The Spring 2018 State of Grantseeking Survey is live and ready for your input. Twice each year GrantStation encourages grantseekers to commit 10 to 15 minutes of valuable time filling out a survey. The survey asks detailed questions about organizations’ financials and grantseeking practices and outcomes. We have found that the results of these surveys can provide grantseekers with valuable information that can be used in strategic planning, managing board expectations, and day-to-day business operations.
Identify with respondents. The State of Grantseeking Reports depend upon thousands of respondents to supply current, accurate data on grantseeking efforts. Respondents to the State of Grantseeking Survey are largely nonprofit organizations with an annual budget of about $1 million. That doesn’t describe you? We break down the results of the survey by mission focus, budget size, service area, organizational age, and U.S. region so you can identify similar organizations to guide your grantseeking research.
Use grantseeking data. The results of the State of Grantseeking Survey can be used by your organization to figure out who is most likely to fund your organization, to set realistic grantseeking expectations, and to observe grant funding trends. Watch a webinar on the latest data to learn more.
- Know where to look for grants. The rate of funding varies by the grant source, with private foundations being consistently reported as the most common source of funding, followed by community foundations and corporate grants.
Private and community foundations may be the most common grant awards received but they are not the easiest to win. Organizations that applied for state and local government grants received those types of awards at a higher rate in Fall 2017.
Applications vs. Awards
- Set realistic expectations. The results of the State of Grantseeking Survey can help you determine a reasonable level of funding for your organization type. The number of awards and amount of grant awards varies greatly by organizational characteristics. For example, organizations with an animal related mission might be very satisfied with a $10,000 award, whereas an educational institution could need a much larger award to reach the same level of satisfaction. Similarly, a suburban organization would need to set a grant award expectation closer to $25,000, compared to an urban organization that could expect a larger average award.
- Observe trends. The median largest grant award has been the same, $50,000, for the past two and a half years and has only varied by about $5,000 since Fall 2011. While the overall trend has remained steady, there has been variation in funding sources. The median largest grant for community foundations decreased from $25,000 in Spring 2017 to $15,000 in Fall 2017. In contrast, the median largest grant from the Federal government increased from $250,000 in Spring 2017 to $580,100 in Fall 2017.
Median Largest Grant Award
Take the survey. Before you start the State of Grantseeking Survey, gather basic information about your organization and its grantseeking efforts in the second half of 2017. Think number of grants awarded, amount of grant funding, and sources of grant funding. The more accurate your answers, the better the results will be for you and other grantseeking organizations.
Please take a few minutes to fill out the survey. We thank you now, and we will thank you again with the published results in the free State of Grantseeking Reports.
The Spring 2018 State of Grantseeking Survey is live and ready for your input. Twice each year GrantStation encourages grantseekers to commit 10 to 15 minutes of valuable time filling out a survey.