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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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Pack of 6 files: 3 documents, 3 spreadsheets

Grant Funder Research and Prospecting
  • How to Read a Reported Grant ListDocument
  • Prospect AssessmentDocument
  • Approach StrategyDocument
  • Prospect RegisterSpreadsheet
  • Prior Grantee AnalysisSpreadsheet
  • Pipeline CalendarSpreadsheet

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.

Nine funders, three survivors, and the figure that dropped each one

One funder's filed grant list, the register that scores all nine on it, and the calendar built against available hours.

Grant Funder Research and Prospecting
RiverPrior Grantee Analysis

Prior Grantee Analysis: Harrow Bend Foundation

Illustrative, for a fictional community health nonprofit called Cedar Line Community Health reading a fictional foundation's filing. Published range $25,000 to $150,000, midpoint $87,500, new applicants welcome. The filed list holds 42 grants totalling $2,733,000.

Recipient as filedAmountPurpose as filedIn last year's listYears on itLike us
Riverbend Health Alliance$150,000General operating support for community clinicsYes8Yes
Marchwood Care Network$150,000Behavioral health integrationYes6Yes
Salter Valley Coalition$125,000Rural health access expansionYes5Yes
Ivy Court Family Services$120,000Care coordination for uninsured adultsYes7Closest
Northgate Community Trust$100,000Capital campaign contributionYes4No
Perrin Street Clinic$58,000Mobile screening programmeYes3Yes
Ashcombe Neighbourhood House$50,000Health navigation for immigrant familiesNo1Yes
Whitlow Bridge Center$40,000Chronic disease self-managementNo1Yes
Kelby Road Outreach$35,000Community health worker pilotNo1Yes
Fenwick Youth Collective$31,000Adolescent wellbeing programmingNo1Partly
SplitGrantsTotal paidMedian
Renewals, also in last year's list38$2,577,000$61,000
New grantees4$156,000$37,500
All42$2,733,000$59,000

New grantees took 9.5% of the grants and 5.7% of the dollars. The median first grant is $37,500 against a published midpoint of $87,500, so 43% of it, and the largest award to any new grantee was $50,000 against a ceiling of $150,000. Every one of the five grants at $100,000 or above went to a renewal, four of them to organisations funded for five years or more. None of that makes Harrow Bend a bad prospect: 19 of the 42 grants resemble the work, which is the best match rate in the pipeline. It makes $37,500 the number to ask for, and the renewal in year two the actual prize.

RiverProspect Register

Prospect Register

Thresholds stated before scoring: match rate at least 25%, at least one new grantee in the most recent list, no grant below $30,000. Applied mechanically, so a later reader argues with a threshold rather than a verdict.

FunderPublished midActual medianFirst-year medianNew slotsMatchVerdict
Harrow Bend Foundation$87,500$58,000$37,5004 / 4245%Keep
Kestrel Ridge Fund$45,000$35,000$30,0006 / 3342%Keep
Ashfield Health Trust$60,000$45,000$40,0003 / 2741%Keep
Talbot Family Trust$30,000$22,000$18,0009 / 6139%Below the floor
Brightwater Giving$35,000$28,000$25,0007 / 4420%Fails both
Vellamore Foundation$150,000$175,000$90,0001 / 1811%2 matching grants
Duncastle Endowment$237,500$240,000-0 / 128%No open door
Pelham Civic Foundation$15,000$12,000$10,00021 / 883%Fails both
Norham Community Fund$75,000$55,000$45,0002 / 240%Nothing in the field
Nine considered$735,000-$107,50053 / 34983 / 3493 keep, 6 drop

Summing the nine published midpoints gives $735,000 of apparent opportunity. Summing the three survivors' first-year medians gives $107,500, which is 14.6% of it. That gap is the difference between the pipeline the guidelines implied and the pipeline the filings describe, and it is the number worth putting in front of a board. The two most instructive drops are the ones that read best on paper. Duncastle has the largest grants in the pipeline, made twelve of them, and not one went to an organisation it had not funded before. Norham names community health as a priority area and has nothing resembling it in 24 filed grants. Pelham is the opposite trap: 21 open slots, and 3 of 88 grants in the field. A high slot count is not fit.

RiverPipeline Calendar

Pipeline Calendar

Sequenced by lead time rather than by deadline, against 120 hours available this cycle. Writing all nine would take 258.

#FunderStageLead time driverStart byDueHours
1Ashfield Health TrustInquiryInvitation has to arrive before a proposal exists2026-01-122026-04-1030
2Harrow Bend FoundationIntroduction4 new grantees in 42, so unsolicited is the long route2026-01-192026-03-0134
3Kestrel Ridge FundFull application6 new grantees in 33, so the open route is real2026-03-302026-05-1528
-Pelham Civic FoundationDroppedRevisit condition: none, wrong field at any size-2026-01-3118
-Duncastle EndowmentDroppedRevisit when a filing shows one new grantee-2026-03-1536
-Norham Community FundDroppedRevisit if the guidelines become true in a filing-2026-04-3030
-Three more droppedDroppedEach carries its own revisit condition--82
Three activeFits inside 120 hours with 28 spare for reporting92

Ashfield has the latest deadline of the three and the earliest start date, because an inquiry stage adds a cycle. Harrow Bend is the highest-value row and the one waiting on somebody else: Ivy Court Family Services is a seven-year Harrow Bend grantee and a referral partner, which makes an introduction worth more here than the narrative. The 166 hours released by the six drops is the real output of the register, because the binding constraint was never the number of foundations in existence. The 28 hours of slack is deliberate: reporting on last year's award lands in the same weeks as this year's applications, and a calendar with no slack is why interim reports go in late.

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What is in the pack

01

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.

02

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.

03

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.

04

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.

05

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.

06

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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

Sources

  1. IRS2025 Form 990-PF (opens in a new tab)
  2. IRSSchedule I (Form 990) (Rev. December 2024) (opens in a new tab)

Written by

Chandler Supple

Co-founder & CEO, River

Chandler has spent the last six years working in AI, building tools for millions of users and Fortune 100 companies. In 2025, he co-founded River to build a new kind of operating system for AI agents.

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Reviewed by

Brian Joseff, Co-founder, River

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