“I will never make another grant to your organization.”

“We will need that $3 million proposal by the end of the week. Okay?”

“Increase that budget to include everything on your wish list.”

These are among the proclamations I have heard from those who lead private foundations. They sum up my career securing grants from these nonprofit investors: full of maddening constraints and surreal possibilities.

As a volunteer-turned-employee in this space, I am now what is politely referred to as a “seasoned” consultant. I marked my firm’s 20th anniversary this year by gathering small groups of grant seekers to talk shop. They shared advice on how to connect with funders virtually. They sought guidance on securing more unrestricted support. Some wanted a better partnership with their CEOs. Others hungered for a grant that would radically stabilize or transform their nonprofit’s trajectory. When each cohort ended, multiple participants craved more. Surprisingly, a community seemed to share my own nerdy interest in aspirational private grants. I’m hopeful that this series of posts—and your engagement—further the conversation.

If you are like many in this field, you are under tremendous pressure to fund critical societal needs, not to mention your salary and that of your fellow employees. This is no small task given the ever-limited human resources, internal plans and hours in a day. It doesn’t help that few executives or board members fully understand what you do. “Can’t we just get the Gates Foundation to fund it?” is a musing I’ve heard more times than I’d like to recount. 

And yet someone is going to secure those Gates grants, along with the increasing number of other large awards. Why not you?

Major Grants

If you mention major gifts in the nonprofit sector, no one will question the reference to your most significant individual donations. Do the same for major grants, and you’re likely to get some puzzled looks. This framework can help you carve out a definition that works for your organization:

• Source. Private foundations fund the bulk of major grants. They include philanthropies funded by individuals, families and corporations. Many companies also award grants outside of their foundations.

• Field. While there are plenty of exceptions, these grant makers prioritize certain types of work. They skew toward education, health, economic opportunity and social issues.

• Activities. If your work includes systems innovations, advocacy, research or program expansion, you’re especially in luck. 

• Size. When I mention major grants to colleagues or clients, they often assume that I’m talking about million-dollar awards. That’s often not the case. As with gifts, what your nonprofit considers “major” is relative. At a community-based organization where I am a donor, a $50,000 award has been the largest to date, while some of my nationally-oriented clients secure multiple seven-figure grants annually.

Some development shops go after private funders with incredible intensity, and yet they rarely discuss the largest foundations as a category. Instead, they treat each solicitation as a narrow effort to court a single investor. That makes some sense, since foundations have wildly varying protocols. But in my experience, teams that think strategically around major grants find more success than those that don’t.

There is no single how-to manual. Like all of fund development, you can plant the seeds for major grants, but they only take root with a heaping dose of care and finesse. And motivation.

Major Potential

Our society faces some of the greatest hurdles in recent memory. Meanwhile, foundation giving grew 16 percent in 2020, according to Giving USA. Corporate foundations saw a 7 percent increase. While individual giving still makes up the majority of US charitable contributions, private grantmaking currently makes up about one fifth of American philanthropy, a recent high.

Still, why pursue this line of work given the hefty time investment required? Reliable funders might fill your coffers with $10,000 at a time, or more. Just as you can mindlessly pick up the apples, milk and bread from your local grocery store (or app), you can often bang out the goals, plans and expected outcomes for these modest investors. You might even win some increased investments if you make a good case.

When you dedicate yourself to building your income stream via significant grants, the benefits mirror those of the largest individual gifts:

• Significant funding. Enough said.

• Multiplier effect. A funder’s largest grantees not only reap significant dollars, they can also prompt multiple awards. One recent client won a high six-figure check for a program. The next year, that grant repeated, spawned $100,000 for a conference and $175,000 for a research project.

• Credibility. Many major grants are newsworthy, whether you’ve earned $25,000 for your startup or $2.5 million for your new building. The larger the grant, the more you can build public confidence that your work has been vetted and endorsed by experts. You stand to gain intangibles such as media coverage, new board members and high-quality job applicants.

• Leverage. Credibility perpetuates your cycle of success. Once you begin to secure grants of a certain size, each next prospect can see that others have invested generously in your mission. It’s a myth that foundations, especially the legacy funders, are risk takers. Their staff appreciates—and often acts upon—a peer’s seal of approval.

• Catalyst. The sheer desire to compete for a top-tier prize can be a great team motivator. I’ve seen repeated examples of this work launching more organizational planning, tighter program design, better data collection, savvier staff and more visionary thinking. Whether or not the dollars immediately roll in, your agency stands to grow healthier. And the planning you do for one opportunity might help you land another.

What gets me most excited about major grants is that they rarely improve income alone.

Major League  

If you’ve read this far, hopefully you, too, crave an exploration of what it takes to achieve the benefits above. Our ongoing topic is not only fund development, not only grants, but the largest private grants for your organization. I certainly don’t have all the answers but am eager to exchange lessons learned with those looking to excel in this most niche of niches.

If we are going to address the consequential problems that face our nation and our world, it’s going to take some big thinking—and some big funding. There is no cure-all, but this moment in history calls for an all-out attempt to maximize the work you do for the sake of the climate, democracy, education, racial justice and public health. There’s no time for major grants like the present.

If your primary job is one of securing the largest private awards your nonprofit seeks, then this is the forum for you, whether you’re a volunteer, a chief executive, a development director or a dedicated grant professional. I invite you to use these posts to spark conversations among your colleagues. Program directors, finance leads and data experts all have roles to play in making this work more fruitful. Consider inviting them to subscribe. No doubt this is a team sport.

Let me know what you’d like to hear about, by sending a note to susan@resourcepartnersonline.com.

Thanks in advance for your engagement. Onward!