The Strategic Grantseeker A 2026 27 Playbook for Uncertain Times

And although this is a serious subject, I hope that you have fun today. While you're coming in, let me know the largest grant amount you received this year. Put the dollar amount in there and be honest. Tell the truth. Let me know. Was it a million? Did you get that million this year? Was it $500? Hey, anything is better than nothing. Especially if you are a new nonprofit. Getting that first grant is like heaven. $3,000. You go, Teresa. Yes. Terry, $40,000. LL3,000. I love it. 3750. Look at this. 350 for Mary. 1,650,000 for the something center. $2,000. $20,000 for Beth. Beth put the little happy face on there. I love that. $60,000 for Kesha. 5,000 for Gretchen. Go Gretchen. Guys, I love this. 5K. If you're just joining us, we're putting in the largest amount we've gotten this year in grant funding. My name is Artha Sims. I'm the webinar producer here. We're gonna start in less than a minute. You already know the drill. This is going to be recorded. You're going to get the slides. You're going to get the recording and some other links. And I love seeing this number. Roy, you go, Roy. I've never worked on a grant before. I'm here to learn. I'm learning a lot from professionals. Keep learning. It's a constant learning process. No matter how much you know, no matter how many grants you've written, you will always be learning. So stay with it. You go, Bruce. $100,000. One million for Jackie. You go, girl. I love that. I love that. And I if I miss you, everybody else is in here and they see you and we're clapping for everybody who even took the effort to apply for a grant. 25,000 for Robin. You go. Everybody, I love this. I appreciate you guys sharing this. In about 30 seconds, I'm going to turn this over to the president of education, Alice Runy from Grant Station. We're gonna talk about the strategic grant maker. Alice, over to you. Thank you for being here. >> Wonderful. Thank you, Artha, and thank you all for being here. Um, we have a nice big group uh participating today. Um, there's a lot to cover. Um, so we're going to get right into it. Um, however, just um since it's a large group, if you could put your questions in the question box opposed to the chat just so we can keep track of them. Um, and uh have some times uh to entertain some questions here at the end of our session. Um, so what we're going to do today is um start by looking at how to benchmark our organizations. Um, sometimes we're trying to play by a playbook of a larger organization or an organization that has a different mission focus from us and different categories like that. And it's a really good idea to find those appleto apples comparisons because you can't expect a smaller organization with a $50,000 budget to be having the same you know grant strategies as that organization with a $2 million budget. Right? We want to fit in where um you know you have the capacity to do what you can do. Um, and so starting by benchmarking is a great way to start that process. Then we're going to look at some different tools and resources and things that you can kind of like pre-prepare for your grant seeking um so that when opportunities do arise, you have a quicker um opportunity to turn around and get those applications submitted. Um, and then we're going to get into the real meat of uh our uh research process. And so how can we create the steps so that we're doing the same things consistently over time? Um so that then we can then you know track our progress. Um we can make changes as we need to if we find that things aren't working well. Um the other thing is just that consistency of a process really helps as you know you might be reaching out to volunteers to help with some of your grant seeking or you might um lose uh a staff member and then all that information kind of goes away. Um so how do we create those sustainable repeatable steps? Um then how do we kind of put that strategy together of how we're going to um put our funding sources together to fund our projects and then creating that action plan. So those are all the steps we're going to go through. I do want to mention that uh uh twice a year uh for two days uh we have a promotion with TechUp um and our promotion is coming up September 15th and 16th. This is the cheapest uh you are able to get Grandst Station um from any source. Um and that 2-day sale is the 15th and 16th. So, we're going to be putting some links uh in the chat for you to you can go and kind of get a reminder of save the date so you don't miss out on this great opportunity. So, um there's two ways to really approach your entire grant seeking strategy. And one is kind of the throwing the spaghetti on the wall approach and kind of seeing what sticks, right? So, kind of where uh people come, they hand us a an application for funding, we take a look at it, we go, "Okay, yeah, that's due next month. Uh let's make this thing happen." Um and so just kind of by the due dates, you're really deciding, okay, these are my priorities instead of um having a more uh dedicated strategy where you're really looking at what are the best fit funders for me so that I'm spending my time on the best fit, the best return on my investment instead of just the urgency of this is due, you know, immediately. let's let's focus all of our energies over here. Um, and when when we're reacting, you know, we're not um kind of purposefully diversifying our funding sources. Again, it's whatever kind of lands on top of our of our inbox or um that board member who hands us this um set of instructions and says, "Yeah, why aren't we applying for this?" And so because of that, we're applying for something um even if it's not the best fit or uh for you know your organization. So how do we then set up that strategy to be able to say um no these are the ones that will work the best for our organization um and and putting uh your time and efforts towards those funding opportunities. So, um, starting a little bit with kind of the bad news, um, of our funding reality, but, um, this isn't something that you don't know already. Um, but kind of talking about, um, you know, what's going on right now and why that that strategy is so important and even more important than it used to be. Um, with those government dollars, with those federal dollars, those are really shrinking. um 30 there was a a a study that just came out from the Chronicle of Philanthropy that said um that federal giving had fallen 38% in the first eight months of the administration. Um which is a huge amount. Um and that has trickle effects. Um it has trickle effects to those organizations not getting you know the the funding they need. um things that would transfer to the state um and and big grants like that have been uh reduced where sometimes you're getting money, it's federal money, but you're applying to your state government um instead of the federal government and that you know it has an impact on what's available at your state level as well. Um, another thing that's happening, you know, in the background, if you will, with regards to, uh, federal government funding is that there's a a process that you that every nonprofit has to follow. It's called uniform guidance. It's all the rules, the financial rules around how you manage that federal grant. And there were