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14 Ways to Improve Your Next Proposal and Build Ties With Grant Makers

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From The Chronicle of Philanthropy

Summary:

  1. Don’t apply for every grant out there
  2. Focus on the future
  3. Try to get meetings at conferences and through email introductions
  4. In proposals, start with the larger narrative about why your charity exists, what its big dream or vision is, how you want to achieve that, and how you’ve done that so far. Provide context beyond the duration of the grant.
  5. Look at every element of the proposal with the lens of that particular funder, and make sure that you’re making the strongest case possible to them.
  6. Demonstrate resilience by explaining how you’ve handled uncertain times in the past.
  7. Ban the boilerplate – tailor each application to address the specific ecosystem that the grant maker cares about.
    Write for skimmers.
  8. Use A.I. to streamline to help with tasks such as organizing and editing your proposal or finding facts for your statement of need. But be aware of potential misinformation and privacy concerns.
  9. Spell out your organization’s “why.”
  10. Plan your responses carefully. Most applications are now online, but it’s best to download the questions and take time to think about them before responding.
  11. Put the spotlight on your community.
  12. When speaking about the people your group serves, make sure to do so in a respectful and meaningful way.
  13. Be honest.
  14. After you get a grant, stay in touch with the program officer.

Not posting a salary range? You may be losing half your applicants

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From Human Resource Executive:
When it comes to job postings, employers are using a range of approaches to be transparent with pay, Kohn says.

That’s the attitude of 44% of job applicants who, over the past 12 months, did not apply to positions because they lacked a salary range, according to a recent Gartner survey of nearly 3,500 job candidates.

HR leaders can look to their pay transparency practices as a recruiting tool in such an environment, says Jamie Kohn, a senior director in Gartner’s HR practice.

“We’ve seen a lot of candidates look at these pay ranges and job descriptions as an initial filter on whether to apply,” Kohn tells HRE. “They feel that companies that share pay ranges are more fair and honest than those who don’t. And, understand, you’ll be competing against organizations that do offer pay ranges if you don’t.”

In addition to states enacting pay transparency requirements, some companies that post employers’ job listings, like Indeed, also calculate salary ranges as part of that posting.
As a result of these moves, pay transparency in job listings is likely to become the norm in another two to three years and also further accelerate the expectation of it by job candidates, Kohn adds.

How to set a pay range for pay transparency

For companies looking to stay competitive in this new reality, one of the most important first steps in setting a pay range is to review all of your current salaries, says Kohn.

“We’ve seen a lot of organizations do salary corrections, especially with all the inflation that we’ve seen,” she says. “People have been raising the salaries for their existing employees to make that pay range that they’re posting.”

When it comes to job postings, employers are using a range of approaches to be transparent with pay, Kohn says.

Some employers include a salary range in all of their job posts, regardless of whether the states they’re hiring in require it, she notes. In other cases, large employers with jobs in multiple states may post a very broad range but then also note major markets like San Francisco or New York City fall into a different category and list the range for that specific geographic region. For remote positions, Kohn will often observe the pay range based on the company’s headquarters location.
In determining the salary range, employers will often use the minimum to the mid-point of what they are willing to pay, or rely on using the 25th percentile to 75th percentile, she notes.

When Gartner has done surveys of job candidates and employees, they say they are more likely to apply to a job with a narrower range, says Kohn, adding that would be about $10,000 on each side of the mid-point.
Most importantly, HR leaders need to ensure that the current workforce and job candidates understand what factors influence where they fall in the salary range.

“People need to have a way of gauging what a reasonable salary expectation would be within that range,” Kohn says. “So, sharing some context around what determines it is really important.”

Link to the article

Why Hybrid Events are the Future of Fundraising

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From Network for Good:
Thanks to the cloud, laptops, and mobile devices, people are working, socializing, and attending experiences online. This trend started years before the pandemic, but it was catapulted forward by the need to socially distance. Now, people want to choose whether to engage either remotely or in-person. We’re seeing an increased demand for hybrid corporate events, and nonprofit event planners are wise to take note.

Four common grant proposal documents (free samples included)

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There are four major documents that you may need to create if your nonprofit is looking for funding. Each has a different purpose and elements you’ll need to make your case to funders. In the Candid’s blog, they share the major types of grant proposal documents, their components, and free sample resources to show you what a successful version of each one looks like.

Six tips on fundraising

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1. Holt Gift Planning on Matching an (In-kind) Asset to The Right Gift Type

Interesting chart matching the type of organization you have with the type of donation a donor wishes to bestow on you. Really a starting point if someone offers you a tractor. Download this Gift Grid:  It’s a quick reference guide for matching non-cash assets with appropriate gift techniques.

2. Nonprofit Finance Fund created a 12-part webinar curriculum on Nonprofit Financial Management Webinars  The series is on You Tube. Download slides and companion workbooks for each webinar from the NFF Website

3. Want to Know More About Peer-to-Peer Fundraising?

4. Network for Good Best LinkedIn Best Practices for Nonprofits

5. The great people at Propel Nonprofits have lots of good programs. But key for many organizations at this time of year are their lending programs, including a line of credit for late paying committed grants.

6.If you’re looking for child care related lending, our good friends at First Children’s Finance are a GREAT source.

Grant Writing Tips

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Last updated on December 29th, 2024

A Social Psychologist On Five Elements Of Good Writing

grantmakers become more isolated from most grantseekers, and most grantseekers become less visible to grantmakers, the art of writing becomes more and more critical to relationship-building success. There are a thousand good articles on good grant writing. Joachim Kreuger, a social psychologist from Brown University, offers these universal writing good elements:

  • Relevance: A good text conveys the information that matters, although a few exceptions can spice things up without much distraction.
  • Economy: Wordiness debases writing by diluting it. I began this post with the sentence “Good writing is hard,” when I could have written, “It has long been recognized that writers must overcome many difficult challenges before they can deliver an appealing and comprehensible body of text.” Look out for boilerplate and run-on sentences! Even if a sentence is sound, most adverbs and adjectives can be stricken without loss of information. Strong action verbs communicate better than noun-heavy phrases.
  • Vividness: Good writing evokes images in the reader’s mind. It is perceptual and hallucinatory. A poor text allows readers to hear the words in their minds without evoking images. Again, action verbs help.
  • Coherence: The text must hang together, tell a story, and follow a narrative arc. Lists don’t do this, and this post is playing with fire. Each part of the text has its own mission. Section headers can help, but an elegant text won’t always need them. When the writing is good, readers know where they are in the story.
  • Humor: A good text is entertaining, and humor is a spice that keeps boredom at bay. Good humor is subtle and not thigh-slapping. Good humor lets the reader in on a joke without being condescending or obscure.

What’s in Font?

The Washington Post has a couple of tests you can take to determine which font is right for you, your organization and your prospective donors. It’s probably not what you think.

Grant Writing 101: Know Your Impact

Grants consultant, Barbara Stratton, recently did a piece for the Chronicle of Philanthropy that  critiques “faulty” grant requests to illustrate “How to Write Grant Proposals That Get Results“

Fundraisers aren’t afraid to ask, it’s because*:

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  • They know success is dependent on putting the donor in charge of the pace and the donor is in no rush.
  • There’s no real urgency they can point to.
  • They don’t feel like they have the right project to put in front of the donor.
  • They don’t want to blow a bigger opportunity
  • The donor has asked for something that the organization hasn’t provided.
  • Something about the project doesn’t seem quite right (e.g. they don’t feel the organization can deliver on the promises being  made.)
  • The donor is asking for more that the organization can deliver on.
  • The donor’s cognitive or physical health is  questionable.
  • They sense the donor needs more time, information, or interaction with project leaders.
  • They know the donor is distracted by some other life event.
  • They just can’t tell where the donor is, but the vibe isn’t one of great interest.
  • The donor has brought a new person into the equation (a spouse, child, financial advisor, etc.)
  • Some pre-existing issue the donor had with the organization hasn’t been worked out.
  • The donor has expressed dissatisfaction with the leadership of the organization.
  • (*First published on Linkedin by Langley Innovations, commented on by Council for Advancement and Support of Education : https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7073992379359252480?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios)