Grant Writing
Understanding Grant Writing
Grant writing is a process of writing a letter requesting money from organizations who give away funds to nonprofits. The great thing about grants is the organization giving away the money does not need the funds paid back. They are a gift. The difficult part of grant writing is finding the organizations that give away funds and actually writing the letter requesting the money. Many times this grant writing process is very confusing and hard to figure out. However, it does not have to be hard and below I will give you some quick tips below to get you on the fast track to grant money.
Most organizations who grant money, require the organization requesting the money to be a non profit 501c3 status. This means the organization needs to either have independent IRS 501c3 status or be tax exempt through a fiscal sponsor. Either is usually fine. The reason this requirement is necessary is that granting organizations get their funding from donations. Once money is donated to a non profit the monies have to be donated to another tax exempt organization or used in a non profit way. So to get grants from tax exempt organizations, the receiving organization needs to be tax exempt itself.
Grant Writing Tools
There are some great tools, too many to list here, for finding organizations that have grant money available. Some tools require a subscription; however, there are a variety of free ones. You can find more information about these tools on the Simple Nonprofit web site under the Funding and Grants category.
Organizations usually only give grants to nonprofits who help them accomplish their mission. In searching for funding organizations, it is important to find organizations that have similar missions as the organization that wants to receive the funds. For example, it would be unlikely that a funding organization that has a mission to help underprivileged children would give funds to a nonprofit that is focused on helping homeless men.
Once an organization looking for a grant finds a funding organization with a similar mission, a letter requesting the funding needs to be written. This letter in grant writing is called a grant request or a grant proposal. Many times funding organizations have very specific information that must be included in the proposal. These requirements are usually found on that organization’s web site. Often a grant request must be sent first. Once the grant request is accepted by the funding organization, then a longer grant proposal can be submitted.
This two step grant writing process can be lengthy and has no guarantees that the organization will actually grant the funds at the end of it. However, there is a simpler way that can cut down the time required for grant writing and even replace the two separate documents with one shorter one. This document is called the 8-page grant proposal. The 8-page grant proposal can take the place of the grant request and also serve as the grant proposal. The average length of a grant proposal is over 40 pages long, so this shorter document can save a lot of time. However, this 8-page grant proposal is not widely known.
Grant Writing Workshop
The good news is, throughout the years I have worked with the person who developed the 8-page grant proposal process. This grant writing process has been taught in 63 countries to thousands of the most successful nonprofit organizations. Now that process can be learned from the comfort of your own home in just under 5 hours. We call it the Simple Nonprofit/ Artful Askers Grant Writing Workshop. This workshop teaches you all of the processes above, including how to find funding organizations, how to contact them, and how to write an award-winning 8-page grant proposal that will get noticed.
After learning the 8-page grant writing process, you can immediately begin writing grant proposals and find the funds your nonprofit organization needs. The page to get the workshop is located here on this web site at http://simplenonprofit.com/grantwriting. The workshop is available in both audio so you can listen to it on an ipod or computer or on 4 DVD discs to watch on your computer or TV.
If you want to learn how the grant writing process works, find the funders that will fund your nonprofit, and master the 8-page grant proposal, get your copy of the grant writing workshop by clicking on this link http://simplenonprofit.com/grantwriting.
FREE Subscription to New Articles
Simply enter your information into the form below:
Your Privacy is SAFE
Share this:
