WHY INVEST IN A GRANT STRATEGY?

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Whether you’re a leader of a business or a Not For Profit (NFP), income generation is your number one priority. Strategies to achieve this could include sales strategy and marketing fundraising strategy (regular giving, Major Giving, Corporate Sponsorship). With an estimated $87 billion in Australian business grants available, investing in a grant strategy should be one of your key business priorities.

Why?

  • Investing in a grant strategy now assists in future-proofing your organisation and allows it to take advantage of available funding as it appears. The COVID pandemic is a perfect example of how unexpected events affect your bottom line through decreased service demand or lack of spare cash to donate or spend. Though there was an increase in Government Grants to combat the situation, many businesses were not ready to take advantage because there was no active strategy.
  • Grant funds allow independence to invest in new products to demonstrate proof of concept prior to launch.
  • There is often grant funding available to support your business through the different stages of its growth.
  • Successful grant applications increase your sphere of influence. You and your organisation become known as a valuable ‘investment’ by funders, who are likely to introduce you to other funders or those that can boost your business.

How

So, what are the key components of a grant strategy? Well, they are not that much different from any other income-generating strategy.

Time: A grant strategy is a long-term investment. With many grant outcomes often unknown for over 2 – 3 months, this is not a quick fix – but the income is worth the wait.

Resources: Whilst you may not realise it, you already have the internal resources to assist the strategy. These are the finance team, the project team, the sales team, and the marketing team – as these are the content experts in how the project/product is structured, who benefits and why, what outcomes/KPIs are, costs associated and where revenue can be generated.

However, it is essential that one person coordinates all content and drafts your grant applications. This enables a smooth organisation to submit robust applications as part of your strategy on time.

But most important of all is having senior stakeholder engagement, commitment and alignment to the goals of your strategy. They have the authority to direct the team’s efforts to focus on the applications when meeting deadlines are critical.

Systems: These include:

  • Grant search databases. Though there are thousands of business grants and numerous Philanthropic grants out there, you need to be able to a) find them and b) make sure they are relevant to your business. Finding a grant database that works for you is critical.
  • Create a grant calendar. This assists in the timely planning of grant applications and gathering information from the content experts within your organisation.
  • Create a data bank of information that is relevant to multiple grants, that is easily accessible and has been approved. These include project plan or program logic, organisation governance and finance information, project KPIs, staff profiles, letters of support etc.
  • Acquittal spreadsheet – get ahead of the game to record milestones as they are achieved. This saves time and stress when acquitting your grants.

Leaders often put grant strategies in the too-hard basket. It does specific skills, effort, and expertise to develop a strong grant strategy. Like any other organisational revenue strategy, the rewards often outweigh the investment.