Category Archives: Derek Link

Using the IRS Form 990 for Grant Research

By Derek Link, Non-Profit Consultant

The IRS requires that certain federally tax-exempt organizations file an IRS Form 990 as an annual mechanism for reporting income and expenses as well as other useful information. The 990 form provides information on the filing organization’s mission, officers, Board members, programs, and finances including assets, expenses, income, and grants.

All of this information can be useful to non-profit organizations looking for grant makers likely to make a grant to support their cause. The 990 gives information that is especially revealing for the purposes of grant research. A list of grants is included for that year. This information usually includes:

1. Recipient Agency Name
2. Grant Amounts
3. Agency Address
4. General purpose of the grant

I recommend using the 990 to gather the following information about the grant maker:

  • The range of grants that the agency made that year. 
  • The number of agencies that are similar to yours that received grants and the amounts and purposes of those grants.
  • The geographic locations where the agencies were that received funding.
  • The specific purposes of the grants. Were any of them for the same purpose for which you are seeking a grant?

If the 990 information for the previous year appears to make a grant maker a good bet for funding, I recommend going back one or two more years to review those 990 forms to verify the information.I also recommend looking at the current guidelines and even calling the grant maker (if such calls are allowable) to make certain that the grant you wish to submit will be of interest to the organization.

My last tip is this – if a grant maker indicates that it does not accept unsolicited proposals, look in the 990 form to see who is in charge of the foundation and who sits on their Board of Directors. You may have a contact among those names, or you could know someone who knows someone who would make an approach on your behalf or arrange a meeting. “Six degrees of Separation” can be a useful principle in making contacts that can lead to an invitation to submit a proposal.

Using the IRS Form 990 for Grant Research

By Derek Link, Non-Profit Consultant

The IRS requires that certain federally tax-exempt organizations file an IRS Form 990 as an annual mechanism for reporting income and expenses as well as other useful information. The 990 form provides information on the filing organization’s mission, officers, Board members, programs, and finances including assets, expenses, income, and grants.

All of this information can be useful to non-profit organizations looking for grant makers likely to make a grant to support their cause. The 990 gives information that is especially revealing for the purposes of grant research. A list of grants is included for that year. This information usually includes:

1. Recipient Agency Name
2. Grant Amounts
3. Agency Address
4. General purpose of the grant

I recommend using the 990 to gather the following information about the grant maker:

  • The range of grants that the agency made that year. 
  • The number of agencies that are similar to yours that received grants and the amounts and purposes of those grants.
  • The geographic locations where the agencies were that received funding.
  • The specific purposes of the grants. Were any of them for the same purpose for which you are seeking a grant?

If the 990 information for the previous year appears to make a grant maker a good bet for funding, I recommend going back one or two more years to review those 990 forms to verify the information.I also recommend looking at the current guidelines and even calling the grant maker (if such calls are allowable) to make certain that the grant you wish to submit will be of interest to the organization.

My last tip is this – if a grant maker indicates that it does not accept unsolicited proposals, look in the 990 form to see who is in charge of the foundation and who sits on their Board of Directors. You may have a contact among those names, or you could know someone who knows someone who would make an approach on your behalf or arrange a meeting. “Six degrees of Separation” can be a useful principle in making contacts that can lead to an invitation to submit a proposal.

Published by Creative Resources & Research http://grantgoddess.com

Grant Writing – A Romantic Misconception

By Derek Link, Non-Profit Consultant

The image of a warm fire crackling softly in the background, a golden retriever slumbering at his feet, perhaps even a hot cup of tea steaming beside the keyboard is the image of a grant writer’s days. No stress involved, just bucolic surroundings, creative narrative editing, just an aura of cerebral bliss, day-after-day.

Yeah, right. It’s more like a flue fire roaring, dog barking, cold forgotten teabag in a cup that was hot yesterday, piles of paper with scribbles and spotted with post-its, draft after red-edited draft scattered in loose piles on chairs and couches, and an impending deadline that is literally a deadline.

Grant writing, like most writing, can be romanticized beyond reality. Oh, there’s an art to it all right, but even art is mostly – as artists will tell you – about dogged determination and ongoing stubborn effort. Grant writing is all about striving with narrative to make it say what you want it to say in the way you want it to be said, and all within the confines of a page limit, a specific font size, and between margins of unbending width.

