Guides → How to win general operating support grants

How to win general operating support grants

Written for organizations doing this without a development department.

General operating support is the money nonprofits want most and ask for worst. The usual mistake is writing it like a program request with the program removed.

What is actually being judged

When a funder restricts money to a program, they are betting on the program. When they give unrestricted money, they are betting on you — your leadership, your judgment about where money should go, and your likelihood of still existing in three years.

So the evidence that matters shifts. Financial health, board engagement, staff retention and a clear sense of priorities carry more weight than any single program's outcome numbers.

Say how you decide

A reviewer handing over unrestricted money wants to know how you will decide what to spend it on. Most applications never address this. A short passage explaining how your organization sets priorities — who is involved, how often, against what criteria — is unusually persuasive precisely because it is rare.

Name the constraint

Unrestricted funding is most compelling when it solves a problem restricted funding created. Many small nonprofits can fund the activity but not the supervision, scheduling, bookkeeping and insurance that make the activity possible. Say that directly. Funders who offer general operating support already believe it; you are confirming you understand your own situation.

Do not pretend to be bigger

Small organizations often inflate their language to sound established. It reads as insecurity. A clear-eyed account of a five-person organization that knows exactly what it does is stronger than a five-person organization writing like a fifty-person one.

What to include

• Years operating, and a one-line history of how you got here
• Budget size and the rough shape of your funding mix
• Board composition and how actively it governs
• What breaks first if this funding does not come through
• What becomes possible if it does

That last pair is the whole argument. Everything else is context.