Grant Funder Research and Prospecting
A guidelines page says what a funder would like to fund. Its filed grant list says what it paid, to whom, and how much.
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Prospect research usually ends with a ranked list of funders whose guidelines mention your field. That ranking is built from marketing copy, because a guidelines page exists to attract the applications a foundation wants. A private foundation separately files the grants it paid during the year, with each recipient, purpose and amount, and a grantmaking public charity files the same on Schedule I. So the question of what a funder actually funds already has a filed answer, and hardly anybody reads it.
Tag every grant in the most recent list against the prior year's list and three numbers appear that no guidelines page contains. New-grantee slots: grants to organisations absent last year, which is how many doors opened. First-year median award: what a first grant is really worth. Match rate: grants whose filed purpose resembles your work, against the total. The register scores on those three and drops funders on thresholds written down before the scoring starts.
Harrow Bend Foundation publishes $25,000 to $150,000 and welcomes new applicants. Their list holds 42 grants worth $2,733,000, of which 38 are renewals to organisations already funded the year before. Four went to new grantees at a median of $37,500, which is 43% of the published midpoint, and all five grants above $100,000 were renewals. So the ask is $37,500, and the real prize is the renewal you then write a proposal to earn.
What is in the pack
Prior Grantee Analysis
Every grant in the filed list as its own row with the recipient, amount and purpose exactly as filed, tagged renewal or new against the prior year.
The three numbers no guidelines page has
New-grantee slots, the median award to those new grantees, and the share of filed grants whose purpose resembles the work you actually do.
Prospect Register scored on thresholds
A minimum match rate, a minimum open-door count and a smallest-worthwhile-grant floor, stated before scoring and then applied mechanically.
Both pipeline sums, side by side
Published midpoints across every funder considered against first-year medians across the survivors, which is the figure a board should see.
Prospect Assessment with the objection written down
The fit argument evidenced from three named grants, the ask stated against the first-year median, and what a programme officer would say against you.
Pipeline Calendar against available hours
Sequenced by lead time rather than deadline, with introductions and inquiry stages starting first and dropped funders keeping a revisit condition.
How it works
- 1
Send the funder names and your programme profile
Names are enough to start. The programme profile is what filed purpose language gets matched against, so vague material produces a vague match rate.
- 2
Read the filed grant lists, two years where two exist
Every grant becomes a row. Recipients get compared against the prior year's list, which splits the whole thing into renewals and open doors.
- 3
Score against stated thresholds
Match rate, new-grantee count and minimum grant size, written down first and then applied without softening a drop because the guidelines read well.
- 4
Sequence the survivors against your hours
Introductions and inquiry stages start earliest whatever their deadlines say, and every dropped funder keeps a condition that would bring it back.
Frequently asked questions
Is this a grants database?
No, and it starts after one. Candid and Instrumentl index which funders exist and that is genuinely their job. This does the part they do not: taking a shortlist you already have and reading each funder's own filed grant list to work out whether an application is worth the hours it costs.
Where does the grant list actually come from?
The funder's annual information return, which is a public document. A grantmaking public charity reports each recipient over $5,000 with the amount and purpose of grant on Schedule I. A private foundation reports grants paid during the year in the supplementary information part of its own return.
What if a funder has no new grantees at all?
Then an unsolicited application there is not a long shot, it is a different activity. The row routes to an introduction or a drop with a revisit condition. Duncastle in the worked example made twelve grants, all to organisations it had already funded, and its guidelines still invite applications.
Why not just ask for the published midpoint?
Because the published range describes a whole portfolio, most of which is long-standing support. In the example the midpoint is $87,500 and the median first grant is $37,500. Asking above the first-year median is sometimes right, but it should be a decision with a reason rather than a number read off a range.
Isn't a filed list out of date by the time I read it?
It covers a closed fiscal year, so this cycle's decisions are not in it. That is why two years get read where two exist, and why a sharp change between them counts as the signal rather than noise. A foundation with a new programme officer may not resemble its own last filing.
What happens to the funders that get dropped?
They stay in the register with a revisit condition: a new filing year, a strategy change, a programme officer move, or an introduction becoming available. Checking six conditions once a cycle is cheap. Re-researching six funders from scratch next year is not.
What comes after this?
A shorter pipeline and the ask amount for each survivor. Many funders want a letter of inquiry first, at their stated length. The proposal itself gets sized against the notice's published criterion weights in the grant proposal pack, and the ask gets costed in the budget crosswalk. If a submission comes back declined, the declined proposal review reads it against those same criteria.
Find out how many doors actually opened
Send your funder shortlist and your programme profile. The first thing back is how many grants each one made to an organisation it had not funded before.
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