6 Types of Grants for Nonprofits (and how to find them)

Summary

In this informative video, Amber Melanie Smith discusses various types of grant-making organizations for nonprofits, including corporate foundations, corporate giving programs, family foundations, community foundations, federal government grants, and local government grants. She outlines where to find these grants, their operational mechanisms, and the pros and cons of each. Amber also offers strategic advice on determining the best fit for a nonprofit's cause, emphasizing the importance of aligning with the grant-makers' priorities and the potential for establishing long-term funding relationships.

Takeaways

• 😀 Grants are a valuable source of funding for non-profit organizations to launch or expand programs.
• 🔍 Six main types of grant-making organizations were discussed: corporate foundations, corporate giving programs, private or family foundations, public or community foundations, federal government grants, and local government grants.
• 🏢 Corporate foundations are established by companies to provide charitable grants and can be found through online search tools or company websites.
• 🤝 Corporate giving programs often involve employee engagement, such as matching gifts or committees deciding on charitable support.
• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Family foundations are private foundations managed by individuals or families and can be identified through tools like GuideStar.
• 🏛️ Community foundations pool funds from various sources to support local non-profits, focusing on community needs and priorities.
• 🏦 Federal government grants are substantial but require extensive paperwork and are suitable for non-profits with a proven track record and infrastructure.
• 🏙️ Local government grants are made from city or county budgets and can significantly boost a non-profit's credibility if awarded.
• 💼 Building relationships with companies or individuals before applying for grants can improve the chances of receiving funding.
• 💡 The suitability of a grant type depends on the non-profit's size, cause, and alignment with the grant maker's priorities and giving interests.

Q & A

What are the six types of organizations that give out grants for non-profits?

The six types of organizations that give out grants for non-profits are corporate foundations, corporate giving programs, private or family foundations, public or community foundations, grants from the federal government, and grants from local government.

How can you find corporate foundations that offer grants?

You can find corporate foundations by using search tools online like foundationcenter.org, visiting a company's website and looking for a section on charitable giving or corporate social responsibility, or by searching with the company name plus 'foundation' on Google.

What are the pros and cons of seeking funding from corporate foundations?

Pros include the potential for larger grant amounts and the possibility of establishing a long-term funding relationship. Cons are the competitive nature of these grants and the difficulty in getting initial access, which can be eased by building a relationship with the company before applying.

How do corporate giving programs differ from corporate foundations?

Corporate giving programs may involve employee committees voting on causes to support, employee matching programs, or other forms of giving that are not through a separate foundation but directly through the company.

What is a family foundation and how can you find them?

A family foundation is a private foundation run by an individual or family to organize their charitable giving. They can be found using foundation search tools like foundationcenter.org or guidestar.org, or by conducting internet searches.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of applying for grants from family foundations?

Advantages include the potential for larger and ongoing support once a trusting relationship is established. Disadvantages include the difficulty in getting noticed by these often-private foundations and the requirement to align with their specific giving priorities.

How can non-profits identify whether a family foundation might be a good funding fit?

Non-profits can review the family foundation's past funding, look at their tax records on platforms like GuideStar, and assess if their cause aligns with the foundation's interests and priorities.

What is a community foundation and how can non-profits find them?

A community foundation is a public charity that pools funds from multiple sources to invest in local non-profits. They can be found through online searches or by visiting the website of the Council of Foundations.

What are the benefits and challenges of seeking grants from community foundations?

Benefits include easier initial engagement and the potential for multi-year support. Challenges include aligning with the foundation's current giving priorities and the possibility of intense competition for funds.

How does one find and apply for federal government grants for non-profits?

Federal government grants can be found on grants.gov, where one can search for available grants and requests for proposals. The process involves meeting specific qualifications and undergoing rigorous reporting and record-keeping requirements.

What are the characteristics of local government or municipal grants for non-profits?

Local government grants are made from the city or county's annual budget and are typically awarded based on alignment with the government's giving priorities. They can be found through internet searches and often involve less paperwork than federal grants.

Why might a non-profit consider grants as a funding source, and what are some alternatives?

Grants can provide significant funding for program launch or expansion, especially for those with a track record of success. Alternatives include building an individual donor base, hosting fundraising events, or exploring earned income or fee-for-service models.

Outlines

00:00

💼 Introduction to Grant Funding for Nonprofits

Amber Melanie Smith introduces the topic of grant funding for nonprofits, explaining that grants are a way to secure funding for launching or expanding programs. She outlines six types of organizations that provide grants and plans to discuss where to find them, how they operate, and how to determine if they're suitable for a specific cause. Amber shares her personal experience with running a nonprofit and the importance of grants in generating funds for impact.

