Right-Sizing Grant Applications - A Tiered Approach

“Clean the House” means different things, depending on the context. Frantically shouted before visitors come over, it’s a hurried effort to get the family to hide the clutter behind the door no one will ever open - a 3/10 for effort and time. Before listing a house for sale, “Clean the house” means something entirely different - the whole house will need to be decluttered and cleaned top-to-bottom, and may take weeks to do - a 10/10 in terms of commitment of time and effort. Swap the level of urgency, time, and effort for each and you fail to achieve your goals.

Whether or not we realize it, we often operate in a tiered approach - we subtly judge the urgency and depth of a problem, and approach it accordingly.

We give bigger problems more time and attention, while rightfully allocating fewer resources toward small problems. It’s a smart way to budget our time, effort, and focus. The tiered approach can serve philanthropy as well!

Before moving on, if you missed the two previous articles (Introduction and Basic Principles), you might want to open two tabs and scan them first.

Depending on the size of your organization and your granting scope and focus, applying a tiered approach may help save your staff, board, and grant seekers time and money. Here are some possible ways to segment your grant requests…

Read the full article here.