Building a Grant Strategy for 2021-2022
Aretha Simons:
Again, welcome to Building A Grant Strategy, welcome to TechSoup. I know a lot of you are new here.
You might have got the link, so it may be your first time. I want to welcome you. My name is Aretha Simons, I'm the webinar producer here at TechSoup. This is being recorded, and it will be emailed to everyone who registered within 48 hours. We want you to watch the replay on YouTube. And when you do watch it, hit the like button and subscribe. Greatly appreciate it.
Aretha Simons:
So, today, I'm excited that you're all here in the chat room, but we know how this goes. Please type your questions in the Q&A because the chat just moves up so fast. So, if you'd like a question answered, type it in the Q&A. That's how you're going to participate today. Again, check your email in a couple days;
you'll get the video replay. You're going to learn something new today. It's not an if, it's not a when. You are going to learn something new. Why don't you share on social media all hashtag on Facebook, Instagram. All our social media is TechSoup, so share TechSoup.
Aretha Simons:
And if you need the CC button, the closed caption, go right there on the screen and tap the CC button and make sure that you get this [inaudible 00:01:11] for yourself. We will have the transcription on the Zoom webinar that's going to be played on YouTube. Okay, getting tongue tied.
Aretha Simons:
Again, if this is your first time at TechSoup, welcome at TechSoup. Here, we bridge the gap between technology solutions and services by partnering with over 100 tech companies to provide software, hardware, free webinars, discount on software and GrantStation is one of our partners.
Aretha Simons:
So, I'm so happy to introduce the CEO of GrantStation. Miss Cynthia Adams is here with us today. I need to tell you a few things about Cynthia because you may see her and you're going to hear her and you're going to be amazed about what she has to share today, but she's been dedicated to help nonprofit organizations for over 45 years. She helps them secure funding they need to do the work that they do.
She founded GrantStation because she believe that, I want to make sure I take my time, she believe that grantseeking requires a thorough understanding of the thunderous and sound knowledge of the
philanthropic playing field, and that is so true.
Aretha Simons:
Her life work has been to level the playing field, creating opportunities for all nonprofit organizations regardless of their size or geographical location to secure grant funding. I love that Cynthia about you.
Aretha Simons:
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Cynthia also gives back to her community. She serves on the advisory board for the northern Alaska Environmental Center as well as does volunteer work for numerous, numerous nonprofits many of whom serve to protect the world's environment.
Aretha Simons:
Cynthia, thank you for all that you do, and welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm looking forward to hearing you today.
Cynthia Adams:
Thank you, Aretha, and hello everybody. It's so nice to meet you and thank you for joining us today. Let me share my screen. Oh, right. I can't ... There we go.
Aretha Simons:
Oh, take your time, take your time.
Cynthia Adams:
Let me do this.
Aretha Simons:
And while she's getting ready to share, again, get ready to type your questions in the Q&A. If you need any questions answered, type it in the Q&A. We have some people in the background, Eli and Kevin, here to help. Thank you, Cynthia.
Cynthia Adams:
Thank you. Thank you, thank you so much. Well, welcome everybody. I want you to sort of fasten your seat belts because we've got a lot to cover today. It seems like a long time, but it's actually a fairly short amount of time.
Cynthia Adams:
I always enjoy spending time and sharing experiences that I've had over my 40, 45 years of being immersed in the world of grantseeking. So much, so much of what I have learned has been the result of experimenting with new ways of really approaching a particular problem. In fact, most of what you'll hear today from me stems from my testing different approaches and finally settling on the approach that I felt worked very best.
Cynthia Adams:
I'm going to figure out how to change my ... There we go. All right, so our learning objectives today are pretty straightforward. I started writing grant proposals in my 20s, working as a fundraiser for a small, but it was a really dynamic grassroots environmental organization in Alaska. I had no clue, really, what I was doing. But as many of you know, when you get thrown into the fundraising world, you have to learn, and you have to learn quickly.
Cynthia Adams:
It took me maybe another 20 years before I fully appreciated the importance of actually establishing a grantseeking program, a real program, built on clearly articulated goals and objectives, as well as the
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importance of creating a specific strategy around each and every project that required funding. It took me a while to learn that.
Cynthia Adams:
So, throughout that first 20 years, I developed a systematic process that I use to this day to help me identify the most appropriate grant makers for the programs and the projects that need funding.
Cynthia Adams:
What I hope is that each of you walk away from today's training with an understanding of just how important it is to keep the grants' pipeline full. To do that, you have to adopt a process and you have to use that process consistently.
Cynthia Adams:
This is our agenda for today. At each agenda break, I'm going to stop for just a second and see if there are any questions about the information that I just covered. So, if you have a question as we go along and cover each item in the agenda, just chat ... Don't do that. Put it in the Q&A. That's what Aretha told me. Put it in the Q&A.
Cynthia Adams:
Okay, we're going to start today by talking about a simple tool that you can design to help determine the most productive grant opportunities to pursue, and I call this tool the grant decision matrix. If you belong to GrantStation, if you're a member, we just launched a tool on our website, the matrix on our website, so you can just go in there and use it. But what I'm going to teach you today is not only how to use it, but how to build it.
Cynthia Adams:
And then we're going to move on to the process I use to guide my grants research so that I'm really identifying the most appropriate grant maker or grant makers for each program or each project that needs support.
Cynthia Adams:
And then, of course, we'll talk about how to take this information and weave it into an overall grant strategy to help you really secure the funds that you need to support the work that you're doing. The strategy you develop will guide you as you set up your calendar and the tasks that need to be done over the next 12 to 18 months.
Cynthia Adams:
Just a side note here, I like to work in 18-month increments when I'm talking about grantseeking.
Because grantseeking has such a long lead time and such a long award time affiliated with it that I feel it's important to work maybe 18 months out.
Cynthia Adams:
Today, we'll be talking a lot about tools and processes, but keep in mind this is just the way I do it. You want to take this information that I share with you and create your own process that reflects how you work, how you think. Nothing is set in stone here.
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Cynthia Adams:
So, the first thing you may want to consider doing as you launch or build out your grantseeking program is to develop an analytical tool that can help you make quick decisions about which grant makers to pursue and which ones to not pursue. It will take a little time and thinking to develop this tool, but you're going to be glad you have it at hand once you begin reviewing grant opportunities. You can refer to this tool as the grant decision matrix, and this matrix can be applied to requests for proposals from the government or grant application guidelines.
