Hi, everyone!
People have been asking us lately about how we do our grant seeking. We're not experts (at bike maintenance either), but we've scored a little bit of support in the last few months. What helps the most is the Foundation Center, and we're lucky enough to have a physical location in Atlanta. However, there are tons of free resources on their website, and I just learned about a bunch at a workshop there recently. They also publish books, and I'm thinking about getting their Guides to Proposal Writinghttp://foundationcenter.org/marketplace/catalog/product_monograph.jhtml?id=prod10047 . *The FAQ has tons of technical info, and links pretty heavily to samples of things. I used the Letter of Inquiryhttp://foundationcenter.org/getstarted/faqs/html/letter.htmlentry recently, and it was massively helpful. I put a sample letter that I wrote on the BCN Wikihttp://www.bikecollectives.org/wiki/index.php?title=Grant_Writing(but I can't figure out the formatting). *There are free online tutorialshttp://foundationcenter.org/getstarted/learnabout/foundations.htmlat the bottom of this page.
*As for process.. *I would like to suggest that we buy a collective subscriptionhttps://fcsecure.fdncenter.org/fdo_signup_prof/register.php?setplan=startso everyone can access the database regardless of location.
When you access a record in the database, it returns critical info, like areas of interest, contact info, initial contact method, etc.. all the things you need to know so you can zero in on the foundations that are likely to help you and start building a relationship with them. What we're going for are as non-corporate as possible Atlanta-specific foundations that provide operational support to community development organizations. Most of these are interested in education and/or the environment, so we fit right in. It gets that specific.
*To get started on thinking through what your organization does, what you need money for, and whom to ask: **Create a logic modelhttp://www.managementhelp.org/np_progs/np_mod/org_frm.htm. This helps you name and quantify measurable things. *Create a budget. We have a spreadsheet broken down by month, things quantified by quarter, and a projected annual budget. I did this in Open Office spreadsheet, but maybe some folks have found more user friendly software. Anyway, included are major developments so we can relate those things with changes in income and expenses. It's easy then to prove how shop activity and income generated increased when we expanded shop hours. And that makes it easy to describe how operational support for a Shop Manager salary will provide the necessary means to support said explosion in shop awesomeness. *Create a companion timeline. *Have a compelling and concise argument, and make sure everything relates back to your mission statement. *Start early. Grant seeking is not just filling out an application and turning it in on the deadline. It's a process of getting to know people. *Realize that Operation Support can include personnel. You may be organizing a community bike shop that could benefit from having some paid staff.
*For folks wondering how we're pitching ourselves: *Sopo is a community development organization. We use bicycle repair education as a way to empower people while we work together to create affordable transportation. Our core program is the Shop. The Shop is open to the public four days a week, and it is accessed by 100 people per week, including drop in visitors, volunteers, donors, community leaders, kids, etc. All participants access the shop in order to share resources and knowledge. The organization has paid director, and our next staffing goal is to hire a project manager for our core program (Shop Manager).
If you need more info on the community development piece: Creating affordable housing and food security is considered community development activity. Like housing and food, transportation is a major household expense (see: the Census), and taken together we've got our big three producers of pollution and consumers of energy. Transportation is the neglected component when it comes to organizations creating affordable access (A lack of vocabulary indicates social invisibility [I think of gender expression and pronouns here]. How many organizations are addressing rampant "transportationlessness" in our communities?). Community bike shops not only address an economic gap. We also address the social and environmental components (which means we're doing sustainable development work). I have a diagram that goes along with this. And a flowchart. Nerd alert.
Anyway, I hope this helps. : )