Getting Grant Ready #1
If you want to apply to grants, there is a lot of “background” work that needs to be done first. This ranges from pulling together the HR policies that a funder may want to see (eg: Anti-Harassment) to getting your financial books in order. But none of that matters if you lack clarity on your purpose. Before you proceed with any grant, you need to know why you would be pursuing that grant. And in order to know that, you have to have 100% clarity on who you are as an organization. I don’t mean your organization’s history or broad mission; I mean its present purpose.
No NGO can do everything equally well. If you are a small or mid-size NGO, you’ll need to focus on one goal to center your programming. Not only will this prevent “mission creep”, but it’s also something grantors will require. Major funders (think the likes of McKenzie Scott) look for alignment with a focused, concrete purpose statement. “We work toward the economic empowerment to further human dignity” is not a concrete statement. “We train entrepreneurs and provide start up grants to enable women to escape poverty” is a concrete statement of purpose.
You may have secondary or even tertiary programs that support your primary goal—that’s fine, but you need to be clear about what your prime goal is. For instance, if you build wells, you may have as your purpose statement: “We dig wells to improve village health outcomes”. Now, you may also provide soap, rehabilitate latrines, have sanitation and hygiene education programs. That’s fine, as long as it fits under your goal “to improve village health outcomes” and supports your primary program “we dig wells” (and ensure they stay clean and are maintained and people know their importance, etc).
If—as is the case with many organizations—you have a mission statement and a values page and a list of programs, but no solid purpose statement that pulls it all together, a grants expert can help you articulate this. BUT if you have programming going in three different directions without an overarching purpose, a grants expert can’t bring you the focus you will need. In that case, you’ll need to have to have a strategy meeting with the C-suite and board members. Consultants (myself included) can help facilitate those conversations, but the decisions will ultimately be up to the organization’s leadership. Once a purpose statement is defined, your organization’s path to success is also defined. Program design, fundraising, and proposal development all become much easier.