proposed changes. Um there was a significant backlash on those changes by the grant professional community um where over a half a million comments were put uh were given to these proposed changes. Um these proposed changes you know have things to do with things like um that that they can just cancel a grant without cause. um you know that that's being written into contracts now instead of the way it used to be where there had to be some sort of reason why um grants would be um cancelled, you know, because you didn't do the work or you know, things like that, but not just because. And those kinds of things are being written in the uniform guidance along with kind of political appointees evaluating your proposals as opposed to your peers. Um, so there's a lot going on behind the scenes with that. There is still a lot of push back trying to not make that happen. Um, but it is still in the process of happening. So, um, if you know those are some of the grants that you are interested in. Um, you know, I'm not saying don't go after them. I'm just saying be really cautious about what you're signing, what these new rules are. Um, because you don't want to be out of compliance. um if you do get those federal dollars, you need to know what those expectations are. Um and then just, you know, again, nothing that you don't know, but you know, if if these executive orders are signed and um a funding stream goes away, you know, that that that can impact us on the ground really fast. Um so that's kind of those federal dollars are shrinking. Um and uh and so what's happening is that private funders are picking up some of the slack. Um total giving in 2025 was up by foundations every year. um uh giving USA you know um shares how much money is given by individuals how much by foundations how much by corporations how much by bequests um to the nonprofit community and happy to say that in 25 it was up 5.7% from foundation giving and that foundations also um you know anticipate that their giving will increase um from 25 to 26. However, um you know, two negatives on that. You know, the competition that means the competition because so many federal grants and government grants that maybe organizations counted on, it's not there. So, the competition is increasing with those foundation grants. Um and also, you know, foundations with just even the sheer magnitude of the dollars aren't able to pick up all of the gap, right? So, um, you know, we're really, you know, looking at those private funders. How can we write the applications um that really demonstrate, you know, what we do and and the things the solutions that we provide and how we change our communities, um, is just really, you know, important, more important than ever because that competition is increasing. Um, so again, the first step in that process, this isn't so much a grant writing workshop, but the first step in that process is finding that best fit. Um, so that's what we're going to talk about today. How do we really find the best funders for us? um so that we're really spending time writing that quality proposal instead of just scattering our energies over, you know, more proposals but not being able to submit the best ones. Um so we're going to start with the benchmarking um and uh I want to uh share a tool with you. Grant Station has a tool called the benchmarker tool. Um and every year we do a survey called the state of grant seeeking and we get information from uh the previous year of how nonprofits um you know how many grants did they seek, how many grants did they get, where did their funding sources come from, all sorts of criteria I'm going to show you on the next slide. And then we've created a tool where you can come in and you can put information on what your budget size is. And then you can put in information on what your mission focus is. And then what you get to do is drill down on all sorts of indicators and compare yourself to like organizations. So again, you wouldn't expect a smaller nonprofit with a small budget to be applying for as many grants as a larger organization, right? So, how do we find that kind of good fit um for what our organization is like? And that's what the benchmarker does. So there's lots of different things, lots of different like questions you can review and con compare yourself of, you know, the age, the size, the budget, what percentage of grant of funding is coming from grants, um how much is is coming from reoccurring grants, how many grants are they applying for, how many grants are they receiving, what's their total grants awarded, what's their average size, and then what those challenges are. Um, so you simply go into the tool. Jeremy will probably throw that in the the chat as well. You go into the tool. All you do is click two buttons for your uh budget size and your mission focus. And then what you can do is look at the different answers and compare yourself. So here's just I just have two screenshots to kind of show you. So the question here is what percentage of your organization's funding is from grants? I chose a arts, culture and humanities organization with a small budget. Um so you can see here um that you know the largest percent of arts, culture and humanities um you know that 10% or less of their monies come from grants. Um and for those small budget organizations under $100,000 um 46.9% um 10% or less of their funding comes from grants. Um so you can compare yourself then this is everyone in the pool um regardless of their budget size or or mission focus. Um, a second uh uh example is just how approximately how many grants did you submit in 2025. Again, trying to find that benchmark of what what you know sounds like a reasonable target um uh without you know burning out your staff and and and all those sorts of things. So again you can see here for their arts culture um the largest percentage was um that they submitted three to five. Same with that small budget um category. Um so again, you can kind of see how many applications people are submitting, how many they're getting, and be able to really focus in then on, you know, what could be a good kind of work strategy for you, a kind of a quantity um kind of strategy for your organization. Um so the benchmarker is free. Um, you can go in, you can print off the report. If you're not a member, you can like just print it off. Um, take it to your board. If you're a member, you can save it to your dashboard and things like that. Um, and you just go to the website, go under the public resources tab, then there's the state of grant seeeking where you can read the whole report if you're so inclined or if you just want to use the tool, go to benchmark or tool. Um, so that's kind of the first step in the process to see how um how much you might, you know, be looking at as uh what you're doing, what sources to go after, all those kinds of things. The second step in the process is kind of building your grant-seeking toolkit. Um, and so what are the things that we need um in order to find grants that we're looking for? Um, having like a a prospecting tool like Grant Station, um, is a really great idea. Uh, if you're a really small organization, you're just getting started, you don't have any funds and those sorts of things, you can use things like like chat GBT or Claude and some of the AI tools and and