If the word “grants” makes you want to close your laptop and take a long walk, you are not alone. The grant process has a reputation for being complicated, time-consuming, and discouraging. You have probably heard the stories: hundreds of hours of work, long waiting periods, and rejection rates that would make anyone hesitant.
The truth is, finding and applying for grants does not have to feel overwhelming. With the right preparation and a clear sense of where to look, grants can become one of the most reliable and rewarding parts of your fundraising strategy.
Grants, which are large donations given by foundations, corporations, or government entities to support your work, are an essential income source for many nonprofits. In fact, foundation and corporate grants make up about 15 percent of nonprofit revenue on average. Whether you are brand new to the process or looking to sharpen what you already do, there is room to grow, so let’s dive in!
Grant Basics: What You Actually Need to Know
A grant is different from an individual donation in one important way: it comes from an institution, not a person, and it almost always comes with a formal application process. To receive a grant, your nonprofit submits a written proposal to a foundation, corporation, or government agency explaining what you need the money for and how you will use it. You back that up with data, documentation, and a clear plan.
Grant amounts vary widely. Some are a few hundred dollars. Others are in the hundreds of thousands. Many funders also award multi-year grants, meaning you might receive $20,000 a year over three years rather than a single lump sum. That kind of sustained support can make a real difference for programs that need time to grow.
Why Grants Belong in Your Fundraising Mix
If your nonprofit relies heavily on one or two funding sources, you are taking on more risk than you probably realize. Losing a major donor or a key event revenue stream can put your programs in jeopardy fast. Grants help protect you from that.
Here are three reasons grants deserve a spot in your annual fundraising plan.
They grow your organization. Larger grant awards give you the capacity to invest in your work at a scale that individual donations often cannot match. That might mean hiring staff, expanding a program, or finally funding that initiative you have been talking about for two years.
They diversify your income. Think of your funding sources the way a financial advisor thinks about a portfolio. Spreading your income across individual donors, events, earned revenue, and grants gives you stability. If one stream slows down, the others can carry you.
They relieve financial pressure. Most grants are significantly larger than individual gifts, and multi-year awards give you predictability that makes long-term planning a lot easier.
4 Common Types of Grants
Before you start searching, it helps to know what kinds of grants are out there. The four most common types for nonprofits are:
1. Program Support Grants
These are restricted grants, meaning the money must be used for the specific program or project outlined in your proposal. They generally do not cover administrative costs, so keep that in mind when you are building your budget.
2. General Operating Support Grants
These are the most flexible and most sought-after type of grant because they can cover almost any expense, including overhead. They are also the least common. Most foundations prefer to fund specific programs rather than general operations, but when you find a funder who offers operating support, it is worth pursuing.
3. Research Grants
These are most common for health and science-focused organizations and are often awarded to researchers affiliated with academic institutions. If your nonprofit is doing research or evaluation work, it is worth exploring whether research grants might be a fit.
4. Matching Grants
Some funders will commit to a certain grant amount on the condition that you raise an equal amount from other sources. These can be a great motivator for your donor community and a strong signal of funder confidence in your work.
4 common types of grants
4 Practical Tips for Finding Grants
1. Establish a Budget Before You Start Searching
One of the most common mistakes nonprofits make is searching for grants before they know exactly what they need the money for. Funders want to know precisely how their dollars will be used. Vague requests rarely get funded.
Start by identifying the specific project or expense you need funding for. Then build a line-by-line budget that accounts for every cost: staff time, supplies, services, travel, and any administrative expenses allowed under the grant type you are pursuing. When you know exactly what you need and why, your proposal will be far more compelling, and you will be able to quickly assess whether a given grant is even worth applying for.
2. Know Where to Search
There is an enormous amount of grant money available for nonprofits, but it is spread across thousands of foundations, corporations, and government programs. The key is finding funders whose priorities genuinely match your work.
Start local. Talk to other nonprofits in your community. Ask who they are funding, who has been responsive, and who tends to give to organizations your size. Your regional community foundation is often one of the best places to start, and building a relationship with a program officer there can open more doors than any database search.
From there, you can expand your search with free resources like:
- Candid – It is the most comprehensive database of private foundation grants available. Many public libraries offer free access, so check with yours before paying for a subscription.
- ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer – You can pull 990 tax filings for free. A funder’s 990 shows you exactly who they have given to, for how much, and over how many years. This is some of the most useful research you can do.
