Which Grant Is Actually Worth Your Time? A Quick Guide for Nonprofit Leade

Grants can be transformational for nonprofits, but only if they're the right fit. With so many options out there, it’s easy to fall into the trap of chasing every opportunity you hear about. The truth is: not every grant is a good use of your limited time.

At The Greater Sum, we help early-stage nonprofits sort through the noise. Here’s a practical framework for deciding which grants are worth pursuing and which ones you can safely set aside.

1️⃣ Start with Your Capacity, Not the Opportunity

Before you even look at a grant opportunity, get clear on what your organization is realistically ready to take on. Ask:

• Do we have the financials, data, and reporting systems this funder will expect?

• Can we take on any new reporting or compliance requirements?

• Do we have time to write a strong, tailored application or will this compete with core program work?

If saying yes to the grant would stretch your team too thin or distract from your main work, it may not be the right time, even if you’re technically eligible.

2️⃣ Look for True Mission Fit

Plenty of grants sound great on paper but don’t fully align with your core mission or current programs. Chasing dollars outside your lane often creates more problems than it solves.

A few signs of strong fit:

• The funder has supported work like yours before.

• Your population, geography, or approach matches their stated priorities.

• The grant supports what you’re already doing—not what you’d have to invent to fit their criteria.

3️⃣ Understand the Type of Grant You're Evaluating

Different grant types come with different levels of lift:

General Operating Support

• The most flexible funding: can be used for salaries, rent, technology, or anything else you need.

• Harder to secure, but incredibly valuable for long-term stability.

1. Program or Project Support

   • Funds a specific program, event, or project.

   • Requires you to clearly define goals, activities, and outcomes.

2. Capacity Building Grants

   • Helps strengthen your internal systems (training, technology, planning, fundraising).

   • Often smaller amounts, but can make a big difference as you grow.

3. In-Kind Support

   • Provides goods, services, or technology instead of cash.

   • Can save you money, but may require staff capacity to implement or manage.

4. Government Grants

   • Can offer significant funding for large-scale growth.

   • Typically competitive, complex, and heavy on compliance and reporting.

4️⃣ Watch for Red Flags

Even a seemingly perfect grant may not be worth it if:

• The application is overly complex for a small payout.

• Matching funds are required and you don't have a donor base ready.

• The reporting requirements are burdensome relative to the size of the grant.

• The timeline to apply is too short for you to submit your strongest work.

5️⃣ Relationship First, Application Second

The best grant opportunities usually come through funders who already know your work or who you’ve started building a relationship with. Cold applications are fine, but warm introductions increase your odds. As you build your pipeline, invest time in funders who are open to conversation, learning about your work, and walking with you over time.

The Bottom Line: Every Grant Is an Investment

Every application costs your organization time and energy. The best approach isn’t applying for more grants, it’s applying for better-matched ones. Focus on opportunities that fit your mission, match your stage of growth, and strengthen your long-term sustainability.

At The Greater Sum, we help nonprofits sort through grant opportunities, build pipelines that make sense for their size and stage, and write stronger proposals that lead to real partnerships.

👉 Not sure where to focus your fundraising efforts? Apply for our Virtual Incubator Program and learn how to focus on your most promising prospects.

Anna Taylor is Executive Director of The Greater Sum Foundation. Under her leadership, Greater Sum has supported over 100 organizations through strategic funding, capacity-building tools, and a virtual incubator model focused on long-term impact and sustainability.

Nonprofit Jargon Cheat Sheet: What These Grant Terms Really Mean (and Why They Matte

If you’re new to grant writing, the language can feel like learning a whole new dialect. Acronyms show up everywhere. Terms get tossed around like everyone already knows what they mean. And honestly? Sometimes even people who've been at this a while still have to double-check.

At The Greater Sum, we believe language shouldn’t be a barrier to funding. So here’s a simple, grant-seeker-friendly guide to the most common terms you’ll run into, roughly in the order you’ll likely meet them.

501(c)(3)

What it means: This is the IRS tax-exempt status most funders require. Once you have it, you’re eligible for tax-deductible donations and most grant opportunities.

Why it matters: Without this, your grant options will be very limited.

Fiscal Sponsor

What it means: An established nonprofit that lets a newer project operate under its legal and tax-exempt status.

Why it matters: If you’re not yet a 501(c)(3), having a fiscal sponsor can open doors to funding while you get fully established. More and more new ventures are choosing to remain under fiscal sponsorship, or “management commons” to use an up-and-coming term.

RFP (Request for Proposals)

What it means: A funder puts out an open call for applications tied to a specific area of interest.

Why it matters: This is often how you’ll first hear about a grant opportunity. RFPs lay out exactly what the funder is looking for and how they want to receive proposals.

LOI (Letter of Inquiry)

What it means: A short letter (or sometimes an online form) introducing your organization and project to a funder.

Why it matters: Some funders use this as a first step to decide who they’ll invite to submit a full proposal. It’s your early chance to make a strong impression.

Logic Model

What it means: A chart or table that shows how your program works from resources to activities to results.

Why it matters: Some funders (especially government agencies) will ask for this to see how you plan to turn funding into outcomes. It doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does need to be clear.

Theory of Change

What it means: Your program’s big-picture explanation of how and why your work leads to meaningful change.

Why it matters: A Theory of Change connects the dots between what you do and the long-term difference you're aiming for. Some funders will ask for this alongside or instead of a logic model.

Outputs vs. Outcomes

• Outputs: What you directly produce (e.g., 100 people attended your program).

• Outcomes: The longer-term changes that happen as a result (e.g., participants increased their reading level, got jobs, stayed in school, etc.)

Why it matters: Funders want to see both, but outcomes carry more weight in demonstrating impact.

Capacity Building

What it means: Support that helps strengthen your organization through staff training, new technology, board development, or strategic planning.

Why it matters: Capacity-building grants help you build the infrastructure to deliver your mission more effectively over time.

General Operating Support

What it means: Flexible, unrestricted funding you can use for pretty much anything your organization needs.

Why it matters: This is often the most helpful kind of funding because it lets you cover real-life expenses like salaries, rent, or tech upgrades, not just project costs.

In-Kind Donation

What it means: Donations of goods or services instead of money.

Example: A law firm offering free legal work, or a printer donating event flyers.

Why it matters: These donations can stretch your budget and demonstrate community support.

Sustainability

What it means: Your ability to keep the program going after the grant period ends.

Why it matters: Funders want to see that you’re thinking ahead. How will you sustain the work once their funding runs out?

Final Thought: The Words Shouldn't Be the Hard Part

Learning the terminology is part of learning how to apply for grants but it shouldn’t feel like a secret code. The more familiar you get with these terms, the more confident you’ll feel sharing your work, planning your proposals, and having real conversations with funders.

At The Greater Sum, we work with nonprofit leaders who are learning as they go; breaking down the jargon, simplifying the process, and helping you build systems that fit your stage of growth. Feeling stuck? Sign up for our newsletter for resources you can actually use.

Anna Taylor is Executive Director of The Greater Sum Foundation. Under her leadership, Greater Sum has supported over 100 organizations through strategic funding, capacity-building tools, and a virtual incubator model focused on long-term impact and sustainability.

Dr. Kristin Joys on Nonprofit Internships

In her role as the Director of Social Impact & Sustainability at UF’s Warrington College of Business, Dr. Kristin Joys has connected us with MANY of Greater Sum’s most cherished interns. When we gathered to discuss internships earlier this summer, she shared some tips for successful, meaningful experiences with interns. Dr. Joys has given permission for us to share them more broadly here.

1. Prepare: the more engaged you are as a supervisor & mentor, the better work your interns will do for you. Devote time to preparing to onboard your interns and schedule regular checkins with them, especially if they are working virtually. Having face-time with you helps your Interns to be successful in accomplishing what you ask of them.  

