KDS founder Christina Kazanas will be speaking at the TANGO Building Bridges conference on Wednesday, November 2nd in Plantsville, CT.

Christina’s session, Grant Seeking In a Time of Transformation – Trends and Tips for Communicating Your Organization’s Solution to Today’s Problems, will cover:

• Trends that KDS has observed in what funders are asking of applicants, and in funding priorities;
• Tips for responding to application questions that shine a new light on why your organization is the right one to meet new challenges and threats to your community;
• Setting clear grant funding priorities tied to the innovation you seek to sustain/implement;
• How to talk about “core mission support” and its necessity to operating effective programs.

 

A common challenge that organizations face is first, how to grow and expand their programs and infrastructure, and second, how to discuss this need for growth in their grant proposals so that funding can be obtained. It’s a rare funder that promotes their willingness to fund infrastructure for core mission support.

KDS has some suggestions for how you can frame this need in your grantwriting, based upon what we are currently doing for clients who are in the midst of leveling up.

• Describe what is driving the need for organizational program expansion.
• Focus on the impact of growing your organization or programs.
• How will this growth benefit the population you serve?
• How does this growth provide core mission support?
• What will this grant money allow you to build?

Core Mission Support: What It Really Takes For An Organization To Thrive – Faunalytics

Year-end appeals aren’t just a one-time ask – they are a part of a continuous growth process in the relationship you have with each contributor to your organization. Appeals are both the start of something great *and* a milestone towards something bigger and better. What you do *between* appeals is just as important as the appeal itself.

Some ways you can deepen the relationship you have with your donors large and small to maximize each year-end appeal can include:

*Make sure your organization tells its stories well and often. Client stories and testimonials are a really effective way to connect with your supporters by showing them the real impact of your programs and services in your community’s own words.

*Volunteers can be fantastic ambassadors, and they have a compelling story to tell as well. A story or letter penned by a volunteer makes for impactful content for newsletters, appeals and the all important…

*Thank you letters! Personalized thank you letters are the best follow up to an event, contribution, engagement, or a day-that-ends-in-“Y”, as well as the ideal way to lead from one opportunity to the next.

*Don’t underestimate the value of phone calls. According to Donorbox, phone calls “are as personal as it gets when it comes to donor engagement”. They might be time-consuming but they’re quite effective in increasing gifts and contributions. Just make sure that those making the calls are well-prepared, skilled, enthusiastic about your organization, and willing to make the ask!

 

Clients such as Optimus Health Care, Malta House of Care, Chrysalis Center, Operation Hope, and Catholic Charities’ Thomas Merton Center provide programs and services that address immediate and basic needs such as food, clothing, and medical care, as well as tackle the social determinants of health, financial literacy, and other systemic barriers to housing.

Operation Hope is now a KDS client! We are so thrilled to find opportunities and funding that will support them in addressing basic needs for food and shelter, as well as offering long-term solutions to hunger and homelessness, including affordable housing, life skills training, and personalized clinical support.

Meet Vicki Veltri, the new Executive Director – Malta House of Care

Vicki has served as the Executive Director of the State of Connecticut’s Office of Health Strategy (OHS) since its formation in 2018.  She served as chief policy advisor for former Lt. Governor Nancy Wyman and at the State of Connecticut’s Office of the Healthcare Advocate, where she spent five years as General Counsel and five years as the Healthcare Advocate serving individuals and addressing systemic healthcare issues.

You *know* you need a grant writer. You know exactly how many missed opportunities you have sitting in your inbox and it makes you cringe. Your development team is too busy with your golf event, your program director is in the middle of a funder audit, your well-meaning volunteer doesn’t know where to start, and you’d like to go to sleep before 1 AM some time before you die.

But convincing your Board of Directors that you need a grant writer is another story. Some of them will get it. Others will need some cajoling. It feels like too much of a financial investment. What if they don’t bring anything in for us? Why can’t you just do it, (name of Executive Director), it can’t be that hard!

We get it. It’s a big leap of faith to pay money to people who don’t know your organization like you do. But there’s money you’re leaving on the table, and in the long run those missed opportunities will cost you more than hiring a grant writer.

When it’s time to approach your Board about this, come to the table prepared:

1) Show them what they’re missing. If you’ve done your research already and have opportunities and funders to present, bring them to the discussion so that your Board can actually see the list. Make sure you show them information about their typical grant size, and who else they fund in your area to make the “why not us?” case. If you don’t know where to start doing that research, give KDS a call…we often start our long-term relationships with clients with opportunity research that presents well-vetted opportunities that match your needs. That way, your Board can see the universe you’re dealing with.