05:01

🏢 Corporate Foundations and Giving Programs

Amber discusses corporate foundations, which are separate entities set up by companies to provide charitable grants. She suggests using online search tools or company websites to find these foundations. The pros include potentially large grant amounts and the possibility of ongoing support, while the cons are the competitive nature and the difficulty of establishing a relationship. Amber also covers corporate giving programs, which might involve employee committees or matching gifts. She advises building relationships with company employees to increase the chances of being added to approved charity lists.

10:03

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Family Foundations and Their Grant Priorities

Family foundations are private foundations managed by individuals or families to organize their charitable giving. Amber recommends using search tools like foundationcenter.org or guidestar.org to find these foundations. She highlights the pros of potentially receiving larger and ongoing grants from family foundations once a trusting relationship is established. The cons include the difficulty of getting noticed by these often-private entities. Amber emphasizes the importance of aligning with the family's giving priorities, which can be discerned from their past funding and tax records.

15:06

🌐 Community Foundations and Their Local Impact

Community foundations pool funds from various sources to support nonprofits based on community needs or the foundation's giving priorities. Amber explains that these foundations are often more approachable and open to conversations with nonprofits. She mentions that while community foundations can provide significant funding, the alignment of the nonprofit's cause with the current priorities of the foundation is crucial. Amber also notes that these foundations might have specific application processes that need to be followed.

20:07

🏦 Federal and Local Government Grants

Amber covers grants from the federal government, which are found on grants.gov, and are characterized by significant funding but also by extensive paperwork and reporting requirements. She points out that these grants are suitable for nonprofits that can demonstrate the ability to meet the government's service needs. Local government or municipal grants are also discussed, which are funded through city or county budgets. These grants can boost a nonprofit's reputation but may also require audits and specific reporting.

🤝 Choosing the Right Grant Opportunities

In the final paragraph, Amber emphasizes that there's no one-size-fits-all approach to grant funding. She suggests that while grants are valuable for program expansion, building an individual donor base or exploring earned income models might be more straightforward for fundraising. Amber invites viewers to share their experiences with grant applications and encourages them to subscribe for more content. She also promotes her Facebook group for further discussions on social change and nonprofit impact.

Keywords

💡Grants

Grants are sums of money given by an organization or government to support a specific project or cause. In the context of the video, grants are a critical source of funding for non-profit organizations to launch or expand their programs. The script discusses various types of grant-making organizations and how to approach them for funding, emphasizing the importance of aligning with their priorities and the competitive nature of securing grants.

💡Non-profit organization

A non-profit organization is a group that operates for a purpose other than making a profit, often focusing on social, cultural, educational, or environmental issues. The video is aimed at helping non-profit organizations, like the one the speaker founded, to find funding through grants. The script provides insights into the different types of grants available and how to determine if they are a good fit for a specific non-profit's cause.

💡Corporate foundations

Corporate foundations are philanthropic organizations funded and operated by a for-profit corporation. They are discussed in the video as one type of grant-maker that non-profits can approach for funding. The script explains how to find corporate foundations and the benefits and challenges of seeking their support, including the potential for larger amounts and long-term relationships.

💡Corporate giving programs

Corporate giving programs refer to initiatives by companies to support charitable causes, which may include employee matching programs or direct donations to non-profits. The video script highlights these programs as a potential source of funding for non-profits, suggesting that building relationships with company employees can be a strategy to get on approved charity lists and receive support.

💡Private or family foundations

Private or family foundations are grant-making organizations that are typically funded by an individual or family and managed by a board of directors. The script describes these foundations as another avenue for non-profits to secure funding, noting the importance of understanding the family's philanthropic interests and the challenges of getting on their radar due to their often private nature.

💡Public or community foundations

Public or community foundations are charitable organizations that pool resources from various donors to support a wide range of local non-profits. The video mentions these foundations as a type of grant-maker that focuses on community needs and priorities. It suggests that while these foundations can be more approachable, the non-profit's cause must align with the current priorities of the community foundation.

💡Federal government grants

Federal government grants are funds provided by the government to non-profits for specific programs or services. The script points out that these grants can be substantial and multi-year but also come with significant administrative burdens, such as extensive paperwork and reporting requirements. The video emphasizes that these grants are typically awarded to non-profits that can demonstrate a track record of success and alignment with government needs.

💡Local government grants

Local government grants are funds provided by city or county governments to non-profits as part of their annual budget. The video script explains that these grants can be sizable and enhance a non-profit's reputation but also require the non-profit's work to align with the government's giving priorities at the time. It also notes that the process, while less burdensome than federal grants, still involves paperwork and reporting.

💡Grantmakers

Grantmakers are entities that provide grants to non-profit organizations. The term is used in the video to collectively refer to the various types of organizations that give out grants, including corporate foundations, corporate giving programs, family foundations, community foundations, federal, and local governments. The script discusses the characteristics and processes of each type of grantmaker and how non-profits can engage with them for funding.

💡Brand alignment

Brand alignment refers to the consistency between a company's brand values and the causes it supports through funding. The video script uses this term to explain how companies often fund non-profits that align with their industry or the personal interests of their leadership. It suggests that non-profits should consider brand alignment when seeking corporate foundation grants, as it can increase the likelihood of securing funding.

Highlights

Grants are a way for nonprofits to find funding for launching or expanding programs.

There are six types of organizations that give out grants to nonprofits.

Corporate foundations are set up by companies to give charitable grants.

Corporate giving programs may include employee committees or matching donations.

Private or family foundations are established by individuals or families for charitable giving.

Public or community foundations pool funds from multiple sources to support local nonprofits.

Federal government grants are available for nonprofits through grants.gov.

Local government grants are made from the city or county's annual budget.

Corporate foundation grants can be large and may lead to long-term funding relationships.

Corporate giving programs can be easier to access but may involve smaller donations.

Family foundations require a relationship building process and can be private.

Community foundations are open to conversations with nonprofits but prioritize based on community needs.

Federal grants offer significant funding but require extensive paperwork and compliance.

Local government grants can be substantial and enhance a nonprofit's reputation.

Grants are competitive, and success depends on alignment with the grant maker's priorities.

Building individual donor bases and exploring earned income models can be alternative funding strategies.

The choice of grant opportunities depends on the nonprofit's size, cause, and the grant maker's funding priorities.

Transcripts

Grants are just one of the many ways that your nonprofit can find

funding to launch or expand a program but

where do you find grants, and who are the organizations giving them

out? So in this video i am going to talk about six

different types of organizations that give out grants for non-profits,

where to find them, how they work, and how to think through if they are the best

fit for your cause. Welcome back to my channel! My name

is Amber Melanie Smith, and I make these videos here on youtube to help aspiring

change makers with tips and strategies to help you change the

world while living a life of impact and purpose. So some of you know

my story - years ago I started a non-profit

organization that i now run full-time, and throughout that whole

time grants were just one of the ways that we

were able to generate the funds to grow our impact.

And I learned throughout this process that

there are many many different types of organizations that offer

grants. In this video, I'm going to talk about six types of grantmakers

in particular - and that includes corporate foundations,

corporate giving programs, private or family foundations,

public or community foundations, grants from the federal government, and grants

from your local government. And for each of these types of grant

makers I'm going to talk through what they are, how you find these types

of grants, the pros and cons of all these types of

grants, and how to think through whether or not

that type of grant could be a good fit for your specific non-profit

organization. All right, so let's get down to it. Grant

maker type number one is a corporate foundation.

What is a corporate foundation? A corporate foundation is a

separate organization set up by a company for the explicit purpose

of giving out charitable grants to nonprofits

now this would fall under the private foundation category since

it is owned and operated by the company in its own interest they make all the

decisions there are a couple of different ways you

could find corporate foundations one is by using a search tool online

something like foundationcenter.org where you can search around for

different foundations different company

foundations you can also just go directly to a company's website

and look for something called charitable giving or corporate social

responsibility a page that has that title and usually that is

where they will describe whether they have a corporate foundation

and a little bit about how it works and how to get more information

not all companies have a foundation but of course you can

roll the dice and google something like company name plus foundation and see

what comes up maybe you'll find one okay so what are the pros and the cons

of going after corporate foundation funding

for your nonprofit the pros are that these grants can sometimes come in

fairly large amounts and once you're able to

get your foot in the door and establish a relationship with a

company they might be likely to continue to fund your work

year after year not indefinitely of course but you might be able to have a

long-term relationship with a particular corporate foundation

the cons are of course that like many grants and dare i say

most grants they can be quite competitive and it's a little bit hard

to get your foot in the door having a relationship with a company

before you apply for a grant through their foundation

might help you get a leg up so you could try something like

inviting that company to have their employees come volunteer with you

or do a talk for that company something to get them

to build a relationship with you before you go ahead and apply for a grant

could increase your odds so how do you know if a corporate foundation grant is

a good fit for your nonprofit in another video i talk about corporate

sponsorships and i talk about this idea of brand alignment

and that applies here too companies are looking for

causes to fund that align with the issue areas that they care about

and that also have some good brand alignment with what they do as a company

on the one hand companies tend to fund issues and causes that have some kind of

correlating relationship with what they do as a company for example

banks will often fund something like financial literacy programs or

education or housing and homelessness programs because they have

the sort of direct and or indirect relationship with the banking process

meaning in this case that these issues and causes relate to

a community's need for banking services on the other hand sometimes a company

decides what to fund based on the interests

of the ceo or the leadership of the company if

if they're particularly personally passionate about a cause they might

direct their entire company and its foundation to support that cause

as a result here i'm showing you an example of the bank of america corporate

foundation page where you can see that they have

identified specific issues and causes they are interested in funding through

their foundation so this is what a page might look like on

any other company's foundation page you're looking for the language that

talks about the issues and pri and priorities that they have in terms

of what they want to fund the second type of grant maker is still within the

corporate structure but it looks a lot different and that is a

corporate giving program

this could take a couple of different forms a corporate giving program might

allow their own employees to form a committee and

vote on a particular cause that they want to give

some sponsorship dollars to or some of the corporate funding to

it could be an employee matching program where if an employee of that company

makes a personal donation to a cause the company promises to

match the donation by also donating that same amount

up to a certain cap for example um okay so how do you find opportunities to

benefit from a corporate giving program oftentimes a charity will end up

on a particular company's corporate giving program

approved charities list because the employees of that company have

asked their higher-ups to add the non-profit to that list

so to get on these approved charity lists at different companies you really

want to be getting to know the employees of these different companies

you want to be inviting them to volunteer with you and then tell them

hey you know if your company has a corporate giving program or an employee

matching program please let us know and help us get on

your approved charities list because we'd love to be

able to work with you all and receive your

support in this way there are also some great websites out there that

list the different companies across the country that offer

employee matching programs some of them include

double the donation or matchinggifts.com so check those out sometimes you can

just do a search to see if a particular company you have in mind

has a matching program and sometimes those sites will even link you to

information about how those programs work and who to contact to get on

those programs lists so let's talk pros and

cons of corporate giving programs one major pro is that it is a little bit

easier to get your foot in the door for an opportunity

like this because all you really need to do

is to meet and convince a couple of the employees of that company to help you

get on that list for your nonprofit this can be a little bit easier than trying

to convince the ceo of a company to give you a grant

the cons are that these donations tend to be a little bit smaller and of course

you still have to convince the employees at the company to pick

your charity for charitable giving at the company

it's one thing to be on a list of approved charities but

that's just the first step the employees need to know who you are

they need to care about your cause and then they need to pick

your cause when they're choosing where they want their donations to go

as for whether this is a good option for you employee giving programs and

corporate giving programs can be a good fit for organizations that are smaller

just starting out because it takes a little bit less to get your

foot in the door you don't necessarily need to have this

long established reputation yet though that always helps because then more

people know about you and might choose you

to donate to and get their money matched from their company of course

but really it's a great option for organizations of any size

because if you can accumulate enough of these

individual employees donating money and then having their company match it

through a corporate giving program it can add up to quite a bit

the third type of grant maker i'm going to talk about is a family foundation

now this is another type of private foundation meaning that it is run and

all the decisions for it are made by a specific person or in this case

a private individual or a family people establish

family foundations when they want to organize the way that they

give to charity or perhaps they need some help administering grants but

it's a way for folks to be able to give out their money in a more organized way

it's also a way some people put their funding into a tax exempt

entity to get that benefit of that but you do have a requirement when you

have a family foundation that you have to be giving out

at least some percent of your your funding that's available in the

foundation every year in order to keep your irs tax-exempt status so how do you

find family foundations once again you can

use a foundation search tool something like

foundationcenter.org or guidestar.org some of these resources do

cost a membership fee in order to be able to access their database of

foundations but there are also some ways that if you are savvy at doing some

internet searches you can get a lot of this information for free too

for example here is one way i might try to find

some family foundations in my city using guidestar.org

first you have to create a free login at guidestar so you go ahead and do that

you log in and then you go to their search tool and you

narrow it down you filter by the state that you're located in

and then your city and then what i do is i type the search

keywords family foundation in the search bar

which tends to narrow down the list of non-profits in my city

to the family foundations keep in mind that the word foundation is

not a legal term other types of charities can put the

word foundation in their name too so you really just kind of have to uh

observe the list that results from from this search and guide star with a

keen eye to look for which ones are actually family foundations that give

out grants to other non-profits another cool thing you can do is once

you find some foundations in guidestar you can look at their 990s or

their tax forms from year to year and kind of look at

what other nonprofits they have funded what types of patterns you're seeing in

terms of the types of causes they seem to be interested in

so that'll give you some good clues as to whether that family foundation might

be a good fit for you as well so pros of trying to get a grant from a

family foundation once you establish a trusting

relationship with a family foundation you might be

able to get support in larger amounts and you might be able to get ongoing

support if you become one of their favorite causes they might choose to

support you year after year it's never guaranteed

but it might be able to help the major con of

trying to get grant support from a family foundation is that it can be

quite difficult sometimes to get on the radar for these foundations

they're often very private many of them don't even have websites

so it can take a while to find and build a relationship

with one of these foundations thinking through whether this could be a good fit

for you this type of grant funding just like

every other type of grant funding i've discussed so far

it's always about the priorities of the individual

or in this case the family giving out the funding

so what are their priorities what are the causes that they care about and i

talked earlier about how you can kind of get a clue about

the things that they care about based on what they funded in the past looking at

their tax records that you can find on guidestar or other

places for example a family that's very

interested in the arts might be interested in funding arts-related

non-profits but nothing else you've just got to take a look at what

they have funded and if they do have a website see what

they describe as their priorities there and that's one of the ways you'll know

if you're a good fit for them then of course like all of

the grant makers that i am talking about there

will be some kind of process to actually request a grant i could be a formal

letter like you might see in a corporate foundation it might be

that you simply get to know the family in this case with a family foundation

and they decide they're going to make a grant to you

you really have to learn the different ways that different types of grant

makers ask you to request funds and follow

those instructions in order to be able to

access that support

the fourth type of grant maker i'm going to talk about is

a community foundation and i might also actually include some united ways

in this as well but these are public charities

that pool together funds from usually multiple sources around the community it

could be multiple individual donors could be many companies all working

together putting their funds together and then that entity makes decisions

about where to invest the funds in non-profits in the community based on

the region or communities needs or their

giving priorities for that year how do you find community foundations

you can do an online search for community foundations in your city just

to add your city's name to your search with community foundation you can also

go to the website of council of foundations they have a whole

map across the united states showing where all of the community

foundations are located so for example here's one i found in

philadelphia you can check out their site they talk about

the different types of grants that they offer as a community foundation

and they have instructions here on how you would go about

applying for some of this grant support so one of the major pros

of community foundations is it's often easier to start a conversation with

community foundations they're more open so they will invite non-profits

from around the community to come share what they do tell their story to

their staff they want to know about all of the

non-profits in the community as much as possible because

it helps inform their giving priorities and their giving decisions

that said a major con is that you have to understand

that a community foundation is likely to choose its giving priorities based on

the biggest gap or the biggest need in the region at that time

so for example in my area

childhood literacy and education was a major topic for a couple of years and

they primarily just wanted to fund organizations that did work around that

topic so it might end up that they are only

looking at a very narrow list of causes at that time it really

depends so you might just need to look at what

they're doing what issues they're prioritizing and see

if your cause aligns with what they're trying to do

in that period of time and thinking through if a community foundation is a

good fit for you just have a conversation with them they

will tell you straight out if you are a good fit for them

or if you'd be wasting your time trying to apply for a grant through their

processes at that time have a good conversation with them send

them an email these are open organizations that want to hear from you

so just ask the fifth type of grantmaker i'm going to talk about

is the federal government

now the federal government offers a variety of types of economic aid such as

to small businesses but in this case i'm specifically

