I talk a lot about how to improve your chances of grant funding, but I think it is also important to talk about the myriad of reasons why grants don’t and won’t be funded.
Some of the reasons relate directly to us as grant writers, but many of the reasons are outside of our direct control.
It is worth recognizing and acknowledging all of the reasons so that we can help our organizations to understand and improve. It may also help us to understand when to walk away from an organization because they simply aren’t doing the things they need to do for grant funding.
Here are the reasons I see most often. If you think of others, send me an email.
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- The orgs financials aren’t in order.
- The mission or mission statement is weak.
- There isn’t a strong need for the service provided.
- The org isn’t evaluating impact.
- The evaluation tool is weak.
- The org has a poor reputation.
- The grant proposal doesn’t directly answer the questions.
- The org has a terrible website.
- The grant opportunities aren’t properly vetted and aren’t in alignment.
- The program budget doesn’t make sense or isn’t sufficiently justified.
- The grant ask is for a line item that the funder doesn’t fund.
- The org has an insufficient track record.
- The program is poorly defined, lacks direction, methods, or goals.
- The relationship between the org and the funder is not strong.
- The grant proposal is submitted late.
All of these reasons can be overcome. The first step is to acknowledge the issue, discuss it with the appropriate person within the org and develop a strategy to move forward.
Until next time,
Write Epic Grants
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