Over the past several months, I have written about various ways to vet grant opportunities.
You can read about those ways here:
- Actionable ways to vet a grant opportunity
- Why I search for grants with specific programs in mind
- One way I fill my grant schedule with dozens of grant opportunities
- How I snipe other orgs to find promising grant funders
- This free public document is grant writing gold
I recently came across another fun way to weed out crappy grants from crappy funders.
If you haven’t visited GrantAdvisor, I highly recommend heading over there.
This is the place where grant writers and non-profit execs can air their dirty laundry about grant funders and their crappy ways. We can also say good stuff about the funders we love.
Funders are ranked and comments are published. For example, I will never apply for a Boeing Company Charitable Trust grant. Their profile includes comments like, “Boeing Seattle is a complete joke. They don’t “get” nonprofits, are difficult to work with, and culturally incompetent.”
“Working with Boeing Corporate Giving is a miserable experience.”
“If you “partner” with Boeing, prepare for a quid pro quo relationship. Beware that the Boeing check has strings attached.”
It goes on and on. I would never waste my time applying for a grant after reading all of that.
Bank of America Charitable Foundation is not any better. I have personal experience with their train wreck of an application process, and 10/10 do not recommend. Here are a few comments:
“This is a very long, invasive application with low chance of award. Consider carefully before you spend your precious time on this beast. I am a grant writing consultant and this is possibly the worst application I have to complete, among about 100 apps submitted annually. They ask a ton of questions, and everyone applying has to provide their bank information, putting thousands of nonprofits at needless risk. They ask if they can contact one of your clients (!!!) I don’t know who wrote this RFP but it’s a hot mess.”
“Local bank branch staff are not aware of the grants process. You must establish a relationship with the regional director. Unfortunately, that is very hard to do. It is difficult to get simple questions answered. It’s grant application is complex and onerous considering the amounts awarded.”
It can’t hurt to take a few minutes to search for your funder before diving into a terrible experience. Conversely, many of the funders have positive comments and even a few tips for working with specific funders.
Until next time,
Write Epic Grants
P.S. Are you new to Write Epic Grants? Don’t worry; all past emails are archived here. Head over there and don’t miss a thing.