5 Grant Calendar Refresh Ideas for The Year
5 Grant Calendar Refresh Ideas for The Year
By Cara Thornton- Marketing Manager
Recent giving from foundations has been largely flat, but there is growing fear that grantmaking will decrease in 2023. This suspected decrease is due to a 20% loss in foundation assets in 2022, per a recent report from the Chronicles of Philanthropy.
While giving by foundations grew 3.4% to an estimated $90.88 billion in 2021, when adjusted for inflation, this marks a decline of -1.2% from the previous year. Giving by foundations—which includes grants made by the independent, community, and operating foundations—amounted to 19% of all gifts made in 2021, ensuring that any decrease in grantmaking in 2023 will have significant repercussions across the sector.
The anticipated grantmaking decrease in the upcoming year makes it more vital than ever to ensure nonprofit grant portfolios are strategically constructed. Here are five grant calendar refresher ideas to strengthen your organization in 2023:
Confirm grant application deadlines
Ensure that mission/funding guidelines have NOT changed
Send a list of trustees or any new connections between foundations and organizations
Review and analyze the grant applications that did not receive a decision (award or decline)
Decide which “undecided” applications need to be further cultivated and which might be removed from the grants calendar
The most crucial aspect of submitting a grant application is confirming the deadline. Nothing is worse than getting a submission date mixed up and missing a deadline. Creating an excel spreadsheet with the grant opportunities and deadlines is a great way to stay organized easily.
Write On also suggests adding the deadline dates on your online and paper calendars. Give yourself time before the deadline to complete the applications. It is easy to forget deadlines, so double-checking the grant application submission deadlines and adding them to your to-do list and calendar will simplify the process.
Secondly, ensure that the mission and guidelines for the grant your organization is applying for remain the same. Ensure that the procedures you were aware of for the grant application are still the same. You are in good shape if your organization qualifies and has all the data for submission. If the guidelines change and additional documents are needed, ensure your organization has time to produce those documents before the submission deadline.
Third, remember to include your trustees! Ensure you send a list of trustees or any new connections between foundations and organizations. Every organization has a Board of Directors. With these executive decision-makers comes a crucial role in obtaining funding for organizations. Including a list of trustees in the grant application significantly impacts the submission for your organization and shows an established working relationship between the two.
The fourth essential item is to review and analyze the grant applications awaiting responses from the previous year's Grant Calendar. Any submitted grant application that needs to receive a response should have its qualifications reverified before additional submissions are made. If possible, these grant prospects should be marked for cultivation. If cultivation is not possible, grant applications should only be submitted for up to two years without receiving a response.
Lastly, review and analyze the declined applications from the Grant Calendar. Copy the current grant calendar and rename it for the new year. Analyze all the rejected submissions from the previous year. Any grant application declined due to a specific cause, such as; not being in the foundation's scope; the foundation no longer funding grants; or the organization being outside of the foundation's geographic area, should be removed from the calendar. Any grant prospect that has declined two consecutive grant applications in two straight years should be reviewed to ensure they are still qualified to pursue. Grant prospects that have only rejected one submission should be marked for cultivation to determine if they are still eligible to pursue.
With these five steps, your grant portfolio will be refreshed and ready for another successful year of submissions.
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