2) Show them what it takes. If funders have application forms and instructions available, bring those to the discussion with an estimate of how much time it would take you or your staff to complete all of these. Then monetize that effort, and explain what you’d be taking time and effort *off of* to get this done.

3) Show them options. Come to the discussion having already spoken with highly qualified grant professionals and their rates. Do your research on the cost of outsourcing to a consultant vs bringing on a part-time or full-time, in house writer.

4) Show them you know what you’re doing. Grant writers don’t work well in silos…they work best as a part of a team of people who are on the frontlines of the programmatic and development work you do. Come prepared with a plan to integrate the writer into your development team, or if you’re a smaller organization, with the leaders and decisionmakers at your organization so that your board understands how the writer will work with you to get the best results.

5) Show them the ROI. Break down the relationship you want to get into with a grant writer into dollars and cents. If you have a universe of $250,000 of opportunities, and you’re paying a grant writer a $25,000 fee to get the proposals developed, at best you’re looking at a 10:1 return on investment. A good grant writer is going to make sure you, at least, break even, at which point you’ve lost nothing on your risk. And at the end of the day, you’ll have high-quality narrative to use to try again next year…you paid for it, and it belongs to you! And if you’re successful? Even a 20% ROI will make a difference for your organization, and will lay the groundwork for a longer, sustained relationship with the funders from whom you’ve won grants. Small successes can yield growing gains over time.

If you’d like to discuss strategy for how to convince your board you need a grant writer, set up some time to speak with KDS.

Have a project in mind you want to run by us? Email heythere@kazanasstrategies.com.

Here is some of the content we have published recently, and there’s more to come!

• Nonexploitative Storytelling
• Opportunity Research
• Things to be aware of when seeking federal funding
• Delivering on our promise: template inflation language

As always, I’m just a phone call or an email away,

Christina

 

 

Prefer a PDF of our Newsletter? Click here: Newsletter August 2022

 

There’s no doubt that personal stories about the people and communities non-profit organizations serve lend an emotional and tangible element to any grant proposal. These personal stories of struggle and success give funders insight into how they have impacted the lives of those they serve, and ultimately how a funder’s investment can make a difference. But when storytelling doesn’t center the individual being profiled, we run the risk of exploiting their experience for the sake of a check.

Practicing nonexploitative storytelling is a critical tool when we commit to anti-racism work. As grant writers and storytellers, KDS believes we have a responsibility to acknowledge how language, perspective, and narrative can be both a tool and a weapon in the way they can either center the person, or center white saviorism (even unintentionally).

Using asset-based frameworks that center dignity and empathy have a wide-reaching, transformative effect on how an organization positions itself towards its community and mission.

This excellent blog post by Kari Aanestad, co-director of Grant Advisor lays out exactly how the differences between asset based and deficit-based frameworks show up in our work and how: “Adopting an asset-based approach to grantwriting can change one’s entire orientation to community, which impacts program development, strategic planning, impact evaluation (and what gets defined as “success” and who is involved in defining and measuring it). Adopting an asset-based framework in grantwriting and grantmaking highlights the strengths and opportunity that a community holds and impacts the way a community sees itself and how organizations see the communities.”

We also encourage and educate our clients about restoring dignity to language that has been used for a long time to reinforce systemic racism. This checklist from Philanthropy Without Borders offers a clear way to audit an individual proposal or mass communication piece, as well as guidance for how your organization should consider its approach to all language use.

There are some fantastic conversations happening around this issue – we’ve personally attended webinars hosted by NonProfit Quarterly and Blue Avocado that have had excellent panelists speaking from the forefront of this work. This short Trabian Shorters video provides a concrete example of how the good intentions behind stigmatizing narratives don’t count for much when harm is done, and how repair hinges upon organizations realizing that the communities they serve “had value before [they[ showed up.”

How are you changing your storytelling at your organization? What has your experience been with funders who have started evaluating proposals with criteria around nonexploitative language?

Here are some other resources we use. If you know of any projects, or updates (someone please update the crucial Progressive Style Guide for 2022!) share them with us at heythere@kazanasstrategies.com!

• SUMOFUS_PROGRESSIVE-STYLEGUIDE.pdf
• Accessible Language: A Guide for Disability Etiquette | Disability Resources & Educational Services – University of Illinois
• Language of Gender – Gender Spectrum

Last week, our Operations and Communications Manager, Phoebe Zinman, published an essay on CCF’s The Hub. Community Centric Fundraising is a framework we would love to see more funders and nonprofits embrace. Check out the article here: Our Humanity Can’t Be Timeblocked (communitycentricfundraising.org)