The document provides guidance on preparing a nonprofit organization for grant readiness. It outlines key areas to address such as the mission statement, board of directors, problem statement, organizational history, programs, budget, goals and objectives. It emphasizes documenting all efforts, keeping good financial records, hiring an auditor, and demonstrating progress through measurements and evaluations. It stresses treating grant writers as professionals by providing all requested information and reports, and warns that grant writers alone cannot ensure funding without the organization doing the necessary work to prove they are qualified and competitive.

1. Steps to Grant Readiness
By World Grants

2. Mission Statement
• Clearly state your company’s long-term mission.
• Try to use words that will help direct the growth of your
nonprofit, but be as concise as possible.

3. The Board
• List all Board Members: name, role on your board,
address, phone number, email address, and affiliation
outside of your organization.
• Note if they contribute financially, if that is a requirement
to be on the board, and how much that annual
requirement is.
• If Board Members are not required to financially
contribute, list how much they typically contribute and
note if they contribute personal time to assist with daily
activities.

4. Problem
• What problem are you solving?
• What do you know about your current problem?
• Are there other organizations addressing this problem?
• Are there gaps in coverage for addressing this problem?
• What makes you different from the other organizations?
• What kind of outcomes will your efforts strive to achieve?

5. Organization History
• Be specific with regard to your organization’s history.
• How did your organization start and what year?
• What efforts did you begin with and how have they
evolved?
• Why is your team the best to address the problems you
seek to eradicate or alleviate?
• What is your leadership background and experience?

6. Program(s)
• Be specific with your program details and goals
• List the strategies you utilize to address the problem
• How do you measure progress?
• How do you evaluate efforts and how to you use that
evaluation to improve current efforts?
• How do you utilize volunteers?

7. Budget
• Budgets are a big problem. Many completely
misunderstand the purpose of the budget.
• Budgets must include income and expenses
• Budgets must project the current year’s expenses and
revenue projections.
• You must be realistic with your numbers.
• Make sure you demonstrate significant effort to raise
funds outside of grant support if you want foundations to
take you seriously.

8. Goals and Objectives
• State specific, measurable objectives for achieving your goals.
• Program goals need to be projected with deadlines and anticipated outcomes.
• Financial goals must be realistic. Do not hire anyone who wants to put together a
budget or business plan for your nonprofit who knows nothing about running a
nonprofit. Most of the budgets we see drawn up by such people are severely
unrealistic and unusable. Don’t waste your money.
• Do not demonstrate pie-in-the-sky revenues in your first years. That is not going to
happen and no foundation will believe you. You will be ignored. Be conservative
with your expenses, prove your efforts through local fundraising and community
outreach, seek support in the form of volunteers and in-kind donations as much as
possible. Include their values in your budget. This helps to demonstrate the support
your community provides and makes foundations feel more compelled to support
you as it shows you have potential for sustainability and that you are being wise with
your resources. You cannot think of this as a “big business” “big money” type of
budget. That is for investors looking to fund for-profits. You are a nonprofit, so you
have to think conservative and wise, not “look at how much money we anticipate
because we’re awesome!”

9. Volunteers
• Use volunteers widely and make sure they are trained
• Volunteers are great unless they end up costing you
precious time that you cannot afford to lose.
• Properly train your volunteers and have them document
their efforts so that you have a record for your future grant
funding pursuits and for any other reason you need to
demonstrate how well you utilize your volunteer support
• Find out where your volunteers work. Affiliations with
corporations can play a role in qualifying for certain grants.

10. Grant Writing
• Grant writers are great. They will not save you.
• You have to do the work to prove you qualify for the
grants no matter how fantastic your grant writer is. S/he is
not a magical fairy that can pull money out of the sky if
you’re sitting around drinking tea.

11. Grant Writers
• Grant writers are great. They cannot save you.
• Make sure you provide everything requested by your grant
writer in order for him/her to do the best possible
representation of your organization. Little info means a
wimpy application. If you don’t provide the necessary
documentation or information, nothing s/he can create for
you will save you. You wasted precious time and effort of
your writer by not respecting their efforts and time. Their
time is precious and should be treated as such.

12. Grant Writers
• Grant writers are great. They cannot save you.
• Your grant writer is not “hired help” that you can treat
however you please. If you hired a highly qualified and
skilled writer, you hired a professional. This requires you to
treat them as such, regardless of your mood or frustrations
that day. Always be professional.

13. Grant Writers
• Grant writers are great. They cannot save you.
• Provide all necessary reports as requested so that the grant
writer can follow up with all grant responses, reports, and
clarifying any proposal confusion that may have occurred
on the part of the foundation. Some foundations really
don’t read anything that is submitted, or they skim.
Sometimes your grant writer can save the effort if you send
in what was sent to you. In fact, it is required in your
contract. All approvals and denials must be submitted.

14. How to Succeed
• First and foremost you are competing for grant
funding.
• This means you have to operate like a world class
competitor if you wish to receive the benefit of financial
assistance from any foundation. Being excited and
determined does not mean qualified.

15. How to Succeed
• Get your act together!
• Document every single thing.
• Keep good financial records.
• Hire an outside auditor.
• Document all progress and measurements/evaluations
• Document volunteer efforts/hours/skills/affiliations
• Keep an organized filing system so that you don’t have to
search for everything when asked.

16. How to Succeed
• Hone your skills!
• Did you know that the “grant writer” you hired not only
has 20 years of experience in the nonprofit field, I also
have a degree in nonprofit management? If your skills
aren’t better than mine, then I personally recommend you
listen to my suggestions. Listen and implement. You have
to work harder than you currently are if you wish to receive
grant funding. You are competing against hundreds and
potentially thousands of others. Stand out. Show you do
the work. Prove you are worthy of funding!

17. How to Succeed
• Don’t be lazy!
• Sorry, but the one who doesn’t run the marathon wisely and
consistently will not win the race.
• You will be tired.
• You will be frustrated.
• You will experience hardship.
• You will also experience great successes and accomplishments!
• Live for the accomplishments and keep going. If it is hard –
work even harder! You are the only one stopping you from
success. Don’t point fingers. Do the work.