# How to Get Grants for a Nonprofit: Find Funders Who Fit

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**How to get grants and funders for a nonprofit.** Start by building a funder list from evidence. Read foundation 990-PF filings and the donor pages in peer nonprofits' annual reports to see who already funds work like yours, in your geography. Then take that list to your board and find warm paths in. Package corporate sponsorships around the audience a company wants to reach, and pitch them before the company sets next year's budget. Last, make your website answer what a program officer checks before a call: outcomes, budget, leadership and your latest 990.

## Step by step

1. **Get your funder packet ready.** Write a two-page case statement: the problem in your community, what you do, who you serve and what changed last year. Pull your latest 990, audit or reviewed financials, board list and an organizational budget into one folder. Add a program budget and a simple logic model for your two or three most fundable programs. Program officers ask for these early, and having them ready keeps you in the running.
2. **Build a funder list from filings and peer reports.** List 15 nonprofits doing work close to yours in your region and pull the funder names from their annual reports and donor pages. Look up each foundation's 990-PF and check grant sizes, recipients and geography. Read each funder's guidelines and note whether they accept unsolicited inquiries, their deadlines and their board meeting months. Keep 40 real fits in your donor CRM, whether that's Bloomerang, DonorPerfect, Little Green Light or Raiser's Edge, and drop anyone who has never funded your cause or county.
3. **Run a connections session with your board.** Bring the funder list to a board meeting and ask each member to mark any trustee, staff member or company leader they know. Assign one introduction per board member with a date to make it. Give them a short email they can forward, written in their voice. For invite-only foundations, this is the only real path in.
4. **Package corporate sponsorships around audiences.** Build sponsorship levels around what a company gets to reach: families at your festival, attendees at your gala, employees on a volunteer day. Keep sponsor recognition to name and logo acknowledgment so it stays a qualified sponsorship payment and doesn't become taxable advertising income. Pitch regional banks, health systems and grocers before they lock next year's community budget in the fall. Name the employee volunteer option in every package, because CSR managers report on it.
5. **Reach out in the format each funder asks for.** Send letters of inquiry through the funder's portal, often Submittable or Fluxx, exactly as their guidelines describe. Message corporate community relations managers on LinkedIn and by email with one specific project, not your whole menu. Follow up once with something new, like a recent outcome or a photo from a program day. Make sure you're registered for charitable solicitation in each state where you ask for money.
6. **Make your website pass the vetting check, then report back.** Put outcomes, leadership, financials and your 990 on a page a program officer can find in one click. Publish a short page for each program with who it serves and what it costs to run. After a grant lands, send the funder a mid-year update with a story and a number from your own data, before the formal report is due. Renewals come from funders who heard from you without having to ask.

## Who buys from a nonprofit

Institutional funders pay: private and family foundations, community foundations, corporate giving programs and government agencies. The decision sits with a program officer, a foundation board or trustee, or a community relations or CSR manager at a company.

- **Program officers at private foundations.** They care about fit with their published priorities, credible outcomes and an organization that can manage the money. They move when you match a funding area they have to fill and someone they trust vouches for you.
- **Family foundation trustees.** These are often small foundations with no staff, run by a family member or a lawyer who handles the filings. They give to causes and places they feel personally connected to, so a board member's introduction does more than any proposal.
- **Community foundations and donor-advised fund holders.** They want local impact they can point to and partners who will show up at convenings. Competitive grant rounds open on a published cycle, and donor-advised fund holders get matched to nonprofits that staff already know.
- **Community relations and CSR managers at regional companies.** Banks, health systems, utilities and grocery chains want visibility with a specific local audience and volunteer projects for employees. They buy sponsorships when a project fits a theme they already report on, often tied to a branch opening, a merger or a community reinvestment commitment.
- **Government grant managers.** City, county, state and federal agencies fund defined services against a scoring rubric. They care about compliance, reporting capacity and whether your budget holds up under audit.

