February 12, 2004 | Read Time: 4 minutes
Q. I am the director of a decades-old, grass-roots recreational group in Cincinnati that serves girls from low-income households. We are at a dead end in trying to find funding; help from the city and a local community foundation has dried up. Got any ideas where we might look for grants?
A. If you’ve been managing for decades on grants, you have been very lucky, says Christine Graham, a fund-raising consultant in Burlington, Vt. It isn’t particularly surprising that your funds have dried up, she says, as foundations typically do not want to support the same organizations year after year. So, if you want to continue to rely on grants, you will have to put a new face on this effort to find support. She suggests looking at your program from new angles. “Focus on characteristics and new challenges for this organization which might appeal to a different batch of foundations than you’ve gotten support from in the past,” she says. You might try a brainstorming session with board members or friends to learn how they perceive the organization, and see if those impressions lead you to refocus your grant search, she says.
Very few grants go to programs specifically for women and girls, says Ellen Markowitz, president of PowerPlay NYC, an organization in New York that teaches girls sports and life skills. However, those grant makers who do support such programs typically have a specific focus for their efforts, such as literacy, college preparation, health, education, or peer leadership. To make your program more attractive to those foundations, she says, you need to communicate what else your recreational group does for girls and demonstrate how it does it: “Does it build leadership? How? Better study habits? Do the girls from your group graduate high school at a higher rate than their peers? Do they go to college?”
For example, Ms. Markowitz says, PowerPlay NYC has received money from a grant maker that supports pregnancy-prevention efforts because her charity was able to show the role sports can play in preventing teenage pregnancies. “If girls are playing sports, feeling strong, and feeling good about their bodies, they may make different choices,” says Ms. Markowitz. Another huge national issue with all children is obesity and its associated medical problems, so you might consider collaborating with a health center or with medical professionals to add a health component to your program, she says. Doing so, she says, might help expand the types of grants for which you could be eligible.
One specific grant maker that Ms. Markowitz suggests checking out is the Women’s Sports Foundation, in East Meadow, N.Y. One of their programs, called “GoGirlGo,” supports girls’ sports programs that combine athletic instruction with the delivery of educational information aimed at reducing risky health and social behaviors in girls between the ages of 10 and 14. The most recent deadline for grant applications was in November, she says, but it may be worth considering for the next application cycle.
Additional possibilities include the Ms. Foundation for Women, in New York, which provides multiyear awards to programs that support youth development through its “Collaborative Fund for Youth-Led Social Change,” or contact your local chapter of the National Organization for Women, which may also provide some money. The American Association of University Women, in Washington, also offers two-year Community Action Grants to help charities start long-term programs in math, science, or technology for girls in kindergarten through high school. For more ideas, consult with umbrella groups of grant makers that focus on women and girls, such as the Women’s Funding Network, in San Francisco, or Women and Philanthropy, in Washington.
You can also search The Chronicle’s Guide to Grants for relevant key words like “youth” and “girls.” And finally, the Foundation Center, in New York, has comprehensive listings of grant makers, which can be searched by key words. Click on “Grantmaker Web Sites” on the home page’s “Finding Funders” menu to reach the search engine.
While continuing the search for grants is important, says Ms. Graham, don’t stop seeking money from individuals. “Hopefully, after decades of work, you have some visibility and people recognize your organization,” she says. “I’d work the funding pyramid from both ends, doing some grass-roots appeals to a broad mailing list of individuals in your region and at the same time finding and cultivating potential major donors.” Find out who the top donors are for other Cincinnati programs for girls, for low-income needs, and for recreational programs, and visit these individuals to ask for advice on how to proceed, advises Ms. Graham. Not everyone will be interested, she says, but some may have ideas or contacts for you — and, with luck, some may want to support you themselves. If your board does not already include major donors or prospects, she says, start recruiting them.
“Over time, the secret to your success will be individual donors, an active fund-raising board, and then the occasional grant to jump-start a new idea,” says Ms. Graham. “You’ll find this is really a more reliable way to sustain the organization, too. People are more consistent than foundations, and they’ll actually help you raise money from others, too.”
