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Bryan Earnest: Well, hello again. I'm Bryan Earnest and this is the Amp Up Podcast. Let's start out today by introducing my new co-host Rachel Holland. Rachel is Amperages director of Marketing. Well, hi Rachel.

Rachael Holland: Hi Bryan. I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me. our topic today is going to be on fundraising, specifically one of those hot topics, being fundraising grants. So I would like to be the first to welcome Melissa Pence, fundraising advisor at Amperage.

Melissa Pence: Hi, Bryan, Rachel. It's great to be here today.

Bryan Earnest: Well, Melissa, the last few years have been extremely challenging for nonprofits, that's for sure. It's been a challenge to connect with donors. Events have had to be canceled or even reimagined. it's been more difficult to mobilize volunteers. You've seen it all. So during this time, we have seen more organizations lean on grants as a funding source. So first, tell us what you're seeing as the biggest challenges facing the nonprofit world?

Melissa Pence: Well, gosh, Brian, that's a great question and I see actually some, several challenges, that are facing nonprofits right now. Some of it is those within internally, trying to be able to recruit their own talent. Fundraisers, within their own organizations and people that have that knowledge of who their donor bases are. It's also been challenging for nonprofits to figure out new ways to engage with donors. earlier on in the pandemic, people were trying to engage with their donors with some electronic communication, making sure that the phone lines were there.

But how now as things are starting to open up, how do we get volunteers back into our organization? How do we get them to volunteer again, and be a part of what it is that they're trying to accomplish? And then I would also probably say the third thing there is trying to reconnect with some of those donors. There may have now been two plus years that they have not been able to maybe see their donors in person talk about what's going on and how is it that they're continuing to connect and engage with the donors that maybe have given to their organization for a number of years.

Bryan Earnest: Oh, that's great. Melissa. I know as a fundraising advisor, you see it all working with the nonprofits. You mentioned one of the big challenges being raising money and connecting with donors. So a lot of organiz. Have moved towards, grants and there's a lot of grant money out there. There's a lot of questions about grants, how are grants playing a bigger role in fundraising today?

Melissa Pence: You're right Brian. There certainly is a larger emphasis it seems like on grants because as you look at maybe what a traditional fundraiser's role is, how is it that they're raising funds? it maybe was through special events, whether that was a walk or gala. Or meeting with individuals maybe in person too. Being able to communicate what their needs were. I can share with you too, prior to my time at Amperage, I worked for a nonprofit that relied so much on special events.

And also where was also in a role too, where I wasn't a fundraiser and I traveled a designated area to meet with donors, whether that was about major gifts or planned gifts. But when you think about 2020, when things started to shut down, there wasn't that ability to be able to sit down and meet with donors and to connect with them. So, nonprofits really had to take a look and say, look, how is it that we can continue to raise the needed funds that we need to continue on as an organization? And we saw Rise in Direct Mail happen during 2020.

But I would also say to Grants was an area that people started to put more emphasis on. On the flip side of that too, corporations that were supporting nonprofits, whether they were sponsors of. In the area or had their employees volunteer within their organizations. They were looking, how was it that we can give back yet to the community? And some of them had responded with, altering how they funded and grants was another way that they had done that as well. So certainly that kind of shifted a little bit in terms of where nonprofits have started to focus on where they're raising their funds.

Rachael Holland: So Melissa, I think we can. Identify and see that there are certainly benefits when it comes to grants. Are you seeing any challenges or is there a downside with fundraising Grant?

Melissa Pence: Yes, there certainly is Rachel, and thanks for that question as well. First off, grants are not guaranteed. oftentimes they are very competitive, and competing with other organizations that. some worthwhile projects as well. So, gosh, just recently we, were working with an organization that was applying for some funds. the grant funder had about 20 million to award, which you're thinking, Gosh, that's a nice bucket there, right? Well, they actually had over 300 million in request, and so I'm sure, all of those projects that had submitted request for funding. we're very worthwhile projects.

