so what is it grant I'm Dan Kimball product specialist at Aplos software
and I've had a lot of experience doing fundraising in fact 20 years of
fundraising and part of that time was actually writing and submitting grant
proposals so a lot of people ask what exactly a grant is
the very basic at the core what a grant really is is it's a it's a way for nonprofits to get money
but the funding stream is different the funding comes typically from either
government agency or a foundation it's really what they call a funder a funder
is giving money to your nonprofit in a for you to use for the betterment
of your of your work there's a lot of grants out there there's government
grants that are that are designed to give back to certain areas like
education arts that's sometimes those actually even tax dollars that are
getting redistributed so that's called a government or a state funded grant along
with that there's also corporate grants where companies as a way to give back
goodwill back to their communities will will offer grants and there's also
private foundation grants where they are a nonprofit foundation they're in the
business of helping Society or helping communities but what they do is they
grant money to nonprofits to help do the work that that supports their own
missions so some of the different grants that you'll find out there is is there's
government grants they're state grants there's competitive grants also called
RFPs which is a request for Proposal there's corporate grants there's mini
grants there's actually foundation grants large and small some being a
little more competitive than others so those are kind of the you know that some
of the ones that you would find if you're looking for them there's also
Hugh Grant there's Amy Grant there's ulysses s grant so grant
really is a it's a pot of money that's out there that somebody's giving again
we call those a funder and nonprofits are in a sense competing for or asking
to be awarded that money when I think about grants I know that you know
corporate grant or a Foundation grant or government grant they can look a little
bit different corporate grants tend to be away which large large corporations
like a target or a Walmart or a Microsoft somebody like that it's
they're kind of their way to give back to the community in some cases a lot of
corporations will actually set up a foundation and they're required to give
back to the community but they look and feel a little bit different than a
government grant or a state grant because those again are tied up into
federal or state monies and they're required to give back to a certain level
so there's requirements might be might look a little different there's also
larger grants and smaller grants I term mini grant a mini grant might be just a
one or two page application that you fill out some basic information whereas
a larger graph it can require you know 15 20 sometimes I've written a grant
that was a hundred pages long before a lot more detail a lot more requirements
they're very competitive I think there's positives and negatives
about grants I mean one of the positives about a grant is that it's a great way
to find some necessary money for your organization grants can fund programs
grants can fund people grants can fund staff grants can fund technology so if
you're a up-and-coming nonprofit it's a great way to find some money and to get
yourself going the opposite side of grants might be is that if you're too
relying if you're relying too heavily on a grant and that money dries up you know
you have to kind of replace that at some point so you know I I see I see both
good so I don't want to call it bad but I definitely think to be careful with
grants and that you don't rely on them too much but there's a lot out there
that's the encouraging thing I would encourage all nonprofits to at least
explore grants find out if there's if there's a grant out there that meets the
needs of your organization locally and maybe even regionally and
some nationally there's a lot of resources out there about how to find a
grant both nationally and locally so for some great resources on grants check out
the description in the link below on this video so in my next video we're
gonna talk about how do I actually get a grant so subscribe to this page or check that out