## Where to find them

- **990-PF filings on ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer.** Every private foundation files a 990-PF listing each grant, the amount and the recipient. You can see who funds nonprofits like yours in your county before you write a word.
- **Annual reports and donor walls of peer nonprofits.** The organization doing similar work two towns over prints its funders' names every year. Those funders have already said yes to your kind of mission.
- **Your regional association of grantmakers and community foundation.** They host funder briefings, publish open grant rounds and know which family foundations are quietly looking for new grantees. Program officers attend their events, so you can meet them before you apply.
- **LinkedIn, filtered by community relations and corporate foundation titles.** Corporate giving staff list their roles plainly, and many post about the causes their company backs. That tells you the theme to pitch and the name to address.
- **Grants.gov and your state's grant portals.** Government funding is posted publicly with eligibility rules and deadlines. You can set saved searches by category and skip anything you can't meet on reporting.
- **Chamber of commerce, Rotary and local business association meetings.** Regional company owners and branch managers who control small sponsorship budgets show up here. A five-minute talk at a lunch meeting can turn into a table sponsor for your gala.

## What to say

- **Match their stated priority.** "Your guidelines name [funder priority]. Last year our [program] served [number] [population] in [county], and we're ready to expand to [new site]."
- **Put their brand in front of a specific audience.** "Our [event] brings [audience, e.g. 400 young families] to [venue] each [season], and we have one presenting sponsor spot open for [year]."
- **Give employees something to do.** "We can host a team of [number] from [company] for a [volunteer activity] day, paired with your sponsorship of [program]."
- **Offer a challenge match.** "A [amount] gift from [funder] would anchor our [campaign] as a match, which we'd announce to our [number] donors on [date]."

## Which channels fit

| Channel | Fit | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Funder research and letters of inquiry | Strong fit | Foundations tell you exactly how they want to be approached in their guidelines, and a tight letter of inquiry to a researched fit is the front door. |
| Board and volunteer introductions | Strong fit | Family foundations and invite-only funders often only consider groups someone they know brings to them, so your board's address book is your best list. |
| LinkedIn outreach to corporate giving staff | Strong fit | Community relations managers are easy to identify and expect to hear from nonprofits, so a specific sponsorship idea sent to the right title gets read. |
| Cold email | Sometimes | It works for corporate sponsors and small family foundations with a public contact. Skip it for foundations that say they don't accept unsolicited requests, because emailing them anyway burns the relationship. |
| Search pages and your website | Sometimes | Funders rarely find you through search, but program officers google you before a meeting, and a clear outcomes page with your 990 and audit gets you through vetting. |
| Search ads, including Google Ad Grants | Sometimes | Ads bring in individual donors, volunteers and clients well, but institutional funders don't pick grantees from an ad, so use ads to build the support numbers you'll cite in proposals. |
| Facebook and Instagram ads aimed at funders | Weak fit | Program officers and CSR managers don't choose grantees from a social feed, so the money goes further on research and introductions. |

## Lead generation for nonprofits looking for funders

_Lead generation._ For a nonprofit, a lead is a funder who has already given to work like yours, in your area, at a grant size you can absorb. Build leads from evidence, not from guesses. Pull 990-PF filings, peer annual reports and your community foundation's past grant lists, then sort by cause and geography. Skip national foundations with no history in your state, even if their mission statement sounds close. Track each funder's guidelines, open or closed status and board meeting months in your donor CRM so you know when to move. For example, a food pantry in Spokane might find a family foundation that has funded three nearby pantries, see on the 990-PF that a local attorney is the contact, and learn one of its own board members went to law school with him. That lead is worth more than a hundred cold names.

## Cold email to corporate sponsors and family foundations

_Cold email._ Cold email fits corporate sponsorship and small family foundations that list a public contact. It doesn't fit foundations whose guidelines say no unsolicited requests. Respect that line, because program officers talk to each other. Write to the community relations or CSR manager by name, open with the theme their company already backs, and offer one project with a clear audience and a volunteer option. Keep it short enough to read on a phone and link to your outcomes page instead of attaching a deck. A good one reads like this: "Your team sponsored the riverfront cleanup last spring. Our [youth rowing program] runs on that same stretch, and we have a presenting spot open for our June regatta with room for [number] of your employees to help run it." Send one follow-up with a new detail, then stop.

