The process of researching funders scares some grant pros. Many may be plagued by the inherent fear of realizing that a project is just so unique it’s better left alone, and that no one will be interested in it. After hearing ideas for hundreds of projects and researching funders regularly, if you are anything like me you’ll have a basic idea of whether or not it will be interesting to funders in today’s market within the first few moments of learning about it. But it’s only through research that I’ve been often surprised in learning that a project more desirable than I had originally thought or uninteresting to funders who I’d thought would be enchanted with it.

Fact: The only way to gauge interest is to run it through the research hoops. Fortunately, the hoops are not all that tedious nowadays. How I don’t envy the grant researcher of yesteryear, whose research was confined to (gasp!) books that were out of date on funder’s priorities by the time they hit the shelf.  Word of mouth, while more current than books, was also a former old standby, but just as unreliable as hardbound printed research guides, if not more. First, word of mouth is not up to date, and you basically have no firm idea what the implications of it are. 

For example, hearing that Kellogg gave to a social entrepreneurship competition at a particular university tells you that they were at one time interested in that particular university. You have no idea why though- did they know the president or someone on the board? Do their interests match so much that they were blown away by a first proposal? Or has that university been applying to that foundation for many years, refining the program until the point they finally received funding? These are prying questions that usually are not appropriate to ask a representative of another organization, even if he or she actually knew the answers to them.

The questions about what funders have been giving to is one that many grant writers and researchers scour the internet for, and read their sites. Some funders (not just the small ones) have strangely out of date sites, so this method is sadly flawed. The best way to learn what a funder was interested in last year, who is on their board of trustees, and how their giving patterns have changed is to study their 990s.

More on what 990s are, how and why to study then when I get through the stack of them currently plied on my desk. In the meantime, get thee to www.grantsmart.org, and pronto!