But there's only so much money that can go around, so, I always caution folks too, is not to put too much of your eggs in one basket when it comes to grants. they take a lot of time to research, to write, to prepare all the documentation for that. Having written grants before too, there's that sigh of relief sometimes that happens after you hit that, submit button after putting in so much of that work into it. But then I'll also say too, I've received the denial that the application was not funded. And that can be, pretty frustrating then as well, kind of knowing that you put in all this time, and energy into putting, grant application together to know then that it wasn't funded.

Now, when those grant applications are funded, though, I mean I think a lot of folks say great, we got the project done. But that is really just the beginning of the work, there is so much that needs to be done with the grant administration to get that program up and running and the reporting that needs to be done there too. I also will say too, one thing about grants is you have to be careful. Sometimes your grant may be not fully funded, you know, it may be only partially funded or it's a one time grant fund.

Which means then organizations need to really be careful about where is it that they're going to receive the additional funds to help make that project complete and to follow through with that. So those would be some of the things that I would caution, as people are looking into more grants and to consider.

Bryan Earnest: Well, Melissa, there's a lot of different types of grants out there. You mentioned, in certain private companies or even public companies have like grants from their internal foundations. We have community based grants, state based, we're seeing a larger number of federal grants. Can you talk about those a little bit, what you're seeing, and how that's becoming available to local projects?

Melissa Pence: Federal grants have been around a long time. someone that has been a development director, they sometimes intimidated me a little bit, Brian , because, they're really just so entailed, they can be quite tedious to put together. And the reporting, progress of that can be quite rigorous too. So particularly if you're a nonprofit that is a smaller shop and that the federal grants, were sometimes things that weren't pursued as much. But one of the things I will say is that, you know, gosh, it was early 2021, president Biden did sign the American Rescues Plan Act, and you've probably have heard about this.

They're also called ARPA funds that are out there. And the purpose of this was, it was packaged that gave money back to the states and the local governments totaling over $300 billion. And the idea was to. These organizations and businesses that were, struggling a bit as a result of the, pandemic. But then also to help kind of give them a bit of a stimulus so that they could help serve the community needs. So the states, they've received these funds, they have until 2024 to allocate how those funds are spent. and then those funds need to be spent by 2026. Now we've seen, some of the communities that we work in, we've seen some of these, whether they're, it's the state or on a county level. Some have already allocated their allotment of funds already.

They've identified them needs and such. And they did that through kind of like a grant process as well where, organizations stated their need applied for those funds. And then those have been allocated. But they are still several counties, particularly I know in Iowa that are already, still are seeking out organizations to fund, and projects to fund, to allocate the remaining of those APA funds. So one of the things I would say is that for nonprofits that are maybe in one of those communities where those, funds have not been spent down, to seek out for additional source perhaps to help fund a project.

Rachael Holland: Melissa, you shared a lot of good information on, the upside, the downside of grants. What advice would you give to nonprofits as they're starting to pursue more grants moving forward?

Melissa Pence: I would say through those nonprofits that they're really putting in an emphasis on revenue raised in grants, then I would hire a grant writer. They could be a full-time or part-time person or someone that you, have on contract, per grant basis in that, but your development directors, they're wearing many different hats. They are managing your annual fund. They are overseeing, your special event, fundraising your major, and playing gift fundraising there.

There's lots of different hats there that development directors wear, and I think if you have an experienced grant writer, you can have that one person that's dedicated to researching what grant funds may be available and what you may qualify for. They can also write to appeal to, grant funders and that as well. They have a craft of how it is that they can, make that appeal a little bit more, maybe more interesting than that. But then there's also that ongoing reporting and that needs to occur too.

And I think that's a lot to put on maybe like one person, one development director's hat and that. And I think that's why too, you see. Maybe grants not always be in the emphasis for, and organizations, maybe revenue stream. But certainly I think if organizations are, really looking at trying to heighten that line item there for money raised in grants, then they need to have one dedicated person towards that.

Bryan Earnest: Wow. A lot of great stuff today, Melissa. Thank you. And I think all very helpful to certainly the nonprofits that we work with and the ones that listen to this podcast. As you think back on the past year or so, what success stories come to mind for organizations that you've worked with? who's moved the Needle and how have they done it?

Melissa Pence: One of the things I've found is that those organizations that haven't stopped fundraising during the pandemic, they're the ones that have been successful. that's one of the things that we, at Amperage we're, sharing with those, nonprofits and clients that we are working with is, it may feel like it's a little bit slow but keep doing your fundraising. So some nonprofits got a little creative during this, whether they started using a little bit more video or maybe even up to their social media presence in that to connect with donors. But we also saw that opportunity to connect with donors virtually as well.

And some did their in person ask not in person, but over Zoom. And that seemed to work. as well. Brian and Rachel, you know that at Amperage we had just completed a capital campaign for an organization and this organization we started and launched their capital campaign all during pandemic time. What we have celebrated now, their successful campaign, in fact, they surpassed their goal by over $400,000. It's a good success story, but that is an example of an organization that continued to fundraise during all this. And yeah, they had a few grants in there too.

But the majority of the fundraising that they did to complete their campaign goal was through those individual gift asks. And that would be one of the things that I would say to folks too, as if they are working with grant funders, they should be treated like you would with an individual gift owner as well. They need to be cultivated, they need to be kept up to date in terms of what your organization is doing. They need to be steward. those would be some of the things that I would share with some folks and some of the success stories then that we have seen.

Bryan Earnest: It's great advice, Melissa. It makes me think about a successful campaign like that. Can you talk a little bit about how important the feasibility study was at the front end? And do feasibility studies help identify those grant opportunities?

Melissa Pence: Yes, absolutely. So with this particular organization, we started the feasibility study this organization had a project. They were overcrowded in their building and they were really needing to expand. And they had an opportunity to move into a larger building, got this building at a much discounted price. but they had to make that decision of do we move forward with a campaign or not? And We started the feasibility study. It was the summer of 2020, so the pandemic had already started. Right. So there were a lot of questions, can this organization raise the funds in the climate that we are in right now?

Well, one of the things that we found during the feasibility study was that those that we interviewed people, were very supportive of this organization yet, and they indicated what it was that they would be able to perhaps contribute to the campaign as well. That really helped us determine then, Look, we can continue to pursue this campaign and they can be successful even during a pandemic time. So, during that, feasibility study too, Brian, we were able to identify not only grant funders, but some additional folks that maybe weren't our radar, but we had learned that they had an interest to contribute to this campaign in a significant way.

So those were really some key things that moved, and help us with the course then of launching that capital campaign as well too. So it wasn't just the feasibility study and determining can they do this? But it also helped make that direction in terms of how that capital campaign was going to look and how were we going to navigate that during this time of pandemic and we were able to provide them with some tools in that to be able to continue to fundraise then during this time. So, feasibility study was a very important part of that organization, being able to determine that one, that they could launch into a campaign, but then be successful in their goal as well.

Rachael Holland: That's great, Melissa. you've shared a lot of good information today and it's been a great conversation. So if an organization is listening to this podcast and they want a little help in this area, where should they go to find that help? Or do you have any ways that you would be able to help them?

Melissa Pence: Yeah. You know, organizations are welcome to contact one of our fundraising advisors at Amperage Marketing and Fundraising. they can look us up at amperagemarketing.com and we'd be happy to talk with them to see what may be available. Help them strategize about what funding opportunities are available for their organization.

Bryan Earnest: Excellent. Thank you Melissa, and thank you for joining me, Rachel. That is it for today's Amp Up Podcast. If you like what you've heard on our podcast, please share it. Go to amperagemarketing.com. Also, if you get a chance, please rate and review us. We appreciate any feedback. On behalf of all of us at Amperage, thank you. Check in on another podcast and we will help you move the needle.