Winning Grants Can Be a Game-Changer for Nonprofits — and for Businesses Too: How to Get One
I guarantee it.
If your nonprofit or business were suddenly infused with big money, it would greatly improve its odds of success and make your life much easier.
Right?
Well, that’s what grants can offer: big money — game-changing money — for free.
“And you can’t beat free money,” as one of my friends used to say.
Agreed?
Many years ago, a nonprofit organization I worked with won a grant for several million dollars. The application and our reports on its fulfillment were not easy, but they turned out to be well worth it.
In fact, that grant made the organization the national leader in its area of focus — a position it maintains today.
It was game-changing.
Why Aren’t You Applying?
Unfortunately, many organizations and businesses aren’t applying for this free money like they should be.
Of course, many business owners don’t consider applying for grants because, if they think about grants at all, they think they are only for nonprofit organizations.
Let me make this crystal clear: THEY’RE WRONG.
Many for-profit businesses can also qualify for grants.
Grants from foundations.
Grants from individuals.
Grants from the government.
So, if you’re in business, it’s time to update your thinking.
Repeat after me: Grants are available for nonprofits AND businesses.
OK. Now that we’ve cleared that up, the next thing you need to know is how to get one or more of them.
But first, here’s a surefire guaranteed way you WON’T get them.
As hockey great Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
Extrapolating from that, I can safely say that businesses and nonprofits that do not apply for grants have doomed their chances of getting one.
There’s a very low chance (read that as a 0% chance) that someone is going to look you up and give you a grant that you never applied for.
If you get an email that says you received one you didn’t apply for, I’d lay odds it’s from a scammer.
So, the first prerequisite for having a chance at winning a grant is applying for one.
You with me?
OK, But How Do I Win One?
First, let me tell you about two other ways you WON’T win one and that in fact will actually cause you to lose more of your money and time.
This amazing feat is achieved in two ways.
One: Turning in an application that is sloppy and full of errors that causes the decision-makers to reject you quickly when they compare you to other applicants.
Two: Applying for a grant whose requirements you don’t meet.
Sometimes, folks hear about a grant that offers $100,000 or another big amount of money and apply for it without even verifying that they meet the requirements for the grant. So, they spend time and money gathering information, putting the application together, sending it in, and then waiting for a response, hoping that the big check will soon be in the mail.
Instead, they get a rejection letter in their email box because the application doesn’t even make it to the true decision-makers. It’s more likely that someone in a gatekeeping role sees that it doesn’t meet all the requirements and simply rejects it immediately.
Both of these mistakes can be a huge waste of time and money for the applicant.
To avoid these costly mistakes, it’s important to find grants whose requirements you or your organization meets BEFORE applying for them — not simply applying for one because it offers a lot of money.
One of the best ways to find such grants is to conduct research to find one or more that you appear to qualify for and have a good chance of winning.
Then, you need to write the best application you can.
If done carefully, meeting these requirements will greatly decrease your odds of being immediately rejected and greatly increase your odds of winning.
Some Grant Applications Are Relatively Easy. Others Are Much Harder
One of the organizations I recently worked with won an $8,000 grant with an application that was relatively easy. It probably took us far less than 40 hours of combined work to turn it in.
Not too bad.
On the other hand, the multi-million dollar grant I mentioned previously took a team and many hours of combined work to apply for it. I was involved in writing, editing and proofreading various grants for that organization over the years. Then, later on, I was involved in fulfilling the requirements for them and reporting on them. I can tell you that these applications took a lot of work.
It was not easy, but in the end, the work paid off handsomely.
Fair enough.
The smaller grants are good, but the bigger ones are the ones that can make your business or organization.
They are the game-changers.
Get one of those, and get ready to celebrate!
My advice: Start looking now, and start applying soon!
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Rick Bowers is a communications consultant and grant writer with more than three decades of writing, editing and proofreading experience.
Visit EurekaVision’s Premier Grant Writing page to find out how he can help you research, apply for and win grants.
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I mostly write to help founders of businesses and organizations succeed.
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