RstephensonJR's blog

Growing a DEI Culture

Most, if not all, funders now expect your nonprofit to address diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in your proposal. Funders want to know what you have to say about whether and how your organization is diversifying, delivering your work equitably and including all who are a part of your community and society.

Teaming Up to Tackle a Proposal

When it’s time to write the winning proposal, it can turn into a scene from a bad movie: the writer, alone at a cubicle, staring down the guidelines, cramming thousands of words into tiny boxes, gulping black coffee and heart racing to the beat of a merciless clock on the wall.

When a Funder Looks Under the Hood

The good news—a foundation wants to look closely at your nonprofit organization because there’s the possibility of a major grant. You’ve heard that a site visit is planned, a review of your board’s participation is in the works and a thorough financial examination is part of the process.

What Can We Say Besides, "We're Still Here?"

Your nonprofit has been around a long time—congratulations, statistics suggest that a third of nonprofits fail after 10 years, half of all new nonprofits shrivel up after only a few years. If your organization has weathered economic downturns (and Covid lockdowns), you’re doing just fine.

The Water, The Hose, and the Proposal

It’s an often-used metaphor: funders want to pay for the water to put out a fire, but not the hose it takes to deliver the spray. How to make a compelling case for general operating support?

The Doctor Will See You Now

Routine medical exams almost always measure a number of vital signs: temperature; pulse rate; blood pressure; respiration. Often, too, there’s height and weight, questions about changes, an overall assessment. Nonprofits might borrow this approach.

A Few Words About Word Limits

Everybody from Voltaire to Bill Clinton is credited with the quip: “If I had more time I would have written a shorter letter.” The truth buried in the quip is one that contemporary proposal writers grapple with. Many foundation application forms now routinely ask for the whole story, complete with details, in a 100-or-500-word box. It’s so easy to rattle on and on about your program, so hard to say it succinctly.

How Long is a Long-Range Plan?

Nonprofits know they need plans. Like any other organization, they have goals and objectives, work to do, resources to gather and manage. This doesn’t happen in a vacuum or on the spur of the moment. It happens as the result of a planning process—deciding where you want to be at some date in the future, and how you want to get there.

The Problem Statement

They say be sure you’re asking the right questions before you start to spell out your answers. “They” must have been thinking about a persuasive proposal. It’s important to frame the problem, the challenge or the opportunity first, and then go about telling how you’ll address it.

Institutional Memory – Lest We Forget

Your nonprofit has a history of funding from a variety of foundations, a few local businesses, maybe a special-purpose state grant. Congratulations. Now a new person takes the proposal writer’s chair, it’s time for reports and renewals, so the newbie asks the basic questions: “Did we get a grant from the XYZ Foundation? How much? When? Who did we work with over there?”

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