There is much good advice on how to get a grant. This is about how not to.
For the last nine years I have been on the Opportunity Fund Committee for St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (Saratoga, California). Jerrie Thurman and I are Co-Chairs of the Committee. It is exciting to see how much good work can be done with relatively small grants. Our committee has reviewed hundreds of inspiring grant applications. St. Andrew’s Vestry has generously approved grants of up to $5,000/year to support many of them.
What you need to know about the group who will read your application:
- We want to give away this money. We are on your side!
- We are called to fund only highly qualified programs that make the best use of their resources.
- Committee members are busy volunteers.
- It is far easier to disqualify an application than it is to approve and fund it.
How not to get funded:
- Ignore the grant guidelines. If the guidelines say that the grant giver does not fund staff expenses or rent or political programs, go ahead and ask to fund those because you are special. If the guidelines say that the grant giver prefers to fund programs for at-risk youth, economically challenged adults, and seniors, submit an application to fund a fancy conference table so that your board room looks its best.
- Submit your application late. Insist that the grant giver fund you anyway.
- Do not answer questions on the application. Assume the grant giver will chase you down to fill in the blanks.
- Cut and paste in large amounts of irrelevant text so that application reviewers have to hunt for answers to questions.
- Call the leader of the funding organization and exert pressure to get your application funded even though it is not qualified.
- Instead of sending in a document in .PDF or .DOC format, submit photos of your application form that are so dark they cannot be read.
- Hand write your application illegibly. Write in pencil, then partially erase what you have written.
- Spell badly.
- Make sure your financial statements and funding request do not add up.
- Submit an IRS non-profit letter for a different organization than the one applying for the grant. Offer no clarification of how the two are related.
- Do not reply when the grant giver asks you a follow up question.
- Send your application to the wrong email.
- Be sure you have no website or one that is confusing and out of date. All web links in your application should be broken.
- Call the office and leave confusing messages with different people. Assume their first priority is to figure out what you need and want.
Go and do not do likewise.
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Image Copyright 2019 by Katy Dickinson.
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