they can kind of come up with some different ideas of some funders that you can then go and research and and look for. Um, but if you're really doing a, you know, you're really looking to be strategic, look at this plan to, you know, garner um, you know, that grant support over a period of time, a tool is really going to help you out to find the funders that you can then vet. Um, so it's going to save you time. And again, just using Grant Station as an example, at $119, the amount of staff time you're going to save right there um and find more funders um and and be able to secure more dollars, it's going to be worth your your investment. The second step in that is kind of just creating a template. Um this is just to clarify your own thinking. This isn't um you know, writing that narrative and and polishing it and that sort of thing. It's just a process to help you identify search terms to really think broadly about your projects. Um, and from there you'll find more funding opportunities for you to think about um, applying to. Um then we're going to talk about that decision-making criteria and how you can set up a repeatable system um to decide which uh funding opportunities are going to be the best return on your investment and then creating that calendar and action plan and then kind of having that tracking system where then you can evaluate what you're doing, how you're doing and all those sorts of things. So we'll go through these you know kind of a little bit piece by piece. Uh, I already told you about Grant Station, but when we're looking at those kind of project briefs, if you will. Um, you know, it again, this is not about words smmithing or having all your data aligned and this sort of thing. It's really about looking at your project through a variety of lenses. So, you know, kind of having that title, then looking at that need, what are you trying to what, you know, problems are you trying to solve? what solutions do you, you know, provide? Um, that would be in your project, you know, description. You know, what are you going to do and and who's your target population and what do you anticipate changing? Again, these are things that you're probably going to take and make into a narrative. But the important part here is just starting to think through your projects um through a a lot of different lenses. So that if you are let's say you know let's say you provide um you know tutoring and academic support to to youth potentially part of what you do is also providing um some of that maybe job uh soft skills maybe you know you're working on that but you didn't really think um to look for funders who fund those kinds of things. So again, it's that creativity in looking at your lenses um to find the most funders to to look for that support your mission. Um and then also similarly with budgets, not looking for uh a line item budget here, but just looking for are you looking for inind donations? Uh then as you're searching for grants, you know, you're going to want to search for funders who provide those inkind donations. Um, if you uh kind of know some of the the the people that you're going to be going after, you're a a animal shelter and you know you're going to be going after PetSmart to be looking for some, you know, donations of some sort or funding, you know, you can, you know, start to narrow down those things. Um, also just by looking at what kind of funding you're looking for, you know, I'm looking for project support or I'm looking for general operating funds. um those kinds of things can just help inform your search um because you can search for funders who fund things like that. Um so this part of the process is really more about focusing in so that you have um a really good solid list of search terms to start looking for your funders. Um the second step is to kind of that kind of getting grant ready and getting some of those things kind pre-prepared so that when funding opportunities do arise, you know, you have some things already prepared so that um when you're looking at the the time commitment or you know, you really have to look especially in a small organization where we're all wearing a lot of hats, you know, you have to look at um the time of staff and what do we have on on hand already and the more that you have pre-prepared the the easier it will be to be able to um apply to different funders. So, making sure that you know your programs are clearly documented. Um, having any of your, you know, financials audit ready. Not everybody's going to have an audit. I understand that. Um, but having, you know, your your current, um, uh, organizational budget, having your 990s that those are all completed and up todate. If you do have an audit, you know, making sure it's the most up-to-date audit, having those financial policies on hand. um even though funders usually don't ask for them, they're going to make an assumption that you have them, that you're operating from a set of procedures and pol policies and procedures for um your finances with your organization. Um a really important one is having that data that that shows the impact of what you do. Um so being able to share information with a funer about the difference your programs make. um being able to share how your participants change over time and how they kind of walk in with one set of circumstances and walk out with a better set of circumstances that you can document and demonstrate. Um really important that a funer is going to want to see that um as much as just how much you do. um kind of just making sure that your board's aligned, you know, that your board is on board with with what you're doing as a strategy. Um and then there's different sections that that lend themselves more to having a boilerplate like available um to you that you're going to continue to use and reuse throughout the year. So, kind of your organizational history is a is a great section that you can usually just write once and then you can come and pull from that information. Um, and then different attachments that funders are asking for. I already kind of talked about some of the financials. They're going to ask for your annual budget. They're going to ask for your 501c3 letter. And they're going to ask for the most current board member list. So kind of having those common attachments updated and ready to go, you know, once a year can really help with, you know, just saving your organization a lot of time. And then anybody can kind of go and pull from your, you know, grant folder that you may have on a shared drive or something anytime they need documents to support them in writing or submitting the proposal. Um, so these are just different things that you can, you know, continue to work on over time. And the more um, like I said, the more uh, these are kind of completed and and up to date, just the easier your process is going to be, um, you know, time after time as you continue to apply to different funders. Um, so the next step is kind of building your, this is the meat of what we're doing, building that research process, something that's consistent that can be used and reused. Um, so we have here a five-step um, uh, process of finding and doing the research. Um, you know, identifying those search terms comes from that project description we were we were talking about. um then finding those funders and then vetting those funders. And we're going to show you different ways you can vet them, look at different um uh things about them and where we things we want to look for um that then we can take and and prioritize through our decision matrix that we can uh create or use uh at Grandst Station and then again build that strategy and create your calendar and track your success. So, we're going to start the process um with that research process. So, again, very very important, always been very important that we're diversifying our funding sources, right? That's never that's not a new thing for us. But however, in the last, you know, year, we really saw when there were organizations that were too um uh um connected to federal dollars once if that was their main, you know, funding and if they didn't have other funding uh sources, then their entire projects went away when that funding went away. So we, you know, not to say you can't look, obviously, um, you know, government dollars are still good to get and things like that. Um, but we want to make sure that we, uh, are looking at other, um, strategies as well. So, we have the private foundations that we want to be looking for, those those family foundations, your independent foundations, your community foundations, all those sorts of things. um looking for those funders that support the mission of what you're doing, your target population, your geographic area, all those sorts of things. Um, corporations give um in some different ways. They have corporate foundations that operate a lot like private foundations. Um they also give through different giving programs and sponsorships and things like that. So, strategies that you'll want to look for. Um, giving circles are, um, when people, you know, in a community kind of get together, they they pull their money together, and then they award that money, um, as a group back out into their community. Um, donor adise funds are the the largest growing um, pile of money right now. Um it's it's where donors give those dollars and then they the thing about the donor advice funds is that they they usually give those dollars to say a community foundation. Um they donate to maybe a a a financial institution like Schwab or Fidelity. Um and then they determine where the dollars go. Um, so donor advice funds are are are um, you know, something that you really want to be considering looking at. Um, and then there's all sorts of different associations and clubs that are out there that you can find that give, you know, your um, women's clubs in your communities and your Lions clubs and things like that. Um, so, um, there's lots of different ways that you can diversify, um, your grant strategies and making sure that not all of your dollars are coming from one funding source, right? So, if we diversify, we're going to be more sustainable over time. Um, as you're out there looking for funders, there's different ways to kind of hone in to find those funders that again, um, kind of match who you are. So, you do want to look at geographic area. There's funders who fund specifically in your community, in your state, um in your county, sometimes just in your city even, those sorts of things. And then there's also national funders. National funders are those that give um across any state in the US. Um this would translate to Canadian as as well. Um there there would be province um only uh funders and then you know national funders that way as well. Um so um you want to look at at at all of those different geographic areas to find those funders. Um looking at the area of interest that you serve. Um, so again, this is where a lot of those terms are going to start to um start to really coalesce as you're writing out those project descriptions of really, you know, we're really looking to support uh, you know, those that are food insecure and um, really looking with food pantries and and feeding programs and things like that and using those terms. Those are really going to help you find what the funer um calls those terms and then you know be able to search for funders who support those different um areas. Um sometimes funders fund specifically a target population. So there might be funders who fund senior issues and it might be that they fund senior issues in health um and also in safety and security and things like that. And so, you know, you might find those funders um specifically under your target population as well. And you know, so if you were looking just under health, um you know, would would you find that fun? But if you're looking for those that support seniors or um you know, uh uh lowincome populations or things like that. So that opens up to more funders. And then like I said also there are funders who fund specific types of things. So, you're looking for program support or capacity building projects or whatever it is, you can search for funders that are giving that type of support. Um, so these are all things that you can search by um using a grant station membership um and find then those funders that match all those areas, geographic area, area of interest, all sorts of things. Um once you kind of come up with that initial list, um then you're going to want to kind of vet the different funders. Um one great way to do that is to look at the grants awarded. Um and so uh you can find those either under um the funders 990 tax forms. Um we also have it as just something that you can search right on our site with that funer. Um, but looking at who they funded in the past, how they funded, how much they funded, what they funded them for, um, really gives you a good idea if this funer is fitting into your area. Let's say you're really going after a big project. You're doing a million dollar project um, and a funer is giving out $5,000 grants, right? And you found that out by the way you looked at their the way they awarded in the past. that might be a very low priority funder for you. Um those kinds of things. So you can get that, you know, kind of find more information about how they fund, who they funded. Um looking at their annual reports um often gives you kind of a good uh kind of understanding of how they give and who they give to and and what areas that they have um you know that they're looking to support. um the funders websites um you know you can link right to their websites from our profiles um but you can check what their current guidelines are. You can check out their application instructions um kind of looking at the you know pulling off information on the deadlines and the you know how um how much information are they looking for in these applications. Sometimes you'll also find that it might be a good funer, but they're really asking for a lot of information that you're going to have to invest some time in, you know. So, you know, kind of knowing um you know, the the depth of the application, how much time it's going to take is really going to inform your strategies um moving forward. Um and then also just, you know, reaching out to the funders after you've done all this work and you have a good idea on who they are. Don't call them up and ask them anything that that you could have found information from like you know um what their application guidelines are. Like really show them that you've done your homework. Really show them what you're how you're thinking of that alignment between your organization and their organization. And having that outreach to them can really help um save you time and and the more connections that you have to funders just the higher um the chance of you being funded is. Um, so those are ways to really, you know, take this list that might be, you know, too large and really start to narrow it down to the best fit funders. Um, so then how do we, you know, weigh those those different funding opportunities that we have? Um, so we're going to talk about, you know, creating and using a decision matrix. um you know what really happens um and and you guys can you know do some thumbs up if this has ever happened to you but a lot of times when you're the grant professional working in a nonprofit everybody's coming up to you all the time and saying why didn't we apply for that oh here's this funding opportunity oh blah blah blah and they're kind of constantly throwing new ideas if you have the time if they're related if they're you know anything exactly you know they're constantly doing that to you, which is really annoying um because you you maybe already have a strategy or a process, right? And they're kind of coming into that that process that you already have and they're trying to kind of say change, you know, your your direction right now. And sometimes, you know, it might be important to do that, but not every time. And so that's what a decision m matrix allows you to do. It helps you to to decide which funders to prioritize. Um and then if um you know you have this like adopted by your board or a fundraising committee, this is how you're going to work. Um you this person could come up to you say here's a funding opportunity and you run it through the matrix and then you can say it doesn't meet our criteria right now. um you know, it didn't score high enough. So, you know, we're gonna put this one off maybe till next year or this one just doesn't fit because, you know, the geographic area doesn't align with with with our geographic area or whatever it is, but it takes that personality out of it, right? It's not you saying no, it's your organization's decision matrix saying no. And so it can take some of that stress off of you as the grant professional that I know people put on you because I was um a grant uh writer as well and I know what that what that's like. So with the decision matrix, there's lots of things that you might want to consider. Um and uh first starting with that, you know, internal internal capacity, you know, do you have the time to to fill out this application? Um the more ready you are with that slide I was talking about earlier that project readiness you know the more ready you are the higher your internal capacity is going to be um but looking you know do you have the partnerships that you need or you know are you going to be able to manage the reporting on the back end and things like that. do you have is that you know looking at each opportunity and filtering it through these different um uh criteria. Um another one is just that strategic alignment. Obviously we want to show that alignment between the funer and our organization's mission. You want to show that you have a geographic alignment that you're funding, you know, that they're funding your geographic area, target population alignment, um you know, areas of interest, all those things. the stronger you are aligned on those, the higher your chances of receiving the funding. Um, relationships with funders. Um, you know, generally if you have a history with a funer, um, a good history, um, or you know, they're a current funer, you know, you can really work that into multi-year funding. Um, or if you are looking at developing relationships with larger foundations over time, you know, that that step in the process kind of where are you? Do you have that relationship? Um, you know, is is that something that's going to benefit your organization as you are applying? Um, and then just looking at the finances on this, you know, um, estimated grant amount. So, you know, is it fitting with what you're looking for? Again, a $5,000 grant in a $25,000 project really makes some sense. That's, you know, a fifth of the project. There's nothing wrong with getting 5,000. Um, if you are looking for a really huge project, you know, then it's like that might be too small of amounts for you to really focus on and you're looking for those larger awards. Um, looking to kind of the cost to apply. Are you hiring in a grant consultant? Do you have um, you know, people on staff? Is this a volunteer kind of um, opportunity? You know, how much is it costing to apply for this fund funding opportunity? And then you know if there is a match requirement where a funer says you have to have so much in matching funds um then you know do you have that? Um so these are just different lenses to kind of think through to build your decision matrix. You're going to want to make it um really tied to your organization. What are those things that are the most important, right? Um you know maybe relationships aren't that important to you or whatever. Um so um you can you know take these and modify them. And so what I did was I just took every criteria on the other page and put you know put them kind of into sentences. So you can see here with each funding opportunity what we're doing is we're taking a look at the all their this information that we got from them um about you know when when uh what their funding guidelines were and then we went through and we scored each one. Um and so three was high. You know, we have the ability to manage. We're very well aligned with the funer. We have a good relationship. Um you know, we don't have the partners yet. Um so that's something we're going to have to work on um to secure, you know, as we're writing as well potentially. Um so that's something that we we still need to develop. But um you can kind of see how you would you know rate each one and then you'll just have a um a like a key so that if this scores at this level then okay we're going to apply to this one. Um there might be this middle ground of you know maybe later uh maybe we need a little bit more um you know a little bit more development that we need to do before we're going to apply or you know um we need a little bit more information um before we can apply that sort of thing. So you can have a middle ground um and then this kind of cut off um where if you know you you like this just is at 18 um where you're just not quite close enough to apply to that funer. Um so what this allows you to do again is to really prioritize those funders that match you the best in your criteria um and would be the best return on your investment as an organization. Um, so you can create these, you can add uh criteria to your decision matrix, you can put it in an Excel spreadsheet, you can do it however you want. Um, if you do have a membership with Grant Station, we do have a matrix kind of built in to your dashboard. So you can also do these right in your dashboard if you would like to. Um, from there you're going to have, you know, maybe your A funders and your B funders and maybe even some C's. Um, or maybe just A's and B's, right? So, you know, these three are your A funders. These were the ones you were the best aligned with, right? And you're going to put those on your calendar first and plan that time, that staffing time around these applications. Um, and what an aunderer is is different from organization to organization, you know, but it could be somebody that you have a really strong, you know, mission, um, you know, fit. You has a, you know, you already have the application ready, you know, you can, you've already applied for one and you can just kind of take off. So, it's like, okay, that's a really good fit for us. It might be a moderate fit, right? maybe in that orange um but or yellow or whatever color it was. Um but it's a real simple onepage application, right? That you could turn around say, "Okay, I want to prioritize that because it's not going to take much time." Um it could be a relationship that you have or it could be, you know, um that you're really looking um you know, they're they're kind of a local funer. Usually local funders are a little bit easier to get funding for than your national funders. Um, so you always do want to kind of start local and build that support from your community foundations, your local family foundations, all those sorts of things. Um, or maybe for you, you know, it is a big federal grant that's really going to be a gamecher for your organization if you get it. Um, and it would make a real difference. And so that's where you want to spend your time. Um, so you know, kind of what's an A funer, what's a B funder, you know, is really dependent on you. But, you know, again, you could look at those numbers um from the benchmarker tool and kind of go, okay, we want to submit between, you know, three and five applications this year. Again, these three I feel are the strongest. So, those are going on first and then if we have time, we'll look at funer four and five and put those on the calendar as a second priority. Um so uh prioritizing those funders just just really helps you then kind of decide what your overall kind of strategy is going to be. Um as you're looking at your kind of grants pipeline um for a different project. Um uh just kind of a rule of thumb is that if you're looking for funding look for more than than what um you know apply for more than what you need. Um it can be anywhere between two two times as much as what you need up to 4% of what you need. Um again the more aligned you are the more prepared you are. Um probably you can go a little bit lower on that. Um but you know you're if you were doing a big you know $360,000 project um you know you you're really um going to want to have you know again different funding opportunities on here. You can see it's rather diversified of state, private, corporate, and then um donor advised funds. Um you know, the amount that you're going to be asking for. Um you know, you're needing 150, but you're going to be out there applying for 360. Um some funders will fund, you know, you might get turned down for some. Some funders will fund you partially and you know, you asked for 85, but you got 60. Um, so you know, those sorts of things. So, you know, always having a bigger pipeline than you need is is um is always, you know, the the best rule of thumb. Now, if you're just working on a smaller project sort of thing, you don't have to have as many, you know, in your pipeline. If you're, you know, looking for $10,000 and, you know, you're going to go after two funders or something like that. Um but especially in your larger projects, you know, really again having the diversified amounts and having um uh asking for more than what you need so that you would likely get what you need when it all shakes out in the end. Um then with building your calendar, you know that that you know, again, I've already kind of said this, but put your top tiers in there first. Um, you know, if you find that you're always really busy at, you know, the summertime, you know, making sure that you've kind of, you know, worked on some of the the things for a grant that's due in the summer, you know, you've done that early, those kinds of things. Um, if you plan ahead and you're looking ahead six to 12 months, you can do that without um, you know, the the the stress of that immediiacy and drop everything and do this now. um you know it gives your your team um a chance to really you know put a good uh uh application together. It can be reviewed. You can have that time to really make it shine. That's the way you know the with the level of competition. That's really what we're going to have to be doing is putting the best applications forward. Um and then um kind of al aligning with your internal capacity which I think kind of I've already talked about. um making sure that these are things that you can realistically manage um and and you know to um you know again that's where the benchmarker just comes in so helpful. You know you don't want people burning out and leaving and those sorts of things. Um and so this this you know having um something that's very manageable is important um with tracking your progress um you know looking at you know when these grants are due, when your letter of intent is due, if there's a letter of intent or uh the full application, those sorts of things, you know, where your group is kind of sharing a maybe a a common um calendar that updates status. um what the next steps are, you know, so that everybody on your team is working um together. Um maybe one person's out there developing some of the relationships, other people are in the back end doing some of the research and um data collection that you need to write the application. Um and then you know kind of keeping those funer relationships again keeping those um kind of tracked um if you know you're working on developing more of those which is always you know again a good strategy because the better the relationships with the funders the higher your chances of getting those different um grants. Um so kind of where you are in that. And then the last step I want to talk about is um just evaluating your grant seeeking overall. Um you don't have to track every one of these. Find the things that that are important to you. Um but keeping track of how many grants you applied for versus how many you received um is an important um you know thing to track your what your win rate um is. um how much funding, you know, you secured versus what your goal was. Um looking at that cost per grant application, how much time did it take for the staff to complete that application? Um what that return on investment is, maybe grant renewal um is something that you want to maybe increase your grant renewal rate. Um, so you know, keeping track of that, keeping track of how you're diversifying your funding sources, uh, keeping track of any feedback that you've received from funders. So these are all just different ideas on things that you want to um, think about tracking so that you know um, if your strategy, if you need to tweak your strategy or there's different things that you need to do. Um, but it it really can help you then, you know, looking at a year of grant seeeking and and then being able to evaluate what you want to do the next year. Um, so different things to kind of keep in mind. Um, so just as a recap, um, you know, we're going to, uh, first step benchmark our organization. building your your toolkit is something that you can kind of again consistently come back to and always update and have more, you know, you can just get that better and better and better over time. Um, creating that research process where it's the same five steps over and over again. Um, that way if somebody leaves the organization or if you have a volunteer um that's coming in to help you, you know, you don't have to start from scratch every time and develop a new system. It's like here's the system, here's how we do it. Um, and then weighing your best returns and then building your plans from there. Um, some different ways to kind of keep some momentum going over time. Um, we do, uh, like I said, we do have the tech soup sale. Um, uh, uh, and the that is the 15th and 16th. And then we also do have two, uh, webinars coming up. um two additional webinars. The next one is by Jeremy who's um in the background today. Um but he's going to show the Grant Station platform. Um so you can come and look um at our search engines and and the resources that we have that a membership will provide you. Um and you can come and learn all of that at the September 9th um webinar if you would like to get more information on what your $119 will buy. Um and then we have just another free webinar on September 15th. Um that's kind of the other side of the coin here. Then we've talked more about grant seeking today. Um the other side is then a process for evaluating and scoring your grant applications. How do you um a tool to be able to get that feedback um before you submit um and and you know get the negative feedback in the back end. um how a tool that that that can help you do that ahead of time. Um so just another uh free webinar to help you write those really strong proposals. Um so you know we understand uh uh how challenging this time is um and how having these different strategies all aligned will really help um your organizations um stay sustainable. And from there, I think I'm going to take a drink of water and we can get to some questions. >> Well, that sounds excellent. Um, thank you everyone for being with us today. You will be getting a copy of the recording and a copy of the slides that was asked the most. So, that is the number one question that was asked. You will be getting both of those courtesy of Artha and Kayla with Tech Soup. So, if you have any issues, they are the ones to complain at, not me, Jeremy with Grant Station. But, let's go ahead and cover some questions. We've had a lot of questions. These are really great questions and if we don't get to it, it's nothing personal. It's just there's a finite amount of time in the day. But if you want to ask more questions, you can always reach out to Grandstation directly at infograndstation.com. More than happy to help you out. If you decide to pick up a membership, you'll be able to get access to everything that not only has mentioned today, but more be talking about that in next week's webinar. It's a free webinar. I encourage you to sign up. Hopefully, you like my voice because I'll be talking a lot. So if you do, you'll be set. So number one question, this is an Artha Kayla question. Is the Grant Station sale available to those who are not TechUp members? So I'm going to go ahead and answer that. If I am wrong, uh they will correct me, but um you do have to be a Tech Soup member, but there's no cost to becoming a Techuit member. Um so is that correct, Artha? So >> that is correct. And if Kayla want to weigh in a little bit more, feel free. That is correct, though. >> The organizations must be eligible organizations. So, you'll want to sign up and then immediately request the product during the promotion time. To do that, it'll be easiest to go through the qualification process after. >> So, hopefully that that answers that. >> After requesting a product, >> right? Exactly. >> Okay. Okay. Yep. So, I've got a couple here that are some these are really good ones. I would actually I may actually save some of these, Alice, and we'll use them in future webinars. They're good ones in here. Um Pam asked a question that comes up very often, especially when we look at our database at Grant Station and any database containing grants. How do you approach granters who only take applications by invite only? >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's always we always get that question. Um and so you know that is always super challenging right and so um that is a process of you know trying to find that connection between anybody in their organization and anybody in your organization. So really reaching out to all your stakeholders from your board members to your volunteers to your participants to your supporters all that sort of thing and trying to get that kind of personal connection. Um get that first meeting. Um being able to very very quickly demonstrate who you are and what you do in order to get that information across. Um, one of the things that we do at Grant Station is that we only put in our what we call GS verified, we only put funders in there who are actively accepting applications. Um, just because that, you know, trying to get in on a funer who says they don't accept unsolicited applications, that's a longer kind of process. That's a relationship building process. That's something that I'm looking at as a longer term strategy. It's going to take you some time to get in with them. Um, and you're going to have to build the relationship and that's going to take time. So, that's just one nice thing about our database. When you look in those records, you're going to only find the funders who are actively giving. Um, and then you can focus in on them. Um, however, you know, longer term strategies, you know, it doesn't hurt to look for those. Um, and we have those funders in a 990 section. Um, so you can look for those funders that aren't actively accepting applications um, from the, you know, without solicitation. Um, and start to develop those relationships. But I would try that personal connection first and then again that quick snapshot of your organization, something one page, something they can see very quickly. um you know and then getting that conversation rolling from there. >> So, I have a nightmare scenario for you, Alice. I'm sure you've ran into this yourself, so be ready for it. Thomas went through this. The biggest problem he's had is writing a perfect grant proposal that's perfectly aligned with goals and requirements of the granting body and then having it rejected. It wastes lots of time and energy. You know, they're very interested in any kind of insight on how to avoid this. and he emphasized this. Please believe me when I say perfectly aligned and I'm sure you've dealt with this Alice when you've been writing >> grants. Yes, I I feel your pain. Um I really do. Um I think one of the things that I would do is try to go back to them um you know uh after you know when when you get the rejection or you know even if you got it in the past um and and talk you know see if you can get in with anybody to talk to them about your application um and this isn't I mean and I know that you know this and this isn't a time to argue you know oh I thought this and I thought this was the best and da da da da da um because you will think that, right? Um but um it's really that time to say, you know, we felt this really good alignment. We you know, here's the top three reasons why we are so well aligned. Um you know, can can you talk to us about ways to improve our application or where were our weaknesses so that we can improve? Um, and you know, usually a funer, you know, most of the time will give you that time of day to kind of talk through why it wasn't accepted and those sorts of things. Um, there are some foundations that just won't do it. And in those cases, you know, I don't know of any great magic on that, how you could get them to do that. Um the other thing is that we will um be talking about the grant scorecard um and um uh at the next session uh and so that has also has a tool an AI tool in it. Um we've put a a a grant a very comprehensive grant scorecard in there and we've fed and in its knowledge really well-written proposals a whole bunch of really awesome proposals. And so what this tool will help you do is it will come up with strengths and weaknesses for each section of your grant application. And um then that might also be something um that maybe there's a section that you thought was really good but that could be enhanced. So join that session as well and um and and and come and learn about that >> and you can sign up for those directly through Techup's website and I'm sure Artha and Kayla have been able to get those links into the chat. So definitely check the chat. You'll be able to find links to access those >> and they're also when you get the slides they're they're linked to the slides as well. So >> you'll be totally covered. You'll have access to it. Yeah. >> Um Ann asks, um you've mentioned applying for more than you need. Is it okay to apply for funding for a particular program to more than one funer at a time? >> Oh, absolutely. Yes. Um you can apply for different, you know, components of a project. So, you know, you're kind of going after this funer for um you know, the materials and the supplies and this and that and you're going after this funer for a different component. Um nothing wrong with that. very very common and it's also you know not uncommon to um have two funders and you're applying for the same thing um you know kind of again realizing you might not get uh one of them um if you are are you know hit hit the lottery and and and both funders came back to you know you applied for the same thing and one funer funded your project and then this other funer came and said I'll fund it um you know you can go back to them you can take another project that fits within the scope of them and go back and talk to them and say, you know, hey, you know, how much do we appreciate this? We really, really appreciate it. We really feel so aligned with you. Would you consider, you know, because we got the these dollars, would you consider supporting this um and and giving them an already created proposal um for another component of your project or another project um that fits within their scope. Um, but there's nothing there's nothing unusual with applying to more than one funer for um for grants. >> I'm gonna do a couple rapid fire here. This will be I'll answer these, Alice. And I have one left for you that we'll do in just a second. A membership for Grant Station is normally $6.99 directly through us, but through this special deal, it's $119 a month only through Tech Soup. So, this is your best chance that a year. >> Oh, sorry. Uh I I read what someone said here. I didn't say that. I was like19 a month. No, no, no. And this is the next question because I had it in my head. It's 119 for a year of access, not a month. I uh have to make that very clear. I'll say that one more time. 119 for a year of access to Grant Station. And we do use elements of AI as Alice mentioned, but we don't use it in our research. We use it primarily for interactive tools that allow you to quickly look at a proposal, see how it can see how it can be improved based on information that we use in house. And we'll talk all about this in our next session about how we use our AI tools on our website. And one of the big things is that if you want to take advantage to of this opportunity, it's only on those two days. That's come up a couple times. Can I get it early? Nope. Only on those two days. That's the only time you can do that. And one last question in the rapid fire session. Um, how does Grant Station maintain their data to ensure that the granter is actively funding? We have researchers who go out there and do this. This is their job is to go out, learn about the funer, contact the funer, go through all their records, go through our unique databases that we have access to, and they make sure it's up to date. If it's not, if they're no longer offering the information, we then remove it from our database. So, we're constantly adding and changing and modifying records in our database. It's not just scraped information. It's not just, you know, a quick search on Google. This is a human has looked at it. They've gone through it and they made sure it applies to that specific area of interest, that specific program or that specific group of people. So, that's the sort of the Grant Station difference if you ever want to go ahead and figure out how we're different from other organizations out there. Now, Alice, your final question, which I think is a good wrap-up. Kelly asks, "Given all the changes in funding that's occurred in 2025 and 2026, do you feel based on your, you know, Nostradamus powers, is funding from private foundations and such expected to increase for the next year?" >> It is um it is expected to increase. There was a slide earlier of how of a huge percent who said that their funding would increase. Um two kinds of things about that. first um you know when the stock market's doing well then funders are usually doing very well um because you know they're they're investing their assets and then you know they're giving away the you know the investments and that sort of thing. So when the stock market's good usually funders are continuing to fund higher and higher when you're talking about private funders. Um the second part is that you know with this you know government decrease um funders uh are required to give out 5% of their assets each year and there are more funders you know giving out higher like 6% of their assets you know I'd like to see 10% of their assets right um but they are giving out a higher percentage than what they're required to give out so that trend of funders, you know, increasing. It is increasing. So, that is good news. Um, it's just that the competition um because there was been so much slashed out of the government dollars, the competition's increasing. Um, so that's where all this information that you're getting in this webinar and then the next webinar and then the next webinar um is really going to help you write the best proposals possible so that your chances increase of actually getting funded. And with that, we'll hand it back to Artha. You now have the raise. >> Beautiful. Always great information. Um, we will put the link in the chat. And actually, you're going to get the recording and slides and links to the future webinars and the the sale reminder will be on the slides. You'll probably get that later today or in the morning. Alice, thank you so much. >> You're welcome. >> All right. Have a great day. >> You guys all have a great day. Bye-bye.