Category: Grants

By Laurence A. Pagnoni, MPA Good grant proposals are not the same as great ones. What are the differences? The first difference to going from good grant proposals to great is to realize that when you sit down to write one you may have to leave social work behind and enter an entirely new realm, the realm of the writer and reporter. Accordingly, you have to do what writers do, which is they conduct research. They seek to compile as much information about their subject as possible. Like fishermen, they cast a wide net and sift through the catch, tossing

By Laurence A. Pagnoni, MPA Congratulations, you’ve got the award! But wait, did you read the letter saying what the funds may be used for?  By thoroughly reading the award letter, you will learn the legal intent of the funders/donors, and therefore how you can use the funds. The award letter is actually part of an auditor’s trail of documents gathered annually when your nonprofit tax form 990 must be completed, or when an audit is done. One grant writer wrote me asking, “Does the award letter trump what I wrote in the grant proposal about the use of the

By Laurence A. Pagnoni, MPA Some nonprofits depend on grants. With few, if any, government contracts, sputtering special events, and limited individual donor support to lean on, they may have no choice. Others, sustaining themselves on fees; federal, state, and city money; and lavish galas are often lackadaisical about grants.Yet if they have the metrics, private and corporate grant awards can increase their revenue by multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. How can you tell if it’s worth your agency’s while to pursue a grants program?  Just do a feasibility test. The test includes research and analytical steps, and