## Nonprofit advertising that supports your funder pitch

_Advertising._ Nonprofit advertising rarely wins a grant directly. Program officers don't pick grantees from ads. What ads can do is grow the individual donors, volunteers and clients you cite when a funder asks about community support. Apply for Google Ad Grants if you qualify and run search ads on phrases like "volunteer [city]" or "[service] near me". Use LinkedIn ads for one narrow job: putting a sponsorship offer in front of community relations and marketing titles at companies in your metro before budget season. Skip social ads aimed at foundations. A literacy group in Dayton might run LinkedIn ads to bank and health system staff in the fall, announcing open sponsor spots for a spring read-a-thon, and then follow up by name with anyone who clicks.

## How funders decide

A foundation grant usually moves from a letter of inquiry to an invited proposal, a site visit or call with the program officer, and then a board vote at the funder's next scheduled meeting. Corporate sponsorships often need sign-off from marketing or a regional executive, and budgets get set in the fall for the following year. A warm introduction, a funder priority you match word for word, and financials ready to send all speed things up.

## One prompt, worked through

> We're Riverbend Literacy Project in Dayton, Ohio. We run after-school reading tutoring for grades 2 to 4 at six elementary schools. Find regional companies to sponsor our spring read-a-thon and family foundations that fund early literacy in Montgomery County.

1. Revnu reads the Riverbend website and works out who funds this kind of work: community relations managers at Dayton-area banks, health systems and grocers, plus local family foundations with a history in education.
2. It finds those companies and the right person at each, then writes to them by email and LinkedIn in Riverbend's voice, pitching the read-a-thon sponsorship and an employee reading-buddy day.
3. Every message waits for the executive director's approval, and when a funder replies, Revnu drafts the response and sends the booking link.
4. Each morning it reports what moved on Slack or iMessage, such as which sponsors opened, replied or booked a call.

Hand it to Revnu: https://revnu.com/sign-up?prompt=Find+%5Bfoundations+or+companies%5D+that+fund+%5Byour+cause%5D+in+%5Byour+city+or+county%5D+and+help+me+reach+the+right+person+at+each+one.&source=grow%2Fnonprofit

Next step: [how to get started with Revnu](https://revnu.com/docs/get-started), and [what Revnu can and can't do](https://revnu.com/docs/what-revnu-can-do).

## FAQ

### Can I contact a foundation that says it doesn't accept unsolicited proposals?

Don't send a proposal or a cold pitch. Find out whether anyone on your board or among your funders knows a trustee or staff member, and ask for an introduction. You can also invite the program officer to a public event or site visit with no ask attached. Many invite-only funders find new grantees exactly this way.

### What's the difference between a corporate sponsorship and advertising for tax purposes?

A qualified sponsorship payment lets you thank a company with its name, logo and a neutral description of its products. Once you add qualitative or comparative claims, prices or calls to buy, the IRS can treat it as advertising, and the income may be taxable as unrelated business income. Keep recognition to acknowledgment and check sponsor copy before it goes out.

### Do I need to register before asking companies and foundations for money?

Many states require charitable solicitation registration before you solicit residents or businesses there, and some have exemptions based on size or type. Check the rules in each state where you ask, including states where a target company is based. Registration lapses can trigger fines and make funders hesitate during vetting.

### Should we hire a grant writer or do it ourselves?

A grant writer can polish proposals, but they can't fix a weak funder list or a missing relationship. Do the research and board introductions yourself first, because those decide whether a proposal gets read. Bring in a writer for large government applications, where the scoring rubric and compliance sections reward experience.

### How do we find foundation grants for nonprofits like ours?

Start with the funders of peer nonprofits, listed in their annual reports, then confirm on each foundation's 990-PF that they give in your area at your grant size. Ask your community foundation which local family foundations are open to new grantees. Read every funder's guidelines before reaching out, and drop any that have never funded your cause.

### What does it cost?

Plans start at $99 a month, and Revnu starts on what you typed as soon as you sign up. Cancel any time in Settings.

### Does anything run before I sign up?

No. Nothing is checked or generated on this page. Revnu does the work inside your account, where it can read your website, keep what it finds and carry on from there.

### Where do I learn how Revnu works?

The docs at revnu.com/docs/get-started walk through your first day, and revnu.com/docs/what-revnu-can-do lists everything it can do.

Last updated: 2026-10-18

## Machine-readable resources

- LLM index: https://revnu.com/llms.txt
- Full LLM context: https://revnu.com/llms-full.txt