2. Pay: please plan to pay your interns, it’s an issue of equity (for more see NACE's Position Statement: All Internships Should be Paid).

3. Provide clear instructions: Interns often do best with both written & verbal instructions, tools like Loom are great for SOPs so you don’t feel like a broken record— you can record them once and update as needed. 

4. Perspective & Purpose: help your interns to see the big picture about how and why their tasks matter. Help them understand how their efforts help further your mission (especially when their tasks may feel like busy work), doing so gives them a sense of purpose & meaning (which goes a long way in motivating them to work hard).

5. Personal & Professional: get to know your Interns as people, it’s important that they feel like you see them and care about them as humans. It’s equally important to treat them as professionals. This may be their first professional experience. You may be their first boss (as mentioned in this great quote from an article on Linkedin: "Don’t pick a job. Pick a Boss. Your first boss is the biggest factor in your career success." And Brené Brown said, "Who we are is how we lead. Self-awareness, kindness, vision, accountability, trust, just basic skills of being a good human being to other human beings.”

6. Praise & offer positive feedback often: see these stellar resources for how to do so:  

   Stop Serving the Feedback Sandwich - Adam Grant

   Engaged Feedback - Brene Brown

   Wes Kao’s newsletter

7. Patience: Interns don’t know what they don’t know and they can’t read your mind. Rather than giving Interns a deadline for a project, schedule checkins at multiple milestones, well in advance of the final deadline, so they can share their progress and receive feedback, resulting in a final draft is much more likely to be the most helpful product you’re hoping they will create.

8. Promote: Offer your Interns to stay on after their initial internship has ended if they’d be an asset to your organization. Whether or not you’re able to hire them, it’s helpful for their future career success if you share on Linkedin your appreciation for their efforts as an Intern. 

For more information about Best Practices when working with Interns, see the resources Dr. Joys compiled here: https://bit.ly/dogoodwell-intern-tips. You can follow her work at Do Good Well Consulting on Substack.

Reflection: Accelerating Impact in 2023

Anna Taylor, Executive Director

The headlines from this year’s annual report might read…

18 organizations completed the Virtual Incubator Program (VIP)!

$103,000 distributed to nonprofits via the 2023 Pitch Competition & Accelerator!

83.3% of Greater Sum’s accelerator alumni are on a growth trajectory!

As I watched the report come together, I found myself most captivated by the quotes that accompany those headlines.

“I now have the confidence and know-how to make a more compelling case.”

“DCSI has been proud to partner with Greater Sum for the better part of a decade. The Greater Sum team does a tremendous job of nurturing and cultivating start-up nonprofits and they recognize that one of the keystones for their success is strong HR knowledge.”

“I loved being able to browse the various nonprofits. I read about their individual ideas and plans and chose to support the one that seemed to have the biggest impact on things I care about.”

I’m reminded that when Greater Sum’s logo was first sketched on a napkin, it was during a conversation that became a brainstorming session that become a reality, drawing on the quote that serves as our core vision for supporting early stage nonprofits:

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

This year’s report features participants, volunteers, donors, and staff working together to achieve more. I hope you enjoy reading it! What stands out to you?

Alumni Spotlight: FreeFrom

The Greater Sum supports innovative nonprofits across our focus areas of community, health, education and environment in hopes that these nonprofits will expand and scale. 2020 Alumni organization FreeFrom is changing the conversation about gender-based violence and financial abuse.

Founder Sonya Passi visited Greater Sum’s January board meeting to give an update on how the organization has grown since receiving Greater Sum funding in 2020.

• Awarded over $2MM in emergency cash grants to survivors,

• Social enterprise, Gifted, has generated over $2.5MM in revenue for survivors,

• Supporting survivors in getting legislation passed in 12 states,

• Data from their cash grant program has been cited by the White House and used by federal agencies.

It’s noteworthy for a nonprofit to enter this sphere of influence. One of the challenges of working in the field of gender-based violence is the lack of good data. FreeFrom has used data from their cash grant program to publish reports on survivor experience and policy recommendations. As Sonya told our board, “it’s very easy to ignore a nonprofit but its hard to ignore 2500 survivors.”

