As a nonprofit organization, do you often feel like your approach to pursuing grants is haphazard, or do you feel unsure which grants to invest your limited resources in pursuing?  

Once your organization has formed and organizational priorities have been set, developing a funding strategy is an important and often overlooked next step. If your organization has a development director on staff, this may not be the case, but many small to midsize nonprofits have yet to reach this stage in their growth.  For these nonprofits, one of the most significant challenges is knowing which grant pursuits align with their mission and organizational goals, and which ones are most worth investing their resources in pursuing.  Frequently, nonprofits seek grant opportunities as they fall in their lap instead of taking a more proactive approach of identifying which applications would yield the greatest return on their investment. Developing a grant funding strategy is one way to mitigate the risks inherent in grant seeking by putting in the upfront time now to identify the best pursuits.  

An effective grant funding strategy is a road map of which grants to pursue over a 12 to 18-month time frame, based upon programmatic alignment, the funder’s giving priorities, the funder’s track record of giving to similar projects in the past, the competitiveness of the grant program, factors related to the funding guidelines, and the amount of work the application requires. An effective funding strategy will further identify the steps an organization needs to take to prepare them for the application process and ensure that they are funding-ready.  

If you need support with your grant research and writing, Spokes has resources for you.

Do you feel unsure where to begin when it comes to implementing a plan for program evaluation? 

Recently Dr. Tarek Azzam, Director at the Center for Evaluation and Assessment at Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, UCSB, offered a webinar to provide some guidance. The webinar offered a cursory overview of how to use evaluation as a means of truly supporting the mission of your organization.  Following are some of the key takeaways and resources provided:

• The evaluation process should begin with engaging stakeholders.
• Start with an evaluation plan that is feasible for your organization.
• The evaluation process is continuous and builds to greater depths of understanding and rigor through subsequent evaluation cycles.
• Always identify the people who will be responsible to ensure the evaluation data is implemented. 

Dr. Azzam recommends the Program Evaluation Framework developed by Centers for Disease Control, as a useful model to use to implement program evaluation from beginning to end. 

With this advice in mind, the process of evaluation will become so much more meaningful and approachable for your organization. 

If you would like to look at this topic in more depth, following are some additional resources:

• American Evaluation Association 
• Better Evaluation 
• Kellogg Foundation Logic Model Guide