Grant writing is more akin to technical writing than to creative writing. Grant writing necessitates curbing your creative juices in order to stay on point and not stray off into irrelevant and space-stealing witticisms or flowery jibber-jabber. There is an element of creative writing to a grant because for the most part you’re writing about a program that does not exist yet, but effective grant narratives are mostly direct, expository copy in topic-specific, technical language.

I’ve had conversations with people about what I do and I tend to get this dreamy-eyed response from some of them. Their verbal response goes something like, “Oh, I’d LOVE to be a grant writer someday” as they mentally drift off to the study in fuzzy slippers. Their ignorance amuses me because I know the truth, but then I was there at one time myself.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I am not masochistic and making a living writing grants as some form of monastic self-flagellation. I do enjoy it, but it is definitely a love-hate relationship. I love the challenge and hate the deadline. I love the research and hate the restrictions.I love the competition and hate losing. I love the fact that there is a financial reward for the client (and me). I do enjoy grant writing, but the romance was gone forever as soon as I got my first edit and response from my grant writing mentor.

In my pre-grant-writing-career fantasies I had imagined finishing a sparkling narrative, pulling the crisp paper from the typewriter with a flourish and placing it respectfully upon the finished stack, putting a match to my pipe and puffing happily whilst sipping my steaming Earl Gray as Skipper wagged in proper canine admiration.

Sadly, there’s always someone who’s going to inject reality and burst the bubble. In my case it was a short, slightly sarcastic, practical-joker who could brilliantly dissect my narratives and never apologize for the lack of anesthetic. Alas, most unrealistic romantic grant writing fantasies are bound to end that way.

Grant Writing – A Romantic Misconception

By Derek Link, Non-Profit Consultant

The image of a warm fire crackling softly in the background, a golden retriever slumbering at his feet, perhaps even a hot cup of tea steaming beside the keyboard is the image of a grant writer’s days. No stress involved, just bucolic surroundings, creative narrative editing, just an aura of cerebral bliss, day-after-day.

Yeah, right. It’s more like a flue fire roaring, dog barking, cold forgotten teabag in a cup that was hot yesterday, piles of paper with scribbles and spotted with post-its, draft after red-edited draft scattered in loose piles on chairs and couches, and an impending deadline that is literally a deadline.

Grant writing, like most writing, can be romanticized beyond reality. Oh, there’s an art to it all right, but even art is mostly – as artists will tell you – about dogged determination and ongoing stubborn effort. Grant writing is all about striving with narrative to make it say what you want it to say in the way you want it to be said, and all within the confines of a page limit, a specific font size, and between margins of unbending width.

Grant writing is more akin to technical writing than to creative writing. Grant writing necessitates curbing your creative juices in order to stay on point and not stray off into irrelevant and space-stealing witticisms or flowery jibber-jabber. There is an element of creative writing to a grant because for the most part you’re writing about a program that does not exist yet, but effective grant narratives are mostly direct, expository copy in topic-specific, technical language.

I’ve had conversations with people about what I do and I tend to get this dreamy-eyed response from some of them. Their verbal response goes something like, “Oh, I’d LOVE to be a grant writer someday” as they mentally drift off to the study in fuzzy slippers. Their ignorance amuses me because I know the truth, but then I was there at one time myself.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I am not masochistic and making a living writing grants as some form of monastic self-flagellation. I do enjoy it, but it is definitely a love-hate relationship. I love the challenge and hate the deadline. I love the research and hate the restrictions.I love the competition and hate losing. I love the fact that there is a financial reward for the client (and me). I do enjoy grant writing, but the romance was gone forever as soon as I got my first edit and response from my grant writing mentor.

In my pre-grant-writing-career fantasies I had imagined finishing a sparkling narrative, pulling the crisp paper from the typewriter with a flourish and placing it respectfully upon the finished stack, putting a match to my pipe and puffing happily whilst sipping my steaming Earl Gray as Skipper wagged in proper canine admiration.

Sadly, there’s always someone who’s going to inject reality and burst the bubble. In my case it was a short, slightly sarcastic, practical-joker who could brilliantly dissect my narratives and never apologize for the lack of anesthetic. Alas, most unrealistic romantic grant writing fantasies are bound to end that way.

Published by Creative Resources & Research http://grantgoddess.com