It’s no surprise that the fundraising landscape is harder now than ever. Charities and nonprofits everywhere are clawing for the same funding, and while your cause is important, so is everyone else’s. We’re a society in crisis, with increasing needs and demands for support emerging at every corner. While you have a worthy mission – today, that isn’t enough. To ensure that grants are working for you, it is critical to not only understand the landscape but be brutally honest about the reality in which your organization finds itself and adjust your approach.
Here’s the truth: like you, funders also have their own priorities. They have existing relationships, personal interests, and inboxes flooded with requests. Add to this the post-pandemic shift in strategy, where nonprofits were widely encouraged to prioritize grants as the lowest-hanging fruit. While this was true at the time given the influx of funding that was distributed in the industry between 2020 and 2023, this has created an inflated perception that grants are “easy” which is a dangerous myth going into today’s funding landscape.
We need to stop playing the grant game in the wrong way. It’s time to change how we play it.
How grants really work
While it’s reasonable to hope for continued support from funders who have backed you in the past, it’s important to approach grant forecasting with caution. Circumstances can change, and there are no guarantees of funding renewal, even with strong relationships or past success. These high expectations can lead to vulnerability which can put your organization at significant risk.
This isn’t pessimism; it’s the nature of how grants work. Funders’ priorities shift and competition increases, so much so that even the most deserving applications often do not get funded. Adding to this, if you’re not actively stewarding and cultivating your donors and prospects, the likelihood of success dramatically reduces as your application gets buried with the hundreds of others just like yours.
And that brings us to the crux of the issue: many organizations are doing grants wrong. Here’s why:
- You’re not cultivating or stewarding donors: These are not luxuries; they’re necessities. Yet, many nonprofits struggle to prioritize this because they’re stretched too thin. It’s understandable—you can’t do it all. But neglecting donor relationships in favor of endless grant applications is a costly mistake. Relationships are the backbone of successful fundraising, including grants.
- You’re wasting time on misaligned applications: Grants are always a lot of work to do effectively. On both the front end and the back end. Applying for grants that don’t align with your mission or funding needs is a drain on time and resources. That time could be better spent building relationships with funders who are genuinely interested in supporting your work. Misaligned applications aren’t just inefficient; they’re counterproductive.
- You’re making financial forecasts based on wishful thinking: Too often, organizations build budgets and fundraising strategies based on fragmented information or overly optimistic expectations about grant funding. This approach creates instability and sets organizations up for disappointment, or even facing the very real possibility of reducing the scope of programming or shutting down entirely when funding doesn’t materialize.
Here’s what you should do instead
- Outsource to the experts: Grant writing is a specialized skill that requires deep knowledge of the funding landscape, nuanced writing abilities, and a strategic approach. It isn’t just filling out forms. It’s an art, a science, and requires a lot of time and dedication to know the ins and outs. Outsourcing to experts who live and breathe this space every day can save your organization time and money. Professionals have insights and connections that go beyond what you can find online. They can identify the best opportunities and do this work with you at a fraction of the cost of hiring staff or doing it yourself.
- Focus on stewardship: When you free up your time by outsourcing, you can focus on building relationships with donors and prospects. Relationships lead to long-term support, and grants are often a byproduct of strong connections. Ultimately, time spent nurturing donors is time well spent.
- Adopt a divide-and-conquer strategy: Success in nonprofit fundraising isn’t about doing it all yourself; it’s about leveraging your resources wisely. Let experts handle the technical, time-consuming work of grant writing while you focus on cultivation and strategy. This dual approach ensures that both immediate and long-term funding needs are met.
The opportunity cost of doing it all
Every hour you spend tied to your desk, wrestling with finicky grant portals or rewriting applications for the tenth time, is an hour you’re not out in the world connecting with funders. Sure, you might secure a grant here and there, but the time you’ve lost is gone forever. And that time is critical for stewarding donors who can provide consistent support year after year.
Grants aren’t a magic solution, and they were never meant to be. They’re one piece of a larger fundraising puzzle, supported by strategy and collaboration for lasting success.
Grantsimple is Canada’s go-to grant writing partner, trusted by charities and nonprofits nationwide to build organizational capacity so they can secure the funding they need. What sets us apart is our investment in data-driven strategies and deep industry insights. We double-down on understanding the grant landscape in Canada, with a dedicated team and tools focused specifically on research through Grantsimple’s research lab. We want to know every single funding opportunity available in Canada – what’s out there, how much funding, and how well it matches your organizations’ goals to give “up-to-the-minute” information that can shape each application. Why do we want to know this? Because it goes back to our fundamental philosophy: invest in the grants that make sense but forget the ones that don’t. We know your time is limited, and we want to make sure you are spending your resources most effectively. Your mission is too important.
Author Name: Kristen Visser