Advanced Grantwriting: Understanding Your Audience & Being True to Your Mission

This course focuses on how to write a grant proposal or application in a way that makes your request more likely to result in a grant award. One key step is understanding your audience, through advanced research and cultivating relationships, whenever possible, with funders whose missions align with yours – or have the potential to align. While funders give philanthropically, they also have their own goals. How would supporting your organization financially contribute to a funder’s philanthropic objectives?

We will learn about how philanthropic objectives may differ depending on the type of foundation: family, community, corporate, and the most rapidly growing sector within the foundation world: donor-advised funds.

We will learn why the budget is often the first thing funders review when they review a grant proposal/application and how to craft a budget that shows what funders can help your organization achieve through your program or project. Ideally, participants will have written and submitted a grant proposal/application before. Please bring in examples from your own organization for sharing, review, and suggestions for how to strengthen your requests. Lastly, this course will cover stewardship of the relationship with a funder once you have secured a grant. We will cover effective ways to stay in touch with funders (beyond required reporting), in order to keep foundations informed of the positive impact of their investments in your organization.

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This course was formerly titled 'Advanced Grantwriting: The Heart of the Matter'.