Communicating With Potential Funders

Now you have done your research and and found potential funders for your program or project. Do you just submit the grant proposal, cross your fingers and hope for the best? Not if you really want to get funded.

Contacting the corporation or foundation prior to submitting the application is crucial. Sometimes funders will change their published focus of funding from year to year. Events such as the recent Katrina hurricane in the Gulf Coast states can and will affect an organizations giving strategy. Perhaps at the beginning of August some organizations would consider a gift to a museum or university. Now, since the disaster that same organization is changing its focus to help primarily with hurricane relief. A telephone call or email to the appropripe person to discuss their current ability/desire to give to your organization will help you to avoid wasting time in submitting an application to the wrong organization.

So how do you call or email if they do not publish that contact information or state in their literature "We do not accept telephone calls?" Some organizations want you to call and talk to them while others do not have the personnel to field calls or email. This is where your Board of Directors, friends, community partners and others who have a stake in your organization can help. Submit a list to those people that contain the names of the funding organizations Board of Trustees, and staff. Find out who knows who on that list. Perhaps one of your Board members knows one of their Board members through the Rotary club, church or other personal arena. Your Board member can make an informed call or request a meeting to discuss the impact that your program will have on the community. This person will hopefully be able to advise you based on information they know about the funder.This enhances the research you have already collected.

The point is that grantwriting is a team effort. No one person should be expedted to be the Lone Grant Ranger. You can have the best proposal ever written and yet it may be rejected because of limitations the funder may have. The more information you have the better prepared you will be to submit your grant request to the appropriate organization. It really is more about who you know than what you know or do in this field. Of course this is not the case with government funding sources. More on that another time...

Our hearts go out to the people affected by Katrina. If you would like to donate to a reputable organization click the links below to go to their website(s):

Red Cross
Salvation Army
Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund