Common Grant Applications – A Good Place to Start!

If you are a small not-for-profit that wants to try its hand in securing its first grant, a great place to start is with your local or regional common grant application.  The common grant application format has been adopted by groups of grantmakers to allow grant applicants to produce a single proposal for a specific community of funders, thereby saving time.  It also gives you a great template that can be used to build from when applying to other foundations that might not accept the common grant application but requests something very similar.  Most funders request the standard information, some might want it presented differently, but by completing the common application, you will have the majority of your information ready to go.  Keep completed general grant application sections such as organization History/Mission, Need Statement, Program Description, Goals/Objectives/Measurables in an electronic file, and you will be able to pull them easily to fit into other grant applications.

Before applying to any funder that accepts a common grant application form, be sure to check that your project matches the funder’s stated interests, and ascertain whether the funder would prefer a letter of inquiry in advance of receiving a proposal. Also be sure to check whether the funder has a deadline for proposals, as well as whether it requires multiple copies of your proposal.

• Associated Grant Makers, Inc.
• Association of Baltimore Area Grantmakers
• Chicago Area Grant Application
• Colorado Common Grant Application
• Connecticut Council for Philanthropy
• Council of Michigan Foundations
• Delaware Valley Grantmakers
• Grantmakers of Western Pennsylvania
• Maine Philanthropy Center
• Minnesota Common Grant Application Form
• New York/New Jersey Area Common Application Form
• Ohio Common Grant Forms
• Philanthropy Northwest(Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington)
• Rochester Grantmakers Forum
• San Diego Grantmakers
• Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers
• Donors Forum of Wisconsin

All Links Courtesy of the Foundation Center

 

Thinking about applying for a federal government grant?

Here are some good step-by-step directions on how to get started and find opporutnities with grants.gov – courtesy of Find Youth Info

Applying for Federal Grants

Grants.gov contains information about more than 1,000 grant programs offered by all federal grant-making agencies, including the federal agencies that support FindYouthInfo.gov. You can search and apply for federal government grants at Grants.gov. Click here to see what’s new this week on Grants.gov.

Grants.gov makes it easier to identify and apply for federal funding by enabling you to search by:

• Federal agency (e.g., Department of Labor, U.S. Department of Education, Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration)
• Keyword (e.g., positive youth development, underage drinking, violence prevention, youth employment)
• Funding category (e.g., community development, education, juvenile justice)

Register with Grants.gov

One-time registration with Grants.gov is required in order for you or your organization to apply for a grant. If you are a first-time registrant, it may take up to several weeks to have your registration confirmed and to receive your username and password. Start the registration process as early as possible to prevent delays in submitting application packages to agencies before their specified deadlines. Use the Grants.gov registration checklist (PDF – 3 pages) or view its registration tutorial to ensure you complete all the necessary steps.

Grants.gov also has a number of subscriptions available that can help you make your way through the federal grant process. Subscribe now and receive notifications of new grant opportunities, postings, and updates. You do not need to be a registered user of Grants.gov to sign up for this service.

• Grants.gov RSS Feed: Helps you stay informed about new and updated grant opportunities. Once you receive the Grants.gov RSS feed, you may want to discontinue your email notification subscription.
• Grants.gov Updates: Gives you the opportunity to receive updated information about critical issues, new tips for users and other time sensitive updates as information is available.
• All Grants Notices: Enables you to receive daily notification of all new grant opportunities.
  • Notices Based on Advanced Criteria: Allows you to select notifications based on specific criteria such as funding instrument type, eligibility, or sub-agency.
  • Notices Based on Funding Opportunity Number: Enables you to receive notifications based on a specific Funding Opportunity Number (FON). An FON is a number that a federal agency assigns to its grant announcement.

How To Keep Up….

As a grant writer, no matter how hard I tried to stay on top of things, a request for proposals (RFP) or fast-approaching grant deadline for a new opportunity would come to my attention and leave me scrambling to put together a response.  I would get equally dejected when I saw a headline about a prominent foundation “committing” significant funding to a priority within my strike zone, wondering how I had missed the initial application process.

Subscribing to grant alerts, paying for database access and conducting research on your own are all options to stay on top of the latest opportunities.  Keeping a good database and calendar of all your own potential funding opportunities is essential as well.  Your first twelve months in a new job is critical to identifying and documenting all of your past/current funders’ deadlines and recording new opportunities in an easy to use format, application or database. 

That won’t stop you from being surprised by something new that has come to your attention, but you will be more organized in your day-to-day responsibilities to enable yourself to act quickly when something new and promising presents itself.

In terms of regular research for grant opportunities,  there are options for database subscriptions if you have the budget:

• Foundation Center
• GrantStation
• GrantDomain.com

There is a free Government database if you have the inclination and determination to tackle the detailed applications:

• Grants.gov

I have found the not-for-profit organization SPARK™ even has a free searchable database that is actually sports-related and very user-friendly:

• The SPARK Grant Finder

Keep in mind these grant databases never seem to be all-inclusive and it pays to use a number of sources to locate opportunities.

Grant writers/fund-raisers in youth sports development have to stay on their toes, issues surrounding our field such as childhood obesity, nutrition, after-school time and youth violence are more prominent than ever with funders.  New partnerships are forming and cause-related marketing programs are being created as we speak to address these issues and offer opportunities to apply for funding.

Sports Grant Info reviews a number of grant sources regularly and offers this blog, our website and regular tweets at @SportsGrantInfo to help the one-person fund development office stay on top of the latest announcements, news and resources – all for free.  Connect with us today and together we can help you identify funding opportunities, build your case and secure dollars to deliver youth sports programming in your area!

Location, Location, Location

It’s great when you can find a national funder with priorities that fit in your sweet spot -target market/geographic location/mission – but these options are rare, have short windows of opportunity and the competition is much greater.  Your program needs to be a proven success and replicable to even have a chance.  What most youth development programs realize is they have to think local.  There are plenty of sources to find potential donors in your City or region. 

Get familiar with these types of organizations where you can go to research foundations and find fund raising resources:

http://www.givingforum.org/s_forum/index.asp

http://www.donorsforum.org/s_donorsforum/sec.asp?CID=10811&DID=24199

Start compiling a list of corporate, family and private foundations in your area.  Track them on something as simple as a word document – see www.sportsgrantinfo.com for a free sports grant calendar you can start building on.  Go to www.guidestar.com to find these foundation’s current IRS 990 forms that will show you a list of who they fund and for how much.

Get to know other youth development programs in your area and in your sport – do some reconnaissance and find out who is giving them money.  Most programs will have a website that lists their donors or request a copy of their annual report.

Youth sport development program fund raisers and administrators quickly find out Nike and their professional sports teams are not the place to look for funding, it will most likely come from more local, intimate sources and all it will take is a little research.  Good luck, finding a new donor that appreciates your organization or program is very rewarding and worth the hard work!

Grant Writers – Be Creative and Strike While the Iron is Hot!

Match your program with hot button issues and link current research to build your case

As a fund raiser and grant writer that has spent countless hours researching foundation issues and priorities, I quickly realized typing sports into a keyword search will only bring up various lists of initiatives that funders will not consider.

For those of us in the youth sports development arena,  we all know sports is simply a tactic or catalyst for a program that addresses other issues, such as health, development, character building, youth violence and community building.  There is no doubt childhood obesity has become a hot button issue with many national foundations and current initiatives.  This is an opportunity for not-for-profit/community-based organizations conducting sports programming to make the case for funding and seek local grantors.

A quick search today can turn up the resources you need to build your case and find a possible funder.

Current research on the benefits of exercise and the long-term effects of childhood obesity:

• Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics – Childhood Obesity a New Pandemic of the New Millennium
• Head Start/Body Start
• American Heart Association – Physical Activity and Children

A National Funder accepting unsolicited proposals for new initiatives that involve physical activity

• W.K. Kellogg Foundation

The Professional Athlete’s Foundation for the Prevention of Childhood Obesity

• ‘NPlay

A regional foundation making significant investments in local childhood obesity prevention programs

• The Wellmark Foundation

If you can make your case for the benefits of sport, and design your program to be measurable as well as replicable, then you are well on your way to finding sustainable funding.

A Resource You Can Use!

Sports Grant Info was created to provide a portal to information and resources that relate to youth sports funding in the U.S.   I started this endeavor to keep abreast of the latest news, announcements and trends in order to remain current and hopefully build a community where other fund raising professionals, nfp administrators and funders can visit to learn, share and partner. 

Sports Grant Info, this blog, website and Twitter account is an evolving set of resources that will hopefully become an essential tool for all funders and fundees in regards to youth sports development. I look forward to providing content that is useful, timely and puroseful!

If you have suggestions on how this site can help you and our organization, please email me at pslomski@sportsgrantinfo.com