Checklist for Grants
For each question, give two answers - one for your organization and one for the foundation or corporation to which you are thinking of sending a grant proposal. Your goal is to determine the financial health and sustainability of both your organization and your targeted donor. You need to see your organization and your donor moving along an interrelated continuum of challenges and opportunities, not the least of which is allocating scarce resources to burgeoning programs.
Who is the client base?
Our organization:
Our targeted donor:
Is that base expanding?
Our organization:
Our targeted donor:
Where will that client base be next year, in three years, in nine years?
Our organization:
Our targeted donor
Can the budget keep pace with this expansion?
Our organization:
Our targeted donor:
What personnel and training requirements are necessary to meet these
demands?
Our organization:
Our targeted donor:
What are the budgetary "bare bones" requirements to keep pace with inflation, still deliver services, and not over-extend the limitations of staff time and energy?
Our organization:
Our targeted donor:
Is downsizing likely, and what will be the resulting pressures on clients?
Our organization:
Our targeted donor:
At what point can programs become self-sustaining?
Our organization:
Our targeted donor:
Adapted from "Focusing on Foundation Grants" by William Vartorella, Nonprofit World.
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