on approximately three million grants representing more than $180 billion in funding. If you zoom out even further, as of 2023 IRS data, the United States was home to nearly 145,000 private and community foundations alongside more than 1.58 million nonprofit organizations competing for support (Candid).
In other words, the challenge isn’t finding grants. The challenge is finding the right grants.
How I evaluate whether a grant is worth pursuing
Before I ever recommend a grant opportunity, I spend time getting to know both the funder and your organization. Here’s what I’m looking for.
Geographic grant funder fit
A foundation may say it funds organizations in Georgia. That sounds promising, until you realize every recent grant went to organizations in metro Atlanta while your nonprofit serves rural South Georgia. Or perhaps a corporate foundation gives throughout Texas, but only in communities where it has manufacturing facilities.
Geography isn’t just about checking the state on an eligibility list. It’s about understanding where a funder has actually chosen to invest.
Programmatic grant funder fit
Programmatic fit is crucial to grant funding. This is why I spend so much time learning about your organization before I start my grant prospect research. To suggest the best prospects, I need to understand your programs, who you serve, your outcomes, your funding priorities, and where your organization is headed.
Two nonprofits may both describe themselves as “arts organizations,” yet one provides after-school education while the other presents professional performances. A funder may enthusiastically support one and never consider the other. The more I understand your work, the easier it becomes to eliminate opportunities that aren’t truly aligned with it.
Benchmark organizations and grant funding patterns
One of the fastest ways to understand whether a foundation might support your work is to look at who it’s already funding. To compare that to your organization, I usually ask three questions:
Who are your peer organizations?
Who do you aspire to become?
Which organizations are solving similar problems in neighboring communities?
Experienced grant professionals routinely study benchmark organizations to identify funding patterns, discover new prospects, and better understand where an organization fits within the nonprofit ecosystem. Sometimes those patterns reveal opportunities that eligibility guidelines alone would never uncover.
If you’ve read my post about getting more information from a foundation’s Form 990, you’ve already seen one of the best places to find this kind of information.
Quality grant prospect research is an investment
A good funding strategy isn’t measured by the length of the grant list but rather by confidence. I’d rather hand you ten well-researched opportunities that closely align with your mission than fifty possibilities that leave you guessing.
That’s also why organizations invest in working with a grant consultant. This work is my full-time profession. I know where to look for opportunities, and I invest in the research tools and subscriptions that make comprehensive prospecting possible, like Instrumentl. I stay current on changes in philanthropy and continually sharpen my skills through professional development. My job is to help you spend your limited time pursuing the opportunities most likely to advance your mission.
That matters because every grant application takes time. Every proposal requires staff capacity. And every hour spent pursuing a poor fit is an hour you can’t invest in a stronger opportunity.
If you’re ready to stop chasing every deadline and instead build a grant pipeline around opportunities that genuinely fit your organization, that’s exactly what my Plan Your Stops funding strategy is designed to do. Together, we’ll build a customized roadmap of grant opportunities that match your mission, geography, and programs, so your team can spend less time searching and more time submitting competitive proposals. Learn more and request a funding strategy here.
Photography by Elizabeth Leitzell