talking about grants made to nonprofits through

federally available dollars how do you find federal government

grants you go to grants.gov it's as simple as that there you can

search for what grants or requests for proposals they have out

a request for proposal is what it sounds like it's when a

grant-making entity wants to hear from you for you to make a

proposal a pitch for what they should spend their money

on so they're asking for you to send them your pitch

essentially by a certain deadline the pro of getting a federal

grant is that it can be a significant amount of money and it's often

multi-year grants so you'd be getting that support for

several years in a row presumably the big con

of a federal grant is there's so much paperwork to qualify for a federal

grant first you have to have a lot of things

in place like you have to have had a recent

audit and it has to have come out as a clean audit for your nonprofit so this

is probably not something you would be able to get

as a very small non-profit who hasn't even had an

audit yet or a track record of success the reporting required and the

record-keeping required for federal grants

is so intense that i know of many non-profits who when they get a

federal grant they have to hire a new staff person whose sole job it is

to just report and keep records for that grant

that's how much there is to do in terms of the reporting and record keeping

for a federal grant you can kind of see why this would make sense

they are using taxpayer dollars to fund the organization so they really

need to make sure that the organization is proving itself that

it is meeting the goals that it said it would

otherwise they could get in trouble with the public and rightly so for spending

the money in a way that the public might deem inappropriate is a

federal grant a good fit for you so here's how

it works consider that usually the federal

government is giving out a grant because the non-profit receiving the grant is

fulfilling some kind of need or service that the government

itself might have needed to fulfill if it weren't for that nonprofit

so for example developing affordable housing solutions in this

case the government has determined that it is more cost

effective and efficient to just pay a non-profit who specializes in that

because they are the experts in that topic

than it would be to try to do it themselves so think about whether your

nonprofit is offering some kind of service to the

community the state or the whole country that could typically fall under the

domain of something the government would need to

do and there might be a grant out there that aligns with your work

and the sixth and final type of grant maker i'm going to talk about

is the local government or municipal grant maker

these grants are grants made to non-profits by the local government the

city or the county usually from dollars that are part of the city

or county's annual approved budget these are not to be

confused with city or county contracts which might be a

situation similar to what i described previously

about the federal government where a city or county has basically

hired a non-profit to fulfill some kind of service for the city this

is not what i'm talking about here i'm talking about

the city or county's decision to actually make charitable grants to

nonprofits in the community the contracts might also be a good fit

for you and you should check that out you can find nonprofit grants available

through your city or county by doing a simple internet search

do city name plus non-profit grants or county name plus non-profit grants

i'm showing an example here of my my own city raleigh has grants that they

offer non-profits you can see how they describe the different types of

grants available here so a lot of city or county pages will

have something that looks probably similar to this

so pros of city or county grants some of them can be in the tens or even

hundreds of thousands of dollars so the size of the grant is a

pro also getting a grant from your city or county government really raises

your nonprofit's visibility and reputation

which could then in turn lead to even more funding opportunities

this is because it shows a lot of trust usually

city and county governments will only fund non-profits with

some really solid program model or proven success

so it adds a lot of credibility to your name if you can get a grant of this

nature cons similar to all these other types of

grants these types of grants can be hard to get

and once again your nonprofit and its work must align with the giving

priorities of the city or county government at the time

also similar to federal grants some of these

uh grant opportunities from the city or county might require

things that smaller non-profits or newer nonprofits typically don't have in place

yet like their annual audit done of their tax

records there's also likely a bit of paperwork

and reporting and record keeping related to getting a local government

grant but not nearly as much as a federal grant i can promise you that is

it a good fit for you i have found that these municipal grants

their priorities their giving priorities might change every couple of years based

on what the city and county's needs are at that time

so i would say it's always a good idea to keep your eye on them and see what

their funding interests are at that time and maybe it

will just align with what you've got going on so which of these

are the best or the easiest grants to go after so keep in mind

all grants can be somewhat competitive to go after if you're looking for

an easier or fast way to raise money i always recommend

working on building up your individual donor base having a fundraising event

or this one is very important checking out an earned

income or fee for service model grants are great

when you are trying to start up a new program or expand or build on something

that has had a track record of success but you can't necessarily count on them

for all the support you're going to need to grow your nonprofit and keep it

sustained in terms of the grant opportunities i

discussed here in this video it's less about ease and more about what

is the best fit some are a better fit for smaller

organizations or newer organizations and some are

great for larger and more well-established organizations

it also depends on what cause that you are working on and what the funding

priorities are of those grant makers there's really no

one-size-fits-all solution for all organizations so you really have

to think about what is going to be the best model for you

and act accordingly so i want to hear from you have you applied for

any grants in these categories what have your experiences been share with us tell

us about your challenges or if you've had success getting a grant in one of

these categories tell us about that too i really hope this video was helpful

don't forget my name is amber melanie smith and i really hope that you

enjoyed this and the other videos on my channel please don't forget

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thank you so much for watching i hope to see you next time