Grants

Can You Get a Grant?

Finding a grant can be a challenge. Managing the reporting requirements can feel impossible.

For many, grants are a nice idea and nothing more because it can be a chore to find a grant, very difficult to apply for one, and incredibly overwhelming to manage the funds in compliance with the relevant state or federal requirements. This process is made a lot easier when you know what to look for and have a partner to help you.

What to Look For:

Grants are topic, time, and organization specific. Instead of looking for something to pay for an item or project, identify the impact or service your work with impact. It’s vital that you understand how your work fits in with a great goal (ie crime reduction, supporting innovation in teaching and learning, addressing a specific healthcare priority). This is what grants most commonly fund, an impact, not a project or product.

Once you know how your work will impact your community, end users, or supported service, then you can look at timelines. Funding is rarely available on your schedule. Funding is available on its timeline. So be sure to look for multiple programs that can open and provide awards at different times (just in case one grant doesn’t pay for everything).

Additionally, look at your organization. What have you gotten in funding before? From what organizations? Many grants have a list of eligible types of applicants. Knowing which agencies fund your type of organization reduces time wasting so you’re not looking at grants you’re ineligible for.

Find a Partner:

Grant partners can come in many flavors. You may need help with grant research to give your grant team a lead on a new funding opportunity. You may want to work with a writer because you don’t have the time or experience to write your own (this is especially common for IT leaders as their internal grant writing resource aren’t usually dedicated to finding funding for technology). Or you may just want someone to take the headache of Post-Award management away from you.

No matter what grant help you’re looking for, there’s an expert out there. Working with an expert will save you time in the long run because their efforts are more targeted. You aren’t going through the motions writing a massive grant that you can’t win anyway. And while the process of finding the right grant may take a long time, the boost in funding and needed resources is always helpful and gives you a formula you can replicate for future grant opportunities.

At DOF, we’ve become that grant resource. Through our many grant partnerships, we help our customers simplify the grant process from start to finish and take away the time draining, painful efforts that make most potential applicants shy away from the grant altogether. Because of this, millions of dollars a year are left unspent and un-won. Instead of saying “uncle” and walking away from funding that can support vital and transformative projects for you and your organization, let us help you.