I know (because they have told me) that clients love it when they receive an email or information about a grant opportunity and they can just hand it off to us to figure out if it’s a viable source of funds.
I would say, of all the grants that pass through our view on a given day, only maybe 10% of them are solid opportunities for our clients. Oftentimes, the description of a grant does not paint a full picture, and you must uncover a few layers to find out if it’s a good match. And that is important because the percentage of grant applications that are funded is usually very low, often as low as 10%, especially in this more competitive COVID-19 economy. So, finding out if the grant is a good match saves everyone a substantial amount of time [KS1] in research, writing and reviewing submissions.
We spend a considerable amount of time on research. We look into the priorities of the funder, what they have funded in the past and their geographic reach. We look at the assets they currently have and how much they have given out over recent years. And, if possible, we reach out to the funder’s staff to discuss our client’s projects before we submit an LOI or application. All that research takes time, time our clients do not have to spend when an email or referral comes in promising grant dollars that may or may not be applicable.
So, we tell our clients — just send it on to us and we we’ll look in to it for you. We do our due diligence, send them back a report about the opportunity and then discuss options — to ignore, to table or to write.
Let us do that work for you. We will not win every grant, but we will have a better shot when we reach for the ones that are the most viable match for your project!
[KS1]Because “considerable amount of time” is used in the next sentence.