Cynthia Adams:
The matrix consists of a set of criteria, each of which has been that you'll want to assign a weight, and that can be easily built in Excel. This tool relies on simple addition and subtraction, which when applied really will provide you with a final score. And your score will influence your decision on whether you will apply to a particular grant maker or via a particular funding opportunity.
Cynthia Adams:
Now, over the years, I figured out that it's wise to develop one decision matrix that you can use for government grant opportunities and one for private funding. Because the process and the importance of different criteria, like the relationship to the grant maker, that can vary depending on whether they are private funder or government funder. And again, it really doesn't take much time to develop an initial decision matrix that you can utilize, but you will discover that over time you'll refine it. You're going to refine it over and over. It's very much an organic document, so you will refine the matrix over time.
Cynthia Adams:
You want to start by defining the matrix components. Each of the components can be as complex or as simple as you feel is necessary. First, you want to develop a set of decision criteria, and I like to think of them as both subjective and objective criteria because this sort of helps you consider what you want in the matrix from different angles. So, for example, subjective criteria might be your relationship with the grant maker, whereas an objective criteria might be that matching funds are required, something like that. So, think about subjective and objective criteria when you're developing your criteria.
Cynthia Adams:
And the criteria should really reflect the size and the shape of your organization. For example, let's say you're a two-person team trying to run an entire organization. Your criteria could focus to some extent on the amount of time it takes to write a proposal. An important criteria for you might be that the opportunity has to have a simple application process, which pretty much knocks out any government applications. Or you could say, if you want to make it more subjective, you can say proposal
development has to be less than 10 hours or 20 hours, whatever you feel you can dedicate to it.
Cynthia Adams:
After you develop your criteria, you want to assign a weight to each criterion based on the importance in the final decision on whether you're going to give this opportunity a green light or a red light.
Assigning the correct weight to each criteria takes a bit of time, takes a bit of thinking, and it does deserve some attention. But again, over time, I guarantee you, you will adjust those weights.
Cynthia Adams:
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Next you need to divide what total score gives you the green light to move forward with a grant request.
Again, it can be a little tricky and maybe requires some discussion with other leadership or other staff.
And again, you will adjust it as you go forward using your matrix.
Cynthia Adams:
So, after you've developed a matrix, then you want to run a few test cases against it. And what I like to do, you guys, is I like to use a funding source that has funded me in the past, if you have one, and take their application guidelines and run it against the matrix because that will give you a pretty darn good idea if you've done a good job and it will help you sort of shape the final criteria and the weights.
Cynthia Adams:
Okay, the other thing I like to do, and this took me a while before I finally figured this out, was that to make the process easier, you can establish an initial set of criteria, and you can do this for both the government matrix and the private funding matrix, which I call mandatory criteria. There's no weights assigned here. This mandatory criteria are simply those items that you must adhere to in order to apply via a particular funding opportunity.
Cynthia Adams:
So, for example, if the funder only gives to individuals, not nonprofits, then you probably don't need to pursue it any further. These are mandatory criteria, and this is going to become second nature. You probably won't even reference them as time goes on. I mean, you probably don't know you already know that if you don't meet these mandatory criteria, that you probably shouldn't apply.
Cynthia Adams:
Now, let me share with you a simple matrix that I built that has the full criteria. What we just looked at where the mandatory criteria. Now, these are the full criteria. You'll note that on the screen there, on the right-hand side of the screen, those are your scoring, how you will score everything. This final scoring allows you to make quick decisions without agonizing over a particular funding opportunity.
You'll see that I like to add a section that requires further discussion or leadership approval, and that was one of those things I learned over time, I thought, "Ooh, it's not that cut and dry oftentimes."
Cynthia Adams:
So, in the case of the example I have here on the slide, that discussion would happen if the score falls between 35 and 39. This means you have to decide if this opportunity is worth the time and energy of developing a proposal.
Cynthia Adams:
Now, obviously, these are just some of the criteria you might use in your matrix. You'll probably have other criteria you want to add that will guide your decision to apply or not to apply. As I mentioned, you can put an initial matrix together fairly quickly, and then you will continue to refine it over time.
Cynthia Adams:
But do note that there will be times when you ignore the fact that you're getting a lower score than you'd like, and you're going to move forward with the application. Nonetheless, I encourage you to develop a set of criteria to create a grant decision matrix, and always run each opportunity through it.
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Cynthia Adams:
Okay, so running the opportunity through your matrix is going to result in a thumbs up or a thumbs down almost all of the time. If it falls s within that yellow zone, then you step back and you re-analyze the opportunity before you move forward.
Cynthia Adams:
Now, before we get off this topic, there are two important side notes. One, once you've established a set of criteria, and this is really important, you guys, be sure and get it approved by your director or your fundraising committee or your board of directors because buy in from leadership, that will allow you to make quick decisions when new opportunities present themselves without fearing any backlash. That's important because a board member oftentimes brings a funding opportunity to the table, and your response should be, "Let me run that through the decision matrix." They've already approved it; and if you don't go forward, then you have a reason why you didn't in something that they've approved.
Cynthia Adams:
Secondly, the second reason is because when you run into something that continually makes you ineligible to apply, whether it's government or private funders, then you have to figure out how to address the issue. You can't just ignore it because you will continually hit this same roadblock over and over, and these pitfalls often show up in the mandatory criteria part of your matrix.
Cynthia Adams:
Some of the most common roadblocks are your location, you're located in a rural area or a town that doesn't get any funding, or a neighborhood; your lack of history; or the perceived inability to fiscally manage a grant award, which may be linked to your not having an annual audit or something like that.
Cynthia Adams:
So, let's just briefly talk about a few fixes that would help you address these roadblocks that often show up within your mandatory criteria. Let's start with fiscal management. If financial management is a stumbling block for making grant applications, then you may want to consider engaging a fiscal sponsor.
Cynthia Adams:
Now, remember, your organization is still responsible for understanding and conducting ethical business practices that maybe let you off the hook, but you now have a fiscal sponsor who has the history and the ability to manage a grant award, and the grant maker will recognize that.
Cynthia Adams:
The most important criteria when entering into an agreement with a fiscal sponsor is mission. Does your mission fit with their mission? The mission of your project must further the mission of the fiscal sponsor, so that has to be a strong link.
Cynthia Adams:
The fiscal sponsor relationship requires sort of ongoing active participation. I can say that, participation.
