I discovered the power of grants 15 years ago when I was a broke playwright. A former childhood chess prodigy, I was making ends meet at the time by teaching chess, and I found that I could apply chess strategy to funding my theater company. But I learned something else too: I was pretty good at writing grants. Today, I own a grant-consulting company. Here’s what I wish I’d known when starting out.
1. Time your move
You own a small business. You’ve scrimped and saved, acquired loans and debt and annoyed family members and that lone hedge fund owner at the bar. If you’re still strapped, consider a grant—a form of funding you don’t need to repay. You’re probably thinking free money sounds fantastic, but before you chase after it, let’s examine your opening moves. Like any good chess player, you’ll need tactics.
Consider this: March and October are the busiest months for grant deadlines, so starting your research ahead of time allows you to build your funding strategy. Alison Erazmus, an independent nonprofit fundraiser and my colleague at Grant Consultings, builds next year’s grant calendar in November. October is nonprofit budget season and having all the fiscal returns in “shows us where we’ve been spending or have a surplus or need… we know we need to find a grant that supports that,” she says.
Meredith Noble, the Alaska-based co-founder and CEO of Learn Grant Writing, who’s raised over $42 million and written the bestselling book How to Write a Grant, points out that new grants are announced daily. With research, you can determine what grants are out there, the order you’ll pursue them and whether your business is funding-ready.
Grants can be an important part of your funding strategy, helping cover everything from restorations to marketing, technology, community impact and project costs. But as Libby Hikind, author of The Queen of Grants and CEO and founder of grant database Grant Watch, reminds us, grants are just one tool, not a life preserver or sole funding source.
2. The opening
There are many variations of the first 10 chess moves, but they share the same opening principles: In short, develop your minor pieces (the bishops and the knights) toward the center and castle your king (a unique move where your king jumps over your moving rook to safety). This gives you the best position to start your game from. Novice players sometimes think that moving the most powerful piece, the queen, immediately is the strongest action and quickest path to victory but the truth is the opposite. Bringing out your queen too early puts her at risk, while moving one piece repeatedly prevents you from taking out multiple pieces who can work together to control the board. Creating a good position is everything.
When you build anything—whether a building, chess position or grant plan—you start from the foundation; otherwise, what you’re building will crumble. That’s why a strong move in chess isn’t always an attack. A well-placed piece exerts invisible control over the squares around it. For example, a knight put at the board’s edge controls just four squares, whereas a knight moved toward the center controls eight. That’s eight squares fewer than your opponent has access to. When you do attack, it will be a much stronger threat. This is the equivalent of working smarter not harder.
Before you dive into researching grants using our helpful resource list below, make your own list creating a solid foundation. What are your business’s needs? Itemize what each need costs. Do you have a business plan, organizational budget, compelling mission statement and professional market analysis?
If you answered no to some or all of these, don’t be discouraged; instead, take this opportunity to grow. Consider seeking professional guidance to become funding ready and join Grant Consultings’ Write Like a Winner group for weekly guided grant-writing exercises.
If you answered, yes, let’s play!
Moving impulsively separates the bad players from the good ones. Good players examine the board for all possibilities, attempt to determine their opponent’s goals and consider the consequences of their own moves before making them. Here are a few tips to ponder before making your move:
- Start local: Find organizations close to your business’s home base that share similar values. This can include finding philanthropists in your area.
- Take a strengths-based approach: Chess players are natural problem-solvers looking at each position for a winning move. What solution (via your project) are you offering to what compelling need? How does this grant help you address it?
- Think outside the box: For example, I recently worked with a client whose fiscally sponsored educational center (allowing her to apply to for-profit and some nonprofit grants) sought marketing funding for the new school year. We won a grant funding a free “Day of Play” hosting neighborhood families. This supported her mission and the funder’s vision while supplying free marketing.
3. Prepare for your match
Just as chess champions prepare for tournaments by studying their opponents’ games, grant-seekers can research funders to find their perfect match. Noble uses her Grant Prospecting Funnel system to cull 100 grants from databases, narrow them down to 20 and ultimately pick four. Use a grant-tracking calendar in Instrumentl, Asana, Google or Excel and include all pertinent information—deadlines, requirements, tasks and responsibilities—to share with your team.
Consider the grant’s eligibility. Read the requirements multiple times. Make sure you’re a match. If you’re unsure, reach out to the funder and ask!
Do you share your funder’s goals? If so, is your business ready with a recent audit and a strong business plan? If the grant requires a formal structure like a limited liability company (LLC), employer identification number (EIN) or SAM number (for doing business with the federal government), does your business have one?
Consider the competition level: Noble suggests only applying to grants with at least a 20% funding rate. She even recommends grant-seekers ask organizations directly how many applicants have applied and how many receive funding.
Finally, time investment: Allow three weeks for smaller grants and up to three months for larger ones. A grant that’s sloppily done or a bad fit is a waste of everybody’s time—especially your own.
4. Winning strategies
Grandmasters look 15 moves ahead. You can prepare for your future grants now by gathering documentation. Most grants share a basic list of questions. Organize your answers to them in a document—we call this your “grant boilerplate”—and keep it in an easily accessible place. This will greatly streamline your grant application processes, saving hours of redundant work.
Here’s a sample grant application document checklist of what you’ll generally need:
- Mission statement: One to two sentences clearly and meaningfully expressing what you do, why you do it and for whom.
- Business overview: Usually a 500-word description of your organization’s history, goals, needs and major accomplishments.
- Goals: Your goals are what you’re requesting grant funding to accomplish. These goals should be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound).
- Objectives: The actions you’ll take to meet your goals.
- Timeline: Outline your estimated time milestones for achieving these goals. This should help inform your budget by showing you what actions you’ll take, how much they’ll cost and when you’ll need that funding.
- Outcomes: Your anticipated, hoped-for results or the ideal impact of your project. Sometimes funders will want a description of your planned method for evaluating your results. Illustrate for them what success looks like to you.
- Project description: Describe your project clearly. Use a strengths-based approach, such as, “This is why I do what I do.” “I’m the right person/business to do it.” “Now is the right time and place.”
- Budget: This is the estimated total of how much your project will cost (don’t forget to include your own time and salary). Some funders will want to see other sources of funding too.
Don’t be surprised if your project changes as you work on these answers. There’s no such thing as wasted work—all of it helps inform your business and yourself. One of the best chess players of all time, Garry Kasparov, said: “Unless you know who you are, it’s very difficult to identify what is the best strategy for you.”
5. Do’s and don’ts of the grant writing game
One of my favorite things about chess is world-building. Kingdoms rise and fall, plots are thwarted or victorious and, unlike the real world, there are rules both players have agreed to follow.
Still, just like in life, there are plenty of factors that are simply out of our control. Here are a few of Hikind’s tips for controlling what you can to ensure you get the best possible results:
Don’t:
- Ignore eligibility requirements
- Miss deadlines
- Apply in areas without expertise
- Submit incomplete documentation
Do:
- Read all organizational literature
- Research 990s for past funding patterns
- Research past winners
- Match your program innovatively to funder’s mission
- Have a professional or a trusted friend review your application
Being at the top of your organizational game, clear about what your business does and stands for and showcasing up-to-date financials assures funders you’re a responsible grant recipient.
6. To win, be a team player
For-profits have fewer and more highly competitive grants, confirms Noble. Typically, for-profit grants are for innovative ideas or advances in technology. She advises partnering instead with nonprofits that share similar goals.
Similarly, Hikind recommends creating a “giving back” wishlist for your business, perhaps including things like workforce training, tourism or economic development, then subcontracting with a nonprofit that’s eligible for a grant but lacking the ability to fulfill some part of it that your organization could.
To successfully partner with a nonprofit, learn your community’s needs. Creatively problem solve for how your business can present a solution. For example, when my fiscally sponsored client wanted to grow membership at her early education center, we identified a community need for prenatal support. Expanding her offerings to include that and also offering free resources to reduce maternal mortality for her fellow BIPOC community addressed local needs while advancing both her mission and her goal for growth, creating eligibility for funding opportunities with or without nonprofit partners.
“Winners are thinking not about themselves,” says Noble, “But how is there a win-win-win for me, the nonprofit and the funder?”
7. Checkmate
Your dreams are within reach—but only if you start taking steps to achieve them. To quote Kasparov again: “If you wish to succeed, you must brave the risk of failure.” So do your research, make strategic moves, check with a trusted friend or professional, then hit send and prepare for the win.
Ready to get started? Here are a few grant databases to explore:
And here are a few opportunities that caught our eye:
- The Amber Grant: $10,000 and $25,000 for women-owned businesses or business ideas with monthly deadlines.
- DoorDash Restaurant Disaster Relief Fund: $10,000 for established restaurants affected by natural disasters. Covers rent, utilities, supplies and payroll. Deadline is Dec. 2, 2024.
- NBCUniversal Local Impact Grant: $30,000 unrestricted funding for nonprofit community programs educating tomorrow’s storytellers. Deadline is April 19, 2025.
Photo from Lysenko Andrii/Shutterstock.com