News & Views

Nearly every non-profit organization looks to foundations as potential funding sources. Some board members, professionals and other friends believe that many foundation dollars go unspent, waiting for clever ideas, exciting projects and dynamic organizations to appear. The truth is, competition is fiercer than ever for grants from the more than 56,600 private and community foundations in the U.S. today.

How your organization can seek grants successfully:


Research and pursue connections between your organization and foundation prospects. The adage that "people give to people" definitely applies in the foundation world, where personal contacts can help you craft a better proposal. Foundations are deluged with requests, and personal contacts can get your organization and proposal noticed and considered.

• Ask board members, staff and other supporters of your organization if they have any ties to persons affiliated in any way with foundations you have targeted. Then use those contacts to gain attention.
• Create connections. Focus on the emotional links between the mission and purpose of your organization and the foundation prospect.
• Contact a foundation officer or trustee to talk about common goals and ascertain characteristic foundation preferences and priorities to strengthen your proposal.

Once you begin a dialog, keep it going using multiple communications techniques.

• Be sure foundations are on your email and other distribution lists to receive newsletters, program announcements, invitations to special events, mid-year communiqués, and annual reports.
• Invite foundation officers or trustees to visit your institution.
• Explore ways to use your website for marketing and donor recognition, including foundations.
• If you don't already use the above communications tools, start now!

Two often-neglected questions on grant applications address organizational effectiveness from a founder's perspective: evaluation and sustainability.

Evaluation shows the impact of your program on its intended audience or issue, as well as the impact of grantmakers' dollars.

• Show how your agency and its programs are having the desired effect. Demonstrate results or outcomes. Identify how you made a difference?

Sustainability presents your organization's plan to assure continuity or lasting impact of the foundation's investment.

• Show how it can be sustained. And show how the foundation's investment will make a difference.

Successful organizations give high priority to accountability and sustainability: they integrate both concepts into their planning processes.


Absolutely! Foundation giving has risen consistently for more than a decade, as the economic boom of the 1990s swelled stock portfolios and the newly wealthy of the technology and other sectors started new foundations. But those double-digit growth rates ended with the millennium. Data for 2002 indicate that foundation giving only increased about 5%, at or near the 2001 level, and will likely remain so for the near future. The stock market decline has shrunk assets, and foundations are reluctant to undertake new projects.


In periods of economic uncertainty, foundations try to stay the course, fulfilling prior multiyear commitments to reassure grantees. Smaller and family foundations are impacted by individual changes in net worth and fears for the future. Larger foundations take economic twists and turns into consideration when devising investment strategies and grantmaking plans.

Most foundations reserve funds for contingencies and special projects, perhaps adjusting priorities to address emergent needs or the particular interests of their trustees. With diligent cultivation of relationships and prudent program planning and design, your organization can promote its chances for success with foundations.

For more information on trends in foundation giving, check out the website of The Foundation Center at www.fdncenter.org.