#212: Why Grants are Start-Up Funding and How Services Can Sustain Programs
Why Grants are Start-Up Funding and How Services Can Sustain Programs
Many nonprofit leaders come to me and believe that it is good for grants to cover all their programs. While grant money is very helpful for nonprofits (I mean, we definitely promote grants as our name is Grant Writing & Funding), grants should be viewed as start-up or expansion funding.
Diversifying your nonprofit organization’s funding portfolio is essential to sustain your programs. Grant funding can be extremely helpful, and should be a revenue stream for your nonprofit, grant funding should not be the only revenue stream.
Other types of funding include:
- Individual donors
- Corporate sponsorships
- Crowdfunding
- Fundraising
- Products
- Services
Your nonprofit organization can charge individuals, corporations/organizations, and the government to provide services that align with your mission. An example is what the TurnOut nonprofit organization is doing in California.
About the TurnOut Organization and the Services they Provide for Their Programs
The TurnOut nonprofit supports volunteers, provides board training, and more in the LGBTQ+ space. Their mission is:
to mobilize communities to power queer and trans movements.
They accomplish this by building community power to support queer and trans movements and rely on a diverse funding portfolio to include individual donors, services, corporate sponsors, fundraising, and grants.
Jack Beck, founder of TurnOut, discusses the overall funding portfolio in this week’s podcast and YouTube episode.
What We Discuss
- How Jack found support through LGBTQ nonprofits
- Why Jack started TurnOut
- Funding and challenges for LGBTQ+ nonprofit organizations
- TurnOut’s first government grant
- Why grants should be start-up or expansion funding
- How to build a sustainable funding program
- How to utilize services as a revenue generator
- Why (and how often) to raise prices of services
About Jack Beck
Jack Beck began his career by working with community-based HIV organizations, and over the past 15 years he has had the privilege of working with grassroots queer groups all over the world. Over time it became obvious that the grassroots organizations leading this work needed much more support than they were getting, and that there were a huge number of queer people and allies who wanted to support but did not know where to start. So, in 2015, Jack left his job to start TurnOut.
TurnOut now supports more than 5,000 volunteers working with over 150 LGBTQ+ nonprofits across California, helping to power organizations addressing LGBTQ+ youth homelessness, LGBTQ+ mental health, LGBTQ+ arts, and much more.
Learn more at www.turnout.org!
How to Connect with TurnOut
- Check out TurnOut website
- Want to volunteer? Click here
- Want to get on a board? Click here
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