See, I even said it fast. From both parties, so from both you and the fiscal sponsor. That means regular communications and attention to detail and really holding each other accountable. Those are all sort of
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critical components of such a relationship. And the formal name of such relationship is called a pre- approved grant relationship sponsor. Ugh, long name. Preapproved grant relationship fiscal sponsor.
Cynthia Adams:
In such a relationship, the fiscally sponsored project does not become a program of the sponsors. That does not happen. It's a separate entity, right? The fiscal sponsor is responsible for reporting to the grant maker, but you are responsible for your own tax reporting and for any liability issues. Anyway, to learn more about this, if this is a problem you run into, to learn more about it, then you can go to the National Network of Fiscal Sponsors. It's a great resource, by the way.
Cynthia Adams:
The other roadblocks that you might run into is geographic location and the length of time you've been operating. Both of these issues could be addressed by developing a collaborative partnership with another or several other organizations and finding like organizations that work in other areas of the country. For example, let's say childhood education is part of your mission. Then, you might want to partner with an organization like the Association of Childhood Education International which is based in DC.
Cynthia Adams:
In some cases, simply partnering with an organization within your own state will make a significant difference, or within your own city or town, or with organizations in several small towns located near you. The idea here is, of course, to find a partner that will not only enhance the work that you're doing, but that will also help deal with that pesky criteria problem. And truthfully, collaborations are
considered a smart move even if you don't have an issue with history or with location.
Cynthia Adams:
There are a number of types of collaborations that you can fall into, and I've got a list here. You'll all receive a copy of recorded webinar so you can take a closer look at this later on. But the idea is that don't be intimidated when someone says collaboration. It doesn't have to be a super complicated relationship. You just want to find the one that really fits well with the work that you do and with the work that you intend to do.
Cynthia Adams:
For example, if you work in the area of climate change, you probably already belong to a formal or informal network of organizations focusing on the same global issue. Are there one or two of these groups that you might want to work more closely with, that will perhaps provide you with a broader geographic focus when you're trying to make application to grant makers?
Cynthia Adams:
When you have an opportunity, I want you to study this slide a little bit and really consider who might make a good collaborative partner or partners and which type of relationship might work best for you.
Cynthia Adams:
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Okay, now we're going to set aside the grant decision matrix and talk about a process I use to conduct research, really; to identify those grant makers that are most likely to fund a new project or an expanded program or my general operating costs.
Cynthia Adams:
Before we move on, Aretha, do we have any questions I should address now?
Aretha Simons:
There were lots of questions in there, and they're coming so fast. There's a lot of comments about people say they wish funders would tell them why instead of sending a general letter saying we had a lot of people and so we can't choose everybody. But lots of confirmation on what you're saying, or
affirmation on what you're saying and the points that you're making. So, I think you can continue. Q&A is being [inaudible 00:24:16].
Cynthia Adams:
Okay. Okay, I will continue, but I will just say to those folks that say why don't they tell me more, you know what, ask them. They are to some extent ... Yes, they are private grant maker. Government has to tell you why; and so if you ask them, they will tell you. If you ask the private grant maker, they should tell you.
Cynthia Adams:
You don't want to leave it open like a general question. Why didn't I get there? Why wasn't my proposal funded? You want to ask very specific questions. So, if you felt in your heart that your statement of need was weak, for example, then you might say to them, "I felt as if my statement of need could have been more thorough. Was that one of the areas where you felt we fell down?" That will start a dialogue with the grant maker. Don't ask them a general question. Go back to them, don't ask them a general
question, ask them a specific question about an area of the proposal that you felt was weak. That should start a dialogue.
Cynthia Adams:
Okay, let's keep going. So, one of the most prevalent problems facing nonprofits when trying to secure grants is simply identifying the right grant maker for a particular program or project. In fact, that's why I built GrantStation. So, why is it such a daunting task? Why is finding the right grant maker so difficult?
Where do you begin to conduct your research?
Cynthia Adams:
In our recently published State of Grantseeking Report, which by the way is a public report. You can get it off our homepage. We did a survey, and I think we had 3500 nonprofits responded. One of the challenges that nonprofits face when it comes to grantseeking really comes down to, well, two of the biggest problems, are really time and information.
Cynthia Adams:
When you look at the report, when we asked what in your opinion is the greatest challenge to successful grantseeking, we found that the greatest challenge stems from the lack of time and staff for
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grantseeking activities; as well as that it's just difficult to find grant opportunities that match a specific mission; or your specific geographic location which we just talked about; and, of course, programs.
Cynthia Adams:
As I said, I started GrantStation for this very reason. We strive to address both of these issues by making the grantseeking process as easy as possible. To start with, we created a worksheet that you can use to identify the right grant makers or grant maker as well as addressing the critical challenges of significantly reducing the time you spend on research as well as the time you spend on writing a letter of inquiry or a full grant proposal.
Cynthia Adams:
Let me share with you some of the tools that we've developed. By the way, we do have a new tool, it's on our homepage today in the slideshow. It's called the Benchmarker. You do not have to be a member of GrantStation to use it. It will help you compare your grantseeking activities in the area of your mission with other like organizations. It's a free tool so feel free to hop onto the homepage after the webinar and take a look at that.
Cynthia Adams:
Okay, so in order to make your research efficient and yet very, very productive, I want you to follow these three specific steps. First, you want to prepare a worksheet for each project. This is a step, I have to tell you this, I'm so bad. I mean, how long have I been doing this? Every single time, I think I can skip it because I know what I need; and every single time, I have to go back and do the worksheet. It's just a great way to get ... Well, for a couple of things, it gets you a head start on writing the letter of inquiry or a full proposal without that pressure of trying to write something just perfect to put it in the right order, et cetera, et cetera.
Cynthia Adams:
The key here is to develop a worksheet for each project that needs funding. For example, if you're considering doing a series of financial literacy workshops next spring, you would develop a project description worksheet for that project. Or maybe you need to completely replace the computers, printers, other hardware and software in your office as well as update your website, that deserves its own worksheet. Or perhaps you have a general operating shortfall for this year or maybe next year, that deserves its own worksheet. So, you want to do a worksheet for each project that needs funding. Don't try to combine everything.
Cynthia Adams:
And then you want to include as many details as you can in each worksheet. You don't have to be a great writer to draft a worksheet. No one's going to see it at this point. It's really your working document. You'll continue to add details to the worksheet even as you're doing your research. You know, someone walks in the office and says or sends you an email and says, "Hey, I found out that we're going to need to have at least five volunteers, not three volunteers, for that project." Then you change it in your worksheet.
Cynthia Adams:
This is a good thing because every detail may provide new funding leads, and every detail you add will make writing that letter of inquiry or the full grant proposal so much easier.
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Cynthia Adams:
However, one area you want to develop as fully as you can from the get-go is the budget, and we'll talk about the budget more in a few minutes. But I want you to have fun with writing the budget and developing and drafting the worksheet because this is where you can think big. You make take some of these things out later on, but you can think beyond just what will this grant maker give me.
Cynthia Adams:
If you have application guidelines in front of you and you're writing a proposal, you're limited, and you know you're limited. The worksheet is where you can think broader and bigger, so you want to have fun with this part of the exercise especially with the budget where you can go on kind of a mental shopping trip and really buy the things you need to make that program really work.
Cynthia Adams:
And then your final step will be to use that worksheet to guide your research. Having that worksheet in front of you is going to help you keep focused when undertaking any kind of research. You know, you're going to find that get distracted. Let's say you're looking for funding for that series of literacy workshops that you're going to do next year, and bam, you run into a funder that actually looks pretty good for that partnership you're planning with the school district, right? The next thing you know, you're off doing that research.
Cynthia Adams:
Having a worksheet for each project that needs funding like the literacy workshops or that new collaboration with the school district, even general operating, that's going to allow you to simply focus on that one specific funding need knowing you'll come across those other funders when you begin research on that other project. So, the project description worksheet is sort of key to doing any of your grant research.
Cynthia Adams:
Let me share with you some components of the project description worksheet. The worksheet represents the foundation for the program or the project that needs funding. So, you want to adopt a project name, you want to determine a lead contact person. That's usually the person who's going to run the program because that's the person you're going to turn to with questions. That might be you.
You want to develop a draft statement of need, you want a project description, you want that budget.
All this information will result in your identifying key search terms, and most of your key search terms will come directly from the language you use in your project description and the statement of need.
Cynthia Adams:
Be sure to fill out a worksheet for every project that requires funding, using it to guide your funding research. Don't skip this step, you guys. After 40 years of grant research and grant writing, I can tell you, it's super important to actually spend some time doing this. Not only because it makes you stay on point, which it will as you do your research, but because this is the fodder for developing your letter of inquiry and full proposal. If you're a GrantStation member, you can work on the worksheets in your dashboard, in your personal dashboard. If you don't, just build your own and be sure and add the grant makers that you find for each one as you go forward.
Cynthia Adams:
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Okay, let me quickly show you a sample project description worksheet so that you can visualize what this looks like, right? This sample is completely fictitious, I just made it up. I made it up using a different number of sources. Don't try to find this organization because it doesn't exist and some of these numbers probably don't exist either, but I want to show you how your project worksheet might look.
Cynthia Adams:
In this case, it's an opioid outreach program. As you can see, it's fairly brief summary of what the program will look like. Note the two major components of the program are outreach and prevention.
That's right at the top. And we also note that the timeline for the project, which in this case is a
conceived three-year program. You'll see your keywords popping out like outreach, prevention, children and youth, families, collaboration and of course the word opioid. So, you want to note those keywords.
Cynthia Adams:
Then after you summarize the project, your summary will be longer than that, I'm just doing this as sort of an example, you'll have your draft statement of need. And again, it should be longer than this, but you get the idea. You'll find other keywords in that statement of need like public health and mental health, substance abuse, epidemic. You're going to have different keywords that are going to sort of pop out when you read through your project description worksheet, and you're going to make note of those keywords.
Cynthia Adams:
Then, you'll also want to develop your budget. The more detailed, again, that your budget is, the more likely that you'll find the right funding sources for the project. The more detailed the budget, the more funding sources. Part of that means that you're going to be wanting brand names. Look at those green arrows in the orange boxes. I've added brand names here; Apple, Sony, MacBook Pro, Camtasia. Those brand names will help me identify funding sources.
Cynthia Adams:
I don't know why I do it this way, you may not want to do it this way, but oftentimes when I start doing my funding research, I start with those brands. I might go to Apple just to see if they have a grant making or equipment donation, software donation program. And if they do, voila, I am able to add them tomy overall grant strategy. So, I like to go to those brand names first, but you may not want to do it that way.
Cynthia Adams:
So, you're going to be pulling up key search terms, and the key search terms are sort of the last piece of the worksheet. You've got your project description, your statement of need, your budget, and you've circled those key search terms you're going to be using. Now you want to make sure you're covering all your bases with your search terms. That means first focusing on your geographic area and then, of course, there's going to be target population and other key areas that you need to look at.
Cynthia Adams:
But when you look at your geographic focus, you want to make sure that you're looking not only at your primary impact area, which may just be your neighborhood, but also any secondary impact areas.
Cynthia Adams:
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A common comment I hear from grant makers is that the organization applying often confuses where they are located and their specific service area, but often forgets to include who benefits from their work.
Cynthia Adams:
For example, with this Opioid Outreach and Prevention Program, they will be serving the St. Croix islands, maybe even focusing on Christiansted. But their prevention efforts such as public service announcements will reach a much broader area, extending, in this case, all the way to St. Thomas and St. John islands. So, it's important to identify both your primary and your secondary impact area. If any of you have trouble figuring that out, it's a great and sort of fun board discussion to have.
Cynthia Adams:
Okay, then you're going to want to identify your key search terms, and we've talked about those already. You're going to pull those out of your project description, your statement of need and your budget. These terms are usually ... What I like to do is I like to use the same terminology that grant makers are using.
Cynthia Adams:
On the GrantStation website, we have an area that lists all the key search terms that grant makers use these days. If you want to know where that is, just put it in the Q&A, and Kevin Peters who is online with us from GrantStation, he'll tell you where to go on the GrantStation website to pull down that list of key terms. It's interesting to look at it too, but you probably want to reference those as much as you can.
That's to help you really understand the search terms you should use under areas of interest. So, you're going to do that.
Cynthia Adams:
The next thing you're going to think about is target population. You want to understand, what is my target population? Let's say you're an environmental organization and its climate change. Well, hello. I mean, it's everybody, right? It's the human population, but it's also animals and ecosystems. And so, you have to think a little bit differently when you think about target populations.
Cynthia Adams:
If you're doing something that's not specific, like with the literacy project, you may be focusing on immigrants or adult learners, right? So that would be your target population.
Cynthia Adams:
And then types of support. That's really sort of the fourth question you need to ask yourself, what types of support do you need for this project. And since the one we're talking about, the Opioid Project, is a three-year project, that's going to require support for quite a while. So, in my mind, I would select project support. However, that group may also need a small planning grant, so they may want to put planning under types of support; and they're going to be doing workshops and seminars, so they'll want that; and they're going to be doing a lot of media outreach, so they probably want film video projects;
and they may need some new equipment, as we saw, so they would want that. And other types of support as well.
Cynthia Adams:
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Thinking through your project in terms of key terminology, everything from geography to target population, areas of interests, types of support, that's going to make a big difference in what shows up in your project description worksheet.
Cynthia Adams:
And so, just remember, with project description worksheets, that you want to be as thorough as you can. But even if you have to start out pretty thin with the information you have, go ahead and start.
Draft up as much as you can. But remember, one worksheet per project. Even general operating deserves its own project description worksheet.
Cynthia Adams:
Okay, before we talk about identifying the right grant maker, Aretha, are there any questions I should answer at this point?
Aretha Simons:
Lots of questions about the key terms. Somebody wants the list. Where can we find the list of key terms? Is there a list on the website?
Cynthia Adams:
Right. Okay. So, Kevin will answer those questions. He's on Q&A or on chat. He'll probably provide you with a link that is to our homepage or to the page on the GrantStation website that talks about our key terminology that we use. It is a very thorough list and it's open to the public, so we'll make sure to get that to you, guys.
Aretha Simons:
Yeah.
Cynthia Adams:
Okay, should I move on?
Aretha Simons:
One more question. Elizabeth asked earlier, how often do you completely restart a worksheet, for example for ongoing project? Go ahead.
Cynthia Adams:
That's good. That's a good question. I find that ... It's actually a really good question because what I have found over the years is that a project description worksheet, if it's just to upgrade computers and technology and stuff, once I'm done with it, once I'm finished with it, I should say, I am finished. But if it's a program, like this three-year program that we're talking about, it's going to morph and you're going to be updating it on a regular basis. And then it may become an ongoing program. And again, you would hang on to that.
Cynthia Adams:
So, it's a document that probably ... It's very organic and will grow overtime. I hope that answers the question.
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Cynthia Adams:
Okay, let's talk about process. Consider adopting, and consistently using, by the way, a research process that you undertake every time you need to look for funding for any project. Again, this is a process I use.
You may want to adopt it, or adapt it, throw it out with the bathwater; but however you approach it, just make sure you use the same process each time that you do your grants research. Again, you may change these steps, but come up with a set of steps and follow them consistently. Don't try to skip any one of them.
Cynthia Adams:
The way I do it, there are basically six steps. You need to look for government and private sources, and I use GrantStation for that, but you may have an access to another database. I review background
materials on each funder. I determine the questions that I'm going to ask each funder. Believe me, there are always questions that you'll have. You want to create a script, an email script and a phone script. You may be getting in touch with them via email or via phone; in either way, you'll want to have a script ready. You'll want to contact the funder, and then you're going to build your strategy. Those are the six pieces that I go through when I'm doing my grants research.
Cynthia Adams:
As you begin your research, you really want to be looking for four distinct types of support; cash, which is what we all go after first, donation of products and services, and technical assistance. So, cash, products, services, and TA. Each of these types of giving can provide really key leverage points once you begin developing your own strategic approach to funding a particular program or project.
Cynthia Adams:
It's easy to overlook both the product and service donations as well as TA when you start doing your research because we tend to all want to go for the cash. But I like looking for these types of donations upfront for three really specific reasons. One is because product and service donations as well as TA can be really fast and easy to make application and to secure. It's usually a quick and simple process.
Oftentimes, there's no deadline, so you can weave them into your overall strategy upfront.
Cynthia Adams:
And when you get this type of donation, you can use it to help leverage those cash rewards. It shows that there's someone already investing in the project or the program that you have in mind. And of course, they can serve as a match when you go after government funding as well.
Cynthia Adams:
So, I do two things, primary and secondary research. In my primary research, I mainly review the grant maker's profile on GrantStation or, in the case of government funding, I'll look at specific program listings. In this initial program review, I'm looking for very, very specific things. I'll cover those in just a second, but just know that there all types of potential government and private support, and government will often have TA or technical assistance that's available. So, these are the types of funding sources you'll want to consider.
Cynthia Adams:
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But in that primary research, in that initial review that you were doing, I want you to look for, does your program or your mission align with the grant makers? Are you in sync with them? Does the financial information which involves the size of awards that they give, the average award that they give, does that really fit in with your project?
Cynthia Adams:
And then of course eligibility, if you're eligible. Am I eligible to apply for this award? If you're not eligible and you think that maybe you could be if you had a partnership or a collaboration, then you may want to move in that direction. And if you truly fit with the grant maker's guidelines, except for eligibility, then it's always smart to call the grant maker to see if they would make an exception because sometimes they do. They might not put it in their application guidelines, but sometimes they will make an exception in the area of eligibility.
Cynthia Adams:
An example of that would be if you're a chamber of commerce. You're not a 501(c)(3), will they give to you? They may say, yeah, we don't like to advertise it, but we will. So, you want to ask that question.
Cynthia Adams:
And then of course deadlines. Deadlines for letters of inquiry and full proposal submissions, those are set in stone by the grant maker usually, and you need to determine if their deadlines actually work for your project. If it doesn't, then you should set them aside for now, okay?
Cynthia Adams:
Okay, so those are the items I'm looking at when I'm doing my primary research and I'm developing my initial list of potential funding sources.
Cynthia Adams:
Then, I also like to start primary research by looking at all potential government sources. I look at local government first, then I look at state and provincial government, and of course I look at federal or national government, if you're in Canada. I like to look at my government sources, and I start at the bottom then I go up. Smaller awards and easier to make application, local, and it goes up to state and then, of course, federal.
Cynthia Adams:
If you have access to GrantStation, you can do all of this research from our website except local government. You could do the state grants and loans and you can do federal grants and loans. Both of those are pretty important to look at, and I like to look at government first.
Cynthia Adams:
Why do I like to look at government sources first? Well, I like to look at government sources first because if they do work for me, then they might be one stop shopping, so to speak, right? If you find a good source, it oftentimes will fund the whole project. However, you may have to have matching funds as well. But it can be a fairly significant award.
