With foundation grants accounting for only 10% – 15% of all charitable gifts in the United States, nonprofits should carefully assess if it makes sense to dedicate time and resources to compete for them.
Make no mistake, grants are extremely competitive. Foundations tend to prefer funding programs (55%) –especially new programs– to general operating (29%) or capital costs (21%). To get a sense of the total number of foundations, amounts given and the sectors to which they give, you can find statistics at the Foundation Center website. You will learn fun facts like only the top 1% of grant recipients captured half of all U.S. grant dollars, and the health sector received the most (28%) grant dollars.
Continue reading “TO PURSUE OR NOT TO PURSUE? The unrequited love of foundation grants”