So you want to apply for funding to support the life-changing efforts of your treatment center?
With over 7 years of experience working in non-profit fundraising and development, I have had the privilege of asking a great number of individuals, companies and foundations for money or in-kind donations. Each source of support forced me to tailor my approach in order to make sure the funder(s) had all of the information they needed to fully trust that their money would be spent well.
For an individual, they may be willing to donate purely based on a conversation or branding that pulls at their heart strings, but when requesting support from a large foundation or especially the Federal or State governments, they require a much more rigorous application process.
As a Fellow member of the San Diego Women’s Foundation, participating in proposal review has also given me a chance to be on “the other side of the table,” and assess applicant strengths.
While these grant applications may seem daunting, it is important to remember that at the end of the day your goal is to simply help the Grantmaker trust in your ability to achieve what you say you are going to achieve with their support.
Data fosters this trust.
Below are just a few examples of questions asked by foundations on grant applications.
You will want to make sure you can answer these before applying for funding.
- What are the long-term goals of your program?
- How will your program be effective in achieving its goals?
- Describe the expected outcomes of your program?
- Describe how these outcomes will be measured?
- Who is responsible for measuring and collecting data? Who will be responsible for using the data to evaluate success?
- How many individuals would this funding serve?
- Provide a Total Project Budget & list the expenses that will be covered by this grant.
- For each budget line item, justify how will the grant money will be used and how it supports your mission.
In addition to allowing you to apply for funding, knowing these answers will also help you complete reporting requirements once you receive funding. Reports are often required in order to both keep your funding and remain in good standing to request funding in the future.
We want to help!
At Midway Analytics we partner with leaders in the addiction treatment community to help make sure teams can easily collect, visualize and translate their data. We want to equip you with data insights to not only easily answer questions like those above from funders, but also to best tell your data story to accreditation agencies, insurance companies, potential patients.
Please feel free to reach out with any questions or for a free consultation to discuss your outcomes and data.
You can also CLICK HERE to learn directly from Lewis, one of our Founding Partners, what inspired him to found the company in his article “The Human Why and How of Data Culture for Addiction Treatment.”
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