Cynthia Adams:
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Second, if you do secure government support, then your organizational credibility just took a giant step forward. Let's say your project is $500,000 and you get 250 from USDA, then you funded half of your project and private grant makers will look favorably because they feel as if, if the government funded you, then you've been pre-screened and you're probably a pretty good bet.
Cynthia Adams:
Third, if you don't identify any government funding, and this is important and this is why you need to do your government research, then when you apply to a private grant maker, in your cover letter you can let them know that recent research indicates that at this time there are no government programs that will support this project. It's always smart, you guys, always smart to include a statement about government funding in any grant request in the cover, in any grant request that you make to a private grant maker so that they understand that they're the only avenue of funding open to you. Right?
Cynthia Adams:
The bottom line here is be transparent about potential government sources when you apply to private sources, and always look at government sources first just in case.
Cynthia Adams:
So, how do you find those private sources? After researching government funds, dive into researching private grant makers. Again, you can use GrantStation for the primary research. If you subscribe to another database, you can use them as well. You want to be looking at all different types of private grant makers; local business, regional, national and global corporations, religious grant makers, associations, clubs. I could go on and on. The list is fairly long. You want to be looking at all these different types of grant makers.
Cynthia Adams:
But I want to draw your attention to a few that are sort of overlooked on a fairly regular basis. One of those types of grant makers are clubs, associations, societies. They're kind of a hidden treasure. They're often overlooked. There are amazing international and national associations that give away some very fantastic items. One of my favorites is the Toy Industry Association. They have a warehouse they call the Toy Bank. It's full of toys and games for children. They give those out regularly, and I believe they do a drive every year asking thousand and thousands of their toy numbers to donate items to that
warehouse. It's a very simple, simple application process. So, don't overlook associations, clubs and societies. We list those all in our databases, the ones that give, on GrantStation.
Cynthia Adams:
Another area that you may want to consider are PRIs and loans. PRIs are program-related investments.
They are usually made by grant makers, private grant makers. They can be used from anything like low interest or no interest loans, and they can be used to fund an event you want to do that you're going to make money on. Then you pay them back and then you have your profit line, right? The same with loans.
Cynthia Adams:
These types of investments are primarily made for an organization like yours to achieve programmatic rather than financial objectives of the grant maker. Not of you, of the grant maker. So, private
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foundations use PRIs to help organization seize time-sensitive opportunities or scale their efforts for a maximum impact.
Cynthia Adams:
And I've noted a few here on the slide. We have all of the PRIs and loan opportunities for nonprofits in the GrantStation database. I don't know if other ones do or not. I should know that, but I don't. Sorry.
Cynthia Adams:
And then you want to consider donations of products and services. Now, you have to go back and look at your budget here. Remember, on that worksheet you had some brand names? You want to check out those sources. For example, if you're looking for a Sony video camera, check out the Sony Corporate Giving Program to see if they give away equipment.
Cynthia Adams:
If the brand doesn't have a product donation program, then go to one of these clearing houses on the screen here. TechSoup, yay, my favorite; Good360; and the National Exchange for Industrial Resources.
These are industrial resources, so that's where the non-woven fabric industry makes their donations. So, if you're looking for donations of products and services, then I encourage you to do that upfront
because you'll have some successes right off the bat. Go that route.
Cynthia Adams:
Okay, we got to dive into secondary research here. After doing all that research, you're going to have a solid set of funders that you can work with. Now, you have to do secondary research, and you're going to look more closely at each one of these grant makers.
Cynthia Adams:
So, where do you start? I like to start by reviewing the funder's website information, beyond their profile on GrantStation or some other database or their information on the state or federal website, and I look closely at the application guidelines. Because reviewing the guidelines really gives me a sense of whether I'll fit or not with that grant maker. At this juncture, if you do fit, if you look at the secondary research, you see that the application guidelines are something you can conform to, you can work with, then you keep them on your list and you move forward.
Cynthia Adams:
The next place I like to look is at the annual report. The annual report gives you a clear sense of their mission, of the grant maker's mission and their vision. I like it because they have basic language references. I've got ... It's wrong, re3ferences. It's a new word. You guys don't know it. You can look it up, but you ain't going to find anything.
Cynthia Adams:
So, I like to use the basic language that the funder is using in their annual report. Sometimes the CEO will have a message in the annual report and that really reflects what they intend to invest in the next year or two. It gives you a lot of good information, so I like to look at the annual report.
Cynthia Adams:
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If you're a GrantStation member, if they have an annual report, it'll be on their profile. You can just click on that. If it still looks like a good funding source, then you're going to want to look at grants awarded.
And again, if you belong to GrantStation, there will be a link on the right-hand side of their profile about the grants awarded. You could just click on that. If you aren't, then go to their website and look around to see if they have a list of awardees that they've made in the last year or so.
Cynthia Adams:
That grants awarded list really gives you a good indication of the types of organizations they're funding, where they are located, and the amount of money that they're dedicating to each one so it really helps you understand that particular grant maker better. If it still looks good, then you want to move on; or if you're looking at government, for example, then you want to look at the enacting legislation.
Cynthia Adams:
I like to look at enacting legislation. Very few grant researchers do this. I like to do it because I like the pulled language that they've used in the enacting legislation. Because that's usually the direction the agency gets, and it's not necessarily used in the notice about the grant opportunity.
Cynthia Adams:
So, if it still looks like a good source for you, then it's time to develop questions about the grant maker.
What should I ... Well, actually, let me step back. I'm saying this incorrectly. While you're doing all that research, you need to be making a little list of questions about each grant maker. I've got a couple of examples of questions you might ask them if you haven't come up with anything else when you're ready to send them an email or make a phone call. But you have to ask the right questions, which means you have to do all that review that I just talked about. You don't want to be asking them questions if those answers are already published in the materials they have, the website, the application guidelines, whatever. Make sure you're asking the grant maker questions that are specific to the funding opportunity, specific to what you want to know, and that aren't already answered in their published materials. That's super important.
Cynthia Adams:
Once you have developed a question or two or a set of questions, then I suggest sending an email or contacting them by phone. If it's a local business or a statewide business, you probably feel comfortable making a phone call. If not, an email works just fine, and most grant makers are pretty open to emails these days.
Cynthia Adams:
I like to put in the subject line something like, I have a quick question, or two quick questions. Something like that, that says to the grant maker this isn't going to take forever. And you want to make that email short and easy for them to answer a specific question. If you're calling, tell them exactly how much time you need, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and stick with that amount of time when you're on the phone with them. But if you're writing them an email, make sure it's short and quick. Same with when you're scripting that phone call, short and quick. Don't go over the amount of time.
Cynthia Adams:
You guys, I learned this lesson the hard way. You know, I lived in Alaska for 40 years, so when I would call a grant maker, they always wanted to talk about Alaska. And of course, I'm an Alaskan, so I wanted
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to talk about it too. So, 5 minutes, 10 minutes into the call and all we've done was talk about this date. I might get my questions answered, but the next time I would call them, they wouldn't take my call because we talked too long. So, you want to keep it super short.
Cynthia Adams:
And remember, you're not trying to sell them on your project, you're not trying to sell them on who you are. These questions aren't like, will you fund us? This question is, this is a fairly technical project we're undertaking, are they comfortable reviewing technical language or should I make it more of a lay person language? Ask them very specific questions about that. Do not try to sell them on your project.
Cynthia Adams:
Don't give them very much information about who you are at all. You know, "This is Mary from the Literacy Board in Illinois, and I have two very quick questions," and that's it. And you ask the questions about the project or about application, not about ... Don't try to sell them on who you are. And don't be shy about this. Research is the key to securing grants, so you have to be really confident and bold. You need to either ask those questions via email or via phone. Make that call or send that email.
Cynthia Adams:
Okay, we're getting close to the end and we're also getting close to the end of time, so I'm going to move on, Aretha, without asking, taking questions yet, and then we'll take them at the end. I can stay on as long as we need to stay on.
Cynthia Adams:
Okay, let's talk about generating a strategic approach. So, after you've narrowed the field to the best possible set of grant makers via that phone call, via that email, then you need to develop a strategy, and that's the sixth step in that process that we looked at earlier.
Cynthia Adams:
I began writing proposals in the early 1970s. No, I guess it was the late 1970s. Thank God, I was relatively successful. But much of that success was based on the issue, which was environment conservation; the location, which was Alaska; and the decade, which was the 70s. It wasn't based on my skills or how well I was doing in researching and writing proposals. So, in a way I was blessed because I was achieving success. But then, in another way, I was hindered because I was securing grant awards, but I really wasn't learning as much as I could about what I now think of as intentional grant seeking. I mean, it was great for my ego, but it wasn't necessarily great for learning what I needed to do. So luck is not a strategy.
Cynthia Adams:
It's important that you know that to develop a successful grant strategy, you need to sort of step back and think strategically. But thinking strategically can be a bit of a brain twister. You know, I often find myself sort of scratching my head when someone says, "Oh, we need to figure out a strategy here." You know, are they talking about tactics? Are they talking about a broader view? A policy? What are they referencing? I really don't know. And it seems that if you introduce the word strategy into any conversation, clarity kind of goes down the drain.
Cynthia Adams:
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Thinking strategically, you guys, creating a strategic grant seeking approach is really just a matter of being able to project. You make projections really based on the information that you've collected so far.
And grant strategies are always base intact. It's all the information you've collected. But of course, now you need to make an assumption. So, it's base intact but you need to make assumptions.
Cynthia Adams:
Make sure that your strategy for each individual project, each one of those project worksheets that you developed, stays goal oriented. And what does that mean? It means you have to raise that amount of money to do the project. So, always keep that in the back of your mind. You're going to be referencing all that information that you've dredged up so far about each grant maker because those are the facts.
That's what you know. But then, you're going to be weaving that all into assuming, making assumptions, about who can give you what, which one of these grant makers will fund you, and when and how much they're going to give you. You have to stay somewhat flexible in your thinking here because you're going to change things as you move forward, and award will change things just as much as a denial of a proposal.
Cynthia Adams:
So, once you have your strategy in place, you've decided who you're going to go to and how much you're going to ask them, what date you're going to submit your proposal, all of that kind of thing, then you want to map out your timing.
Cynthia Adams:
The main concept driving this is that you're going to hit up all of these different people. But let's say you need $100,000. Now, look at this list, you're applying for a lot more than 100,000. Or let's say you need 200,000. You're applying for a lot more than $200,000. Well, yeah, you are because you're going to receive denials, so you always have to apply for more than what you will actually get.
Cynthia Adams:
Harken back to that Opioid Outreach Program that we talked about, our funding strategy for that was to secure a planning grant from the Department of Health and Human Services then apply for product donations to Apple. Then we were going to secure seed funding from some local and regional funders so we can show there's a real commitment at the local level, and we're going to use that local support to leverage the municipality's investment, and then we're going to submit to community foundations and a couple of other funds and associations before the end of the year. And then if we still needed funds towards the end, then we are going to apply to the nonprofit finance fund for either a grant or a short- term loan. That was our strategy.
Cynthia Adams:
I know I'm moving fast here, but I want to make sure I get everything in. I could talk really fast if you want me to, but I won't.
Cynthia Adams:
So, what you want to do there ... Let me go back for a second. What you want to do there is create this kind of strategy, just lay it out for yourself, on how you're going to move forward. Then when you get that call from, I don't know, the municipality and they say, "Yeah, we could see that you've got that planning money from the feds and you've got some seed funding, but how are you going to get the rest
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of it? Because we only give 50,000." Then you can share with them the rest of your strategy. You may get that call early on, or the grant maker may ask you how are you going to fund this three-year project, right? So, you want to have that strategy in your back pocket. It's just a smart, smart business planning to do that.
Cynthia Adams:
Okay, final thing. Establish your work schedule. What you want to do is you want to create a calendar.
Now that you've got one project description worksheet and all these different funders, you need to step back and create a calendar. You can use Excel, you can use a Google Calendar or you can buy something like GrantHub, which I like a lot but it's costly. If you're a smaller organization, just stick with Excel or Google Calendar and start building your calendar in that tool.
Cynthia Adams:
When you build the calendar, you just want to make sure that you're accurate with your time
estimations. It's really east to think, "Oh, that's a month away. I'll put that right there. I'll get that done in a month," without stepping back and looking at what else is on your calendar during that month. And when you realize you have an event and you have a board making and you're taking a three-day
vacation, you think, "Oh, wait a minute, maybe I can't get that done within a month's time." So, just be accurate with your time estimations.
Cynthia Adams:
And schedule those high energy tasks near the beginning. So, if you have to create a collaborative relationship with a new organization in order to apply, they've said, yeah, they want to do it, but you want to get that underway, that's a high energy task. So, you want to schedule that near the beginning of the calendar as you start working forward to write this proposal. And then you develop a routine and really stick with it. Adhering to a calendar, that's really going to help as you move forward.