- Grants.gov – It is the go-to resource for federal grant opportunities and is relatively straightforward to navigate.
Your state’s nonprofit association often maintains a regional grant database that gets overlooked. It is worth checking.
If you want to speed up your research, AI tools like Claude or ChatGPT can help you quickly summarize a foundation’s priorities from their website or annual report, saving you time before you commit to a full application.
3. Make Sure You Actually Match the Criteria
Once you have a list of potential funders, take the time to read their guidelines carefully before you invest hours in writing a proposal. Grant criteria vary significantly from funder to funder, and applying to a foundation that does not fund your issue area, your geography, or your organization type is time you will not get back.
Look for alignment in a few key areas: the type of work they fund, the size of organizations they typically support, their geographic focus, and whether they have funded similar organizations before (which you can check in their 990).
A strong tip from experienced grant writers: look at what other nonprofits similar to yours are getting funded for. If you run a youth mentorship program, research who is funding other mentorship organizations in your region. That list of funders is your starting point.
4. Get Your Documents in Order
Most grant applications ask for a similar set of supporting documents. If you have these ready before you start applying, you will save yourself enormous amounts of time and stress.
3 simple steps to make sure you are grant ready
The documents most funders request include:
- Your organization’s history and mission statement
- A description of the population you serve and the needs you address
- A summary of your programs and how they are distinct from other services in your community
- Your major accomplishments to date
- An explanation of how you measure and evaluate your impact
- Staff and leadership bios
- A list of partner organizations
- Financial documents including audited financials, a program budget, a budget narrative, a list of other funders, and your most recent Form 990.
You will also almost always need your 501(c)(3) determination letter and your most recent annual report.
Keep all of these in a shared folder (Google Drive works perfectly for this) so anyone on your team can access them quickly. Updating them once a year takes far less time than scrambling to find them the week before a deadline.
One more thing worth doing: search your organization on Candid and Charity Navigator and make sure your profile is current and complete. Many funders check these sites as part of their due diligence, and an outdated or incomplete profile can raise questions you do not want them asking.
A Few Questions We Hear a Lot
You may be asking them to, so let’s put it out in the open!
Question: Can I Use Grant Money for Online Fundraising?
Answer: Yes, in some cases. How you use it depends on the type of grant. Here are a few ways nonprofits often combine grants with their online fundraising:
- Donation matching: Use grant funds to match individual donor gifts during a campaign, which can significantly boost your results. CauseVox’s platform makes it easy to feature a match prominently in your campaign.
- Capacity building: Some grants are specifically designed to fund infrastructure and administrative expenses, including the cost of fundraising tools and consulting services.
- Social proof: Announcing a grant award on your fundraising page signals credibility to donors. It shows that an institutional funder has vetted and invested in your work.
Just make sure you understand the restrictions on any grant before you use it. A program grant cannot automatically be redirected to fund a crowdfunding campaign.
Question: Should I apply if I only meet some of the requirements?
Answer: In most cases, no. Every funder has specific criteria, and applying when you do not clearly meet them is rarely a good use of your time. Read the guidelines thoroughly. If you are unsure whether you qualify, call or email the program officer and ask before you apply.
Question: Should I hire a grant writer?
It depends on your capacity. A strong grant application can take anywhere from 20 to 100 or more hours from start to finish. If your team is already stretched thin, hiring a freelance grant writer can be a smart investment. If you want to build the skill in-house, make sure the person taking it on has the time, training, and tools to do it well.
Question: What if my nonprofit is brand new?
Most funders want to see demonstrated impact and a diversified donor base before they invest in an organization. That does not mean you cannot start applying, but it does mean you should be building your individual donor community at the same time. Running a peer-to-peer or crowdfunding campaign, even a small one, shows funders that real people believe in your work. That matters more than you might think.
You Are Ready to Start
Grant funding is not reserved for large, established organizations with full-time development staff. It is accessible to nonprofits of every size, and the fundraisers who are most successful at it are not necessarily the best writers. They are the most prepared and the most persistent.
Use this guide as your starting point. Build your document library now, before the next deadline hits. Research funders who genuinely align with your mission. And remember that every application you submit, funded or not, makes the next one better.
At CauseVox, we work with nonprofits every day who are building the kind of healthy, engaged donor communities that make grant applications stronger. Ready to join the unified fundraising platform so you can save time, raise more, and build deeper donor relationships?