FreeFrom recently celebrated their 7-year anniversary. Congratulations to Sonya and her team for the dramatic impact you’ve had in such a short time!

Free Non-Profit Incubator Program LIVE in Jacksonville, FL!

Strange things are afoot here at Greater Sum headquarters. After three years and seven virtual cohorts we are doing an in-person version of our non-profit incubator. This pilot program will take place in Greater Sum’s home town, Jacksonville, Florida.

The program consists of:

• Self-paced curriculum focused on financial sustainability & pitching your nonprofit

• Weekly peer discussion to reinforce what you’re learning and expand your knowledge of local resources

• 1-on-1 coaching calls with Greater Sum volunteers

• Pitch training, coaching, and feedback

The self-paced incubator curriculum will still be offered online, but the weekly peer chat will be in person here in JAX. I couldn’t be more excited to combine two of my favorite activities: talking shop and drinking coffee in my neighborhood.

Here’s the scoop…

Dates: August 8th through September 12th (Tuesday morning meetings)

Audience: founders of start-up non-profits in Jacksonville

Cost: ZERO. NADA. NOT A DIME. (why? Greater Sum helps founders build financially sustainable non-profits, and we know what start-up non-profit budgets look like.)

Application Deadline: July 20th

Graduates of the incubator are eligible to participate in Greater Sum’s pitch competition. You can learn about past winners HERE, and watch last year’s pitch competition on our YouTube channel.

Hosting this series in person is a new adventure for TGS, and I hope you, dear reader, will help this opportunity find its intended audience. If you know a non-profit founder in Jacksonville who would love to connect with fellow founders and subject matter expert volunteers, send them our way!

PS - if you’re thinking to yourself, “I wish this was taking place in MY town,” don’t give up hope! Our goal is for Greater Sum and partners to be able to offer incubator series in a variety of locations.

Support and Guidance for New Nonprofits

Are you leading a nonprofit startup and juggling demand for your services with fundraising and paperwork? Greater Sum’s free virtual incubator program may be just the help you need, in a format designed to fit into your busy schedule.

The incubator covers nonprofit accounting, funding models, earned revenue, and branding via a self-paced curriculum, and brings together nonprofit leaders and industry mentors for lively group discussions and individual coaching sessions.

Here’s what past participants have to say about the program:

“We can confidently say we are better able to serve our mission because of this experience.”

“It's given me some confidence to know our growing pains are "normal" and manageable.”

“It is encouraging to get to know other young organizations at a similar stage in development.”

“There is so much to do but having your support and network made it easier and helps to keep me encouraged.”

Greater Sum is offering three sessions in 2023: January/February, March/April, and May/June. Graduates of the incubator are eligible to participate in our Fall 2023 pitch competition. Apply HERE!

How about New Year's Resources Instead of Resolutions?

Dear Friends of The Greater Sum,

Congrats on everything you accomplished in 2021, be it growth, maintenance, self-care, or self-protection. In 2022, it is my deepest wish that The Greater Sum provides you with a boost of energy, a helping hand, or a lightbulb moment.

We’re doing rolling applications for our 2022 Virtual Nonprofit Incubator sessions this year - the deadline is tomorrow for the February/March session, and you can also apply for April/May or June/July sessions at your leisure. If you’re ready to level up your non-profit, the incubator will help you plan for growth and financial sustainability. Apply HERE, and feel free to reach out with questions.

In the coming months, you’ll see more activity here on the blog, networking and informational webinars, and a steady infusion of good news and opportunities from our non-profit grantees and alumni. We’ll also be launching Greater Together, a new online community and home for the virtual incubator. Volunteers and alumni, this is your chance to “get together” in a variety of productive and engaging ways!

In lieu of New Year’s Resolutions, we are focused on Resources. Find them, create them, share them! What are your favorite non-profit resources lately?

Anna Taylor, Executive Director