Cynthia Adams:
When I develop my calendar, I almost always, and you will too, and you probably do this now, just take out the application guidelines for each of the, let's say, five funders you're going to go to for funding this project. And then identify those areas that are going to take the most time and energy. Here, you'll see I put them in red. That allows me to get those things done first. You don't have to write your proposal in order you need to write it so that you're doing those things that are high energy first.
Cynthia Adams:
And then ... Yeah, it's going to get messy. You're going to have a lot of tasks that need to be done, and each grant maker is going to have a list of things, maybe not a long list but one or two things that you need to do so that you can apply to that grant maker.
Cynthia Adams:
You see on this slide how it's sort of, somebody is putting sticky notes on printed out information. That's actually how I do it. If you're a real tech savvy, you can do it all on the computer. I need a visual, I need my hands on paper, and so I do actually a lot like this.
Cynthia Adams:
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It does get messy before it all comes into focus, and you can actually plot out your working calendar for the year. Because now, remember, you're going to have a project description for each one of the projects that you have, and each one of those projects is going to have two or three, or four or five funders, so you have to look at their application guidelines and you have to plot that on your working calendar. But you're going to do that for each one of the projects that need funding, so that's going to be a lot of plotting and planning and moving things around.
Cynthia Adams:
I'm going to give you a tip here, though, something that I like to do. This is just as example of what a master calendar might look like. You're going to have sort of a working calendar which will probably be on Google Calendar or Excel or something, and then you're going to have a master calendar.
Cynthia Adams:
I like to take the master calendar. If you're in an office, you can post it on the wall because it keeps you kind of on task, it's easy to read, it's easy to reference and other walking into your office can see your deadlines and that your plate's already pretty full, and maybe a little cognizant of that fact where they ask you to do something else that they need done. So, I like to have the master calendar posted. If you can do that, do that. If you can't, maybe post it on the web if you have an office area.
Cynthia Adams:
You want to build this program, so you want to make sure your master calendar gives you a visual of the upcoming work, and you want to make sure your working calendar is on your computer and you, is on Google Calendar or something, has all the details in it. Once you've done this for, let's say you've done three project description worksheets and you are looking at 15, your 16 funders and all the tasks that need to be done, you may feel that you've overloaded your plate, and you probably have. You need to step back and say, what can I let go? What can I do differently? This is the tip I was referencing earlier.
Cynthia Adams:
What I do when I'm working with one project description and, let's say, I have three funders, all three funders are going to ask for a budget. I oftentimes will work on the budgets for all three funders at the same time because budgets are tricky. You might add something or take something away, and you want to make sure that they all reflect one another. And also, the budget can be one of those things that you can get done ahead of time and you don't have to go back and work on it over and over and over again.
So, I like to sort of clump my work together.
Cynthia Adams:
If I'm writing the needs statement, I might try to write all three needs statements at the same time. One may just want one page; one may want five pages. That way, I could do it and have the same
information, but summarize it for one and expand on it for another. Same with the budget.
Cynthia Adams:
Okay, this is just how I do things. It's my process. You can adopt it, you can adapt it, you can throw it out. Just try out different components of what we really talked about today. And then when you get stuck on something, you should feel free to email me. It's just [email protected]. I love answering questions and helping people out, so don't be shy about that.
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Cynthia Adams:
I think I'm going to say thank you very much. I know it was a lot of information in a very short amount of time, and I will take questions. You can take the screen back if you wanted, Alicia, Athea.
Aretha Simons:
It's okay. We've been teasing each other about my name. All right, this is- Cynthia Adams:
All day.
Aretha Simons:
So much, yeah. That was amazing, thank you so much. So much good information. Can everybody see my screen? Because I do want to remind you of GrantStation's special coming up September 21st and 22nd, $99. I was a former grant writer and a grant reviewer for 15 years and I was paying $200 a month just to have access to a grant database, and some of you guys may be using that same database. But here, as TechSoup partner here at GrantStation, $99 for the whole year. You've seen the things that you have access to, so make sure you take advantage of that only on these days, September 21st and 22nd.
There is a link, we'll put the link in the chat room.
Aretha Simons:
Going back here, Kevin and Julie has been amazing with all these questions being answered. I mean, they've been like rapid fire with all these questions. Lots of comments in the chatroom. Tell me one thing ... Oh, good, good, good. Everybody say thank you so much for the information. Q&A, yeah it's a Zoom thing, I'm so sorry. The chat feature, I can't download it. Everybody is saying this has been great training, incredible. Lots of comments. Yes, please leave her a comment, what one thing that you took away from the day.
Aretha Simons:
We're putting the links for the GrantStation special right here. If you cannot get it ... I know you're saying sometimes the links are not working, you can email me, [email protected]. I can't download the chat, I'm so sorry. It's a Zoom thing, it's not us. I will be getting the chat at the end. As soon as I close it out, we'll have the recording and the chat. This will be available, and her slides will be available as well.
Aretha Simons:
Immensely helpful. Lots of thank you's in here, lots of thank you- Cynthia Adams:
You can start my video if you want, Athea.
Aretha Simons:
Your video?
Cynthia Adams:
Yeah. You can start it if you want so I can say goodbye everybody.
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Aretha Simons:
Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. Oh, of course. So sorry, yeah. See, we get so caught up. You got to be quick, quick, quick and pay attention here. Okay, so you, yeah, you're able to [inaudible 01:18:31] you have closing remarks.
Cynthia Adams:
I have some closing remarks. This was fun. I haven't had this much fun in weeks.
Aretha Simons:
I can tell you love it.aa Cynthia Adams:
You guys really ... I do. And really, you guys, [email protected]. I had to really go fast, so if there's information that you just didn't quite get or understand, please do feel free to email me.
Aretha Simons:
Great. Thank you so much. And please complete the survey. It's going to pop up as soon as you close your window. Still lots of comments. We're going to let those comments keep rolling. Just let them keep coming in because when you give this much, it's exhausting. So, Cynthia, thank you so much. I don't know what time it is where you are but thank you so much. This has been great.
Cynthia Adams:
It's nap time.
Aretha Simons:
It's nap time? It's nap time, yes. I get it. I get it. Bye-bye. Good night.
Aretha Simons:
Well, you all, thank you so much. Make sure you take care of yourself while you're taking care of everybody else. Have a great day.
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