Most major funders are savvy in what
"social revenue" their investments will accrue and they have developed guidelines that reveal their fields of interest and their criteria for giving.
Although the individual board members of foundations can sometimes promote a personal project for personal reasons, if you do not have a natural individual contact with a foundation your time is better spent matching your mission and objectives to those revealed in the foundation’s literature and giving history.
(These rules are often lost on small family foundations, which may be managed by a single relative or an investment manager who may disperse funds based on personal contacts.
Such small foundations often do not have guidelines and can be assessed by a phone call to the primary contact, if one is found.)
Throw Out the Broad Net
When you have a well-defined mission, objectives and strategies, certain words or phrases will repeat themselves and define the areas of potential interest to
funders. Using these areas to guide foundation searches will help you build a population of potential
funders. The resources below will provide a wealth of information on thousands of foundations.
Similar to tracking individual donors, as you come across good prospects, you should write down essential information for quick reference.
| | » | Donors Forum of Chicago
is an excellent local resource for researching funders. Most online resources are restricted to members; however, the Forum library is open to the public Mon-Fri noon – 5pm at:
Donors Forum of Chicago
208 South LaSalle Street, Suite 735
Chicago, IL 60604
(312) 578-0175 |
| » | Guidestar
provides impressive online search capabilities that will bring up various documents and information about
funders. Using Guidestar’s search engine requires you to join as a member.
Different levels of membership – from free basic to premium – provide different levels of search capabilities and documents. |
| » | Foundation Center
also provides online search capabilities and five subscription plans, the lowest is about $20 a month. |
Resources
The fit
As you sift through your foundation searches, you will begin to notice that there are key pieces of information that can help you decide whether a grantor is a good fit.
Most search resources provide summaries of grantors that will help you answer some of these essential questions:
| | » | Does the grantor accept unsolicited proposals? |
| » | What are the subject-area, geographic, and grantee-type restrictions?
(Do you need to be in education, dance, puppetry? Do you need to serve people in Kankakee? |
| » | Do you need to have a 501(c)(3)? |
| » | Are there deadlines? Do they need a letter of inquiry first? |
| » | What is the giving range? (Are the odds of getting a $500 grant worth your time?) |
| » | Are the grants renewable, multi-year, or ongoing?
(Do you want to be committed to a grant that lasts just one year and requires you to develop new programming?) |
| » |
Who have they given to in the past? (Anyone like you? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?) |
The 990
If you have never heard of a 990, you soon will.
It is officially called the “Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax,” which is submitted annually to the IRS by all tax exempt organizations.
These forms are required by law to be made publicly available. Both Guidestar and
Foundation Center provide databases of 990s.
These forms will provide you an official account of the financial size of a foundation, who its highest-paid staff and its board of directors are, and to whom the foundation has given grants to during the year of report.
Resource
The Call
Ironically, one of the resources that emerging arts organizations utilize the least in determining whether a funder is a good fit is the funder itself.
After searching a foundation’s web pages and 990s, and deciding that you’ve found a pretty good prospect, a call to one of its program officers (or the executive director if it is a small foundation) can be one of your most time-saving steps.
Don’t be afraid to make the call! Most larger foundations will not mind answering your questions, as long as you already have a good idea of what you want funded.
(If they do mind, you will find out soon enough with no harm done.) It is part of a program officer’s job to be liaison between a prospective grantee and the foundation’s decision-making body.
Most officers are open to well-directed conversations, to listening to a couple project ideas and letting you know which one might be a better fit, or how to actually focus a proposal on certain points to be more attractive for a particular grant.
Talking to a foundation can also reveal changes in guidelines that aren’t always obvious in written materials.