Jennifer A. Poland
M.A.
jenniferapoland@gmail.com
(706) 616-4238
Presentation Outline
 The Need for Grant Writing
 Background
 Nonprofit Revenue Diversification
 Grant Writing Resources
 Common Elements of Success in Grant Writing
 Thesis Survey Research
 Methodology
 Development of the Questionnaire
 Results
 Grant Writing Application
 Grant Inventory Summary & Grant Proposal developed for Horse Time
The Need for Grant Writing Survey Research
 The vulnerability of nonprofit organizations is critical as
16% of organizations survive for only the first five years of
operation (NCCS, 2000-2005).
 Competitiveness for the estimated $38.44 billion given out
by grant making organizations is great (Giving USA, 2010).
 Nonprofits are particularly subject to resource dependency,
a reliance on any one stream of revenue that greatly
impacts nonprofit organizational structures and financial
health (Carroll & Stater, 2008).
 Grant programs may only fund 10 to 30 percent of
applications (Porter, 2005).
EAAT Nonprofit organizations at risk for
resource dependency?
Equus: The Center for Equine Assisted Therapy, located in Kansas City, Missouri
provides children, youth, and adults critical life skills through activities with
horses reported 96% of their income from program service revenue alone in 2009
(Guidestar, 2010).
In Tuscon, Arizona, Desert Dove Farm offers a horse therapy program for at risk
youth reported 70% of their income from program service revenue alone in 2009
(Guidestar, 2010).
Stride Ahead, in Atlanta, Georgia, provides youth development, animal related
activities and general rehabilitative services using horses reported 100% of their
income from contributions and grants in 2009 (Guidestar, 2010).
Triple Creek Ranch in Redding, California, providing youth development, mental
health treatment and general rehabilitative services using horses reported 78% of
their income in 2008 from contributions, gifts, and grants (Guiedestar, 2010).
Grant Writing Resources
 Summary of Grant Services offered by different
organizations
 (1) listing of grant consultants,
 (2) resources, research and/or reports,
 (3) searchable database for grants, and
 (4) workshops, classes, trainings, and/or certifications.
 Grant Opportunities Specific to Nonprofit EAAT
Organizations
Grant Services Offered by Different
Organizations
 There are positive and negative attributes to EAAT organizations utilizing a listing of
grant consultants. A grant consultant would be beneficial to an organization due to their
knowledge and experience composing the proposal and following a timeline. Adversely
hiring a grant consultant maybe a poor option for organizations due to the lack of
institutional memory, choosing the wrong individual, or a high cost.
 Resources to organizations in grant writing, research and reports related to grant writing
or fundraising are valuable to EAAT organizations. Nonprofit organizations that provide
services to the community are under increased pressure to justify their expenditures and
demonstrate their value to the community (Grant, 2006)
 Nonprofit organizations choosing to use grants as a source of funding will require
knowledge of where to access searchable database to locate potential funders for
identified projects or programs. Searchable databases are a benefit to organizations as
they are fast, user friendly and help focus the search for grant funders.
 Nonprofit organizations offering EAAT services may benefit from workshops, training,
certifications or conferences in grant writing. Organizations may need training or
development due to a lack of knowledge in grant writing, or a planned change in the
organization to utilize grants. The benefits of networking and increasing employee
efficiencies in process and the adoption of new methods may result in financial gain
through awarded grants.
Grant Opportunities Specific to
Nonprofit EAAT Organizations
(1) EAAT organizations interested in conducting research can benefit from searching for
grants to legitimize the effectiveness of their program.
(2) The American Horse Council and their affiliate state Horse Council Member
Associations represent the horse industry in government (AHC, 2011). Examples of three
of the Horse Council Associations that offer grants include Nebraska, Minnesota, and
Iowa.
(3) Breed Associations can be a potential source of funding through grants, fundraisers, or
benefit events. Further involvement with breed associations can increase marketing
sources, donations, volunteers, horse donations and clientele.
(4) Any organization utilizing horses in their EAAT programs, unless the animals are leased,
or the facility use is leased, could consider utilizing sustainable, eco-friendly, horse
keeping practices.
(5) Funding for program costs can emanate from a variety of funding sources equine and
non equine oriented
(6) Nonprofit organizations operating a horse rescue, and utilizing these horses for EAAT
programs.
(7) Funding for the variety of programs offered through nonprofit organizations can have a
beneficial impact on EAAT programs even if the funding is not directly related if the
programs share staff, horses, and facilities.
Summary of Grant Services Available to
Nonprofit Organizations
Grant Writing Resources Specific
to EAAT
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Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association
NARHA
Association for Experiential Education
Quick Start Grant Writing for Equine-Assisted
Therapeutic Riding and Learning Programs (Bowman)
First Strides: How to Create a Thriving EAP Program
Without Losing your Money or Your Mind (Corcoran)
Equinomics: The Secret to Making Money with Your
Horse Business (Cordell)
EAGALA Business Development Guide
Horse Sense Business Sense: Practical Tools for
Building a Successful Equine Assisted Program (Knapp,
& Dammann)
How to Start en EFP/EFL Program (NARHA)
Equine Assisted Psychotherapy Business Planning
Guide and Workbook (Scott)
Planning your Business in the Horse as Healer/Teacher
Professions (Strozzi)
Traditional Organizations offering
Grant Writing Resources
 American Association of Grant
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Professionals
The Foundation Center
Grant Professionals
Association