Animal Welfare Professionals

This is my first post.  I have volunteered at my local animal shelter for the past twenty years.  I recently applied for a grant writing position within the organization.  It was a long shot since I don't know much about grant writing but I wanted to make a difference.  With that being said, since I am a volunteer and I am not sure if i can do things behind the scenes?  I will take any suggestions.   

Always glad to help someone who is interested in writing grants.  I have been doing it for over 45 years (just 3 in the animal welfare arena).  My suggestions are these: 1) look for some on-line webinars (many are either free or under $100) on basic grant writing.  Candid, Chronicle of Philanthropy and others offer these regularly or have a library of past webinars you can access.  2) Develop a "wish list" of both program and tangible needs of your organization. Then you have an idea of what you need and can match it to a granting organization's interests.  3) Put together both a paper and electronic file of the basic documents you likely will need for a grant.  Things like your IRS letter, your annual budget, your most recent 990 filing, background on your board of directors, mission statement, statistics of what  your organizati on has accomplished and what it wants to accomplish etc. 4)DO YOUR RESEARCH. Again there are a number of sources free on line like ProPublica, some on Candid etc, where you can look at a Foundation 990's and get a lot of valuable information.  We subscribe ($10 a month) to Grant Gopher and have given them our parameters of what we are looking for and matches us (ie animal welfare, animal abuse, geographic specifics) and they will send us Foundations that match our parameters.   This will get you started in the right way. To prove this approach works, our cat rescue has received 17 grants from nationwide Foundations in the past 36 months.

This is my first post.  I have volunteered at my local animal shelter for the past twenty years.  I recently applied for a grant writing position within the organization.  It was a long shot since I don't know much about grant writing but I wanted to make a difference.  With that being said, since I am a volunteer and I am not sure if i can do things behind the scenes?  I will take any suggestions.   

Always glad to help someone who is interested in writing grants.  I have been doing it for over 45 years (just 3 in the animal welfare arena).  My suggestions are these: 1) look for some on-line webinars (many are either free or under $100) on basic grant writing.  Candid, Chronicle of Philanthropy and others offer these regularly or have a library of past webinars you can access.  2) Develop a "wish list" of both program and tangible needs of your organization. Then you have an idea of what you need and can match it to a granting organization's interests.  3) Put together both a paper and electronic file of the basic documents you likely will need for a grant.  Things like your IRS letter, your annual budget, your most recent 990 filing, background on your board of directors, mission statement, statistics of what  your organizati on has accomplished and what it wants to accomplish etc. 4)DO YOUR RESEARCH. Again there are a number of sources free on line like ProPublica, some on Candid etc, where you can look at a Foundation 990's and get a lot of valuable information.  We subscribe ($10 a month) to Grant Gopher and have given them our parameters of what we are looking for and matches us (ie animal welfare, animal abuse, geographic specifics) and they will send us Foundations that match our parameters.   This will get you started in the right way. To prove this approach works, our cat rescue has received 17 grants from nationwide Foundations in the past 36 months.

This is my first post.  I have volunteered at my local animal shelter for the past twenty years.  I recently applied for a grant writing position within the organization.  It was a long shot since I don't know much about grant writing but I wanted to make a difference.  With that being said, since I am a volunteer and I am not sure if i can do things behind the scenes?  I will take any suggestions.   

This is my first post.  I have volunteered at my local animal shelter for the past twenty years.  I recently applied for a grant writing position within the organization.  It was a long shot since I don't know much about grant writing but I wanted to make a difference.  With that being said, since I am a volunteer and I am not sure if i can do things behind the scenes?  I will take any suggestions.   

I love that you are looking for a way to help the nonprofit you volunteer for. We have a volunteer grant writer that helps us. Before that it was myself and one of our board members who had no experience at all. This young lady reached out to us after seeing us on social media a few years ago and wanted to help us as well. Although she didn't have any grant writing experience she was a professional, talented writer and had hands on volunteer experience at a rescue near her.  She had also taken it upon herself to take a couple of online classes. She was honest with us and told us that she was looking to build her grant writing portfolio. I am so glad that we decided to take a chance on her because she has done an amazing job finding, writing and winning grants for us. 

As for where to find grants., we have a free subscription to Grant Gopher and receive monthly email blasts with grant suggestions. We also have a free subscription to Shareway. We have written a couple small grants we've found through them but they also offer up info on companies that do inkind donations for raffles or to use at the rescue. Lastly we have a yearly paid subscription to grant station. We have found and won a few grants through grant station but more importantly they offer a lot of online classes that have helped us grow and advance our grant writing abilities. 

My advice would be to continue to learn as much as you can about grant writing and what the nonprofits greatest needs are. Do your research and compile a list of possible grants that could help them and bring this info to the nonprofit. Show them that you are committed and hopefully they will take a chance on you too.

This is my first post.  I have volunteered at my local animal shelter for the past twenty years.  I recently applied for a grant writing position within the organization.  It was a long shot since I don't know much about grant writing but I wanted to make a difference.  With that being said, since I am a volunteer and I am not sure if i can do things behind the scenes?  I will take any suggestions.