The Internal Revenue Service will sponsor a free web cast on November 4 to brief you on far-reaching changes they’ve made to Form 990. That’s the form every tax-exempt organization in the U.S. must file each year. Among the changes: you’ll be required to list the salaries of your highest paid employees and to provide additional information on conflicts of interest. Find out how to meet the new standards before tax time rolls around. Go to http://www.taxtalktoday.com for details on the web cast.

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A grant proposal should deliver a clear and persuasive message to the grantmaker. "Avoiding Common Grant Proposal Mistakes" (Local/State Funding Report, September 22, 2008) gives advice on how to achieve this:

1. Use clear and precise language. Forget the boilerplate verbiage. Write for the particular funding opportunity you seek.
2. Make your points precisely and back them with evidence.
3. Don’t cobble your proposal together from bits and pieces of previous proposals.
4. Don’t parrot language from the RFP or the grantmaker’s web site.
5. Write simply and keep to the point.
6. Use technical terms, acronyms, and other jargon sparingly.
7. Provide all the documentation the grantmaker requests.
8. Communicate directly with the grantmaker if you have questions.
9. Organize your proposal into clearly marked sections and subsections.

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Federal, state, and local governments and United Ways are among the growing number of funders demanding "evidence-based practices" from service providers. Evidence-based practices are those that have shown a statistically significant improvement over alternative practices through randomized comparisons in more than one study.

If an RFP requires "evidence-based practices," make sure you know exactly how your funder interprets the term, cautions consultant Michael Wells in his two-part article, "Evidence-Based and Best Practices, Benchmarks and Baselines" (CharityChannel, September 3 and 10, 2008). Some grantmakers use more stringent definitions, requiring that the research establishing the improvements

1. has been published in peer-reviewed journals;
2. used large sample sizes; and
3. showed significant percentage changes in outcomes.

The requirements, Wells points out, can be especially challenging for small, local service providers and for groups that work with particular ethnic communities. (Full article can be accessed only by CharityChannel subscribers.)

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The costs of a new building go well beyond the structure itself. You’ll need equipment and materials for the programs the building will house. You’ll need furniture. You’ll need landscaping. In "Redefining Bricks and Mortar Projects to Generate More Funds," (CharityChannel, September 10, 2008), Cheryl Kester outlines two strategies for filling non-structural needs:

1. Identify grantmakers with an interest in the programs you’ll offer in the new building. Ask them to fund the materials, equipment, and furnishings you’ll need and/or to help with operating support.
2. Look for ways to incorporate green practices into your construction design—green roofs, rain gardens, energy-efficient climate control and lighting, landscaping that uses native plants. You may be able to win support for these aspects of the project from private foundations and/or agencies of state government. (Full article can be accessed only by CharityChannel subscribers.)

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When stock values plummet, grant applicants start to worry. Will declines in investment values lead to declines in foundation support?

In some cases, yes. Certainly they make foundation managers nervous about their short- and long-term capacity to make grants. But market gyrations alone are not reliable indicators of grantmaking ability.

The more than 73,000 grantmaking foundations in the U.S. have their money invested in a variety of ways and must maintain a level of giving, over time, based on their assets. Therefore a short-term dip in stock values doesn’t necessarily signal an immediate drop in giving.

What you must keep in mind when you apply for foundation funding is that you are almost always competing against other applicants. That is true whether the foundation’s total grant budget goes up or down. To succeed, you must submit a competitive proposal that responds to the foundation’s interests as these are reflected in the foundation’s guidelines and funding habits.

So in bad economic times (just as in good ones), if you’re going after private money, your first step must be to systematically research foundation giving patterns.

Search the internet to find out whether the foundation has a web site. In most cases, a foundation web site will provide valuable information about the foundation’s activities. Foundations can update their web sites quickly when their guidelines, priorities, or anticipated giving levels change.

A staffed foundation’s web site is also likely to include a list of grants made in the past. This is useful information; however, such a list is only a retrospective review—not a promise of future action.

Whether you’re studying a foundation’s web site or its printed reports, be sure to look for:

• Statements by the president, chair and/or director. These may reveal a foundation’s commitment to keeping up with a particular need. Or they may announce the scaling back of activity in a specific area.
• Press releases. These are most common with the largest funders and they may reflect formal announcements of changing priorities.
• Sections labeled "what’s new" or "happenings" or the like. Here’s where you’re likely to find recent formal announcements.

But don’t limit your online research to the foundation’s web site. If you do online searches using the foundation’s name as the keyword, you may find statements or comments made by foundation staff or officers at recent conferences or meetings.

If you’re researching a regional foundation, you may find its publications, guides, or announcements of priorities in your local Foundation Center Cooperating Collection. This can be particularly helpful if the foundation has no web site.

Tax returns for foundations can be accessed online, at no charge, through such services as The Foundation Center and GuideStar. These can provide useful information, particularly about unstaffed foundations, but since they’re not the most current tax returns, don’t expect them to be dependable guides in changing times.

It also helps to have a network of friends in the not-for-profit or financial fields (bank trust officers, for example). They may be able to tell you about local unstaffed foundations and alert you to any changes these grantmakers are going through.

Your ultimate tool? The telephone. At staffed foundations, program officers are usually the best guides to help you decide whether or not the foundation is a good prospect for a particular project. But it’s important to know as much as you can before you pick up the phone and call.

As in all forms of fundraising, personal contact will increase the likelihood of a favorable response to your request. So if an in-person meeting with the program officer is possible, try to arrange one. Before you do, you should know whether anyone connected to your organization has been in contact with that program officer or with others at the foundation. If so, ask your colleague to brief you on the best approaches to use.

Before you go into the meeting, make sure you have some telling anecdotes to show how effectively your organization’s work addresses the foundation’s mission.

Finally, be sure to follow up your visit with a note of thanks. This note should also summarize your discussion—and the next steps, if there are any.

Chuck Putney has been a consultant trainer for The Grantsmanship Center for 20 years. He has worked extensively on successful federal grant proposals funded by the Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, Labor and Housing, and Urban Development.

Jim Abernathy is a consultant to nonprofit groups and to other organizations on general management, board and staff leadership issues, coalition-building, and grantmaking. He has worked in the field of nonprofit management for over 35 years and was the founding Executive Director of the Environmental Support Center.

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