Recalibrating How You Think About Grants
April 27, 2021
In fundraising, individual donations are considered the holy grail and grants are fool’s gold. Grants don’t get a lot of respect even though they’re integral to most nonprofit budgets. You’ve heard the complaints or made them yourself: Grants have a short life span. They come and go. You can’t spend the money flexibly. The red tape and reporting requirements are extreme. The time lapse between request and award decision is excessive.
The role of grant funding in the nonprofit sector far outpaces the rate of individual giving. The National Philanthropic Trust’s general philanthropy data in 2019 showed that corporate grants totaled $21.09 billion and foundation grants totaled $75.69 billion. USAspending.gov reports that federal grants totaled almost $765 billion that year, and that doesn’t count billions of dollars in government grants made by state, county, and municipal funds amassed from taxes, fines, license