By: Dan Mirgon, CFRE, CLU, ChFC
When I began working with ministries in the
early 90s, foundation grants were an important
part of our annual fund. I joined the
development department of an established
ministry that already had some history of
receiving funding from foundations. Most of the
grants were for programs that the ministry had
established years before, and I was given the
task of adding new funders to the list.
It was then that I began studying how
foundations gave money away. Not only were they
required to give a certain percentage of their
earnings away just to keep their tax-exempt
status, but most of them published their
criteria for how to get the money. The focus of
grant writing seemed to be on the quality of the
proposal and how many you sent out.
I’ve learned a few things since then, mostly
about how things change.
Back then, it was common that the foundation
simply wanted to receive your proposal as the
first action. You spent hours writing a
“perfect” proposal, added all the attachments
and shipped it overnight. Then you called to see
if there were any questions. Pretty simple, and
for the most part, if you sent enough out, you
got enough back. It was a numbers game.
Not any more. I returned to the grant process
a few years ago while working with a major
Christian university. Things had definitely
changed. The same directories were published and
for the most part, the same topics were covered
in the books – write a good proposal. But now it
was harder. What had changed?
I have identified at least two things that
require a shift in how funding is sought from
foundations: The “fixed income markets” and
“Enron.”
