The value of grants...

Both governmental organizations and nonprofits understand the monetary value of grants. However, the benefits of grants extend far beyond mere financial support. Grants also make numerous other valuable contributions to an organization. Moreover, grantmaking involves building a reputation for external collaboration and partnership among grantmakers, which cannot be achieved through the proposal process alone. Grant seekers must recognize the importance of developing partnerships, building teams, evaluating programs, and using logic models.

Although developing grant proposals is challenging, it essentially involves writing a proposal that persuades grantmakers to fund a new or existing program. Grantmakers evaluate these proposals based on their internal metrics, focusing primarily on the quality of the proposal and the grant seeker’s perceived ability to complete the project and achieve the desired outcomes. It may come down to their resume of grants and programs they have completed.

For example, National Science Foundation grants are notoriously difficult to secure without multiple external partners and a proven track record of programmatic success. It has been noted that many organizations have submitted dozens or more applications to the NSF without success. In most cases, this is not due to a lack of quality in the proposals but rather the need for external collaborations and a history of grant success.

Whether your organization is new to grant seeking or has a long history, past performance may be crucial for funding future projects, and building this track record can take several years. This does not mean you cannot win grants; however, grant seeking is a skill that needs occasional exercise and should not be viewed merely as a cost to minimize.

If your organization is doing well financially, it is always good to remember the saying,

'it’s great to be doing good, but the rent is still due.'

This means that you should continue to press on in good times, building a strong and vibrant grant-seeking capability.

A seldom-discussed truth about grants is that they are sometimes

'free like a puppy'—

seemingly free but with many strings attached. Any organization should choose wisely when seeking a grant, but any group tasked with grants should flex their grant muscle at least several times a year. This allows an organization to fine-tune processes, exercise partnerships, create alliances, and develop the muscle. Partnerships lead to more than one might imagine going in, and often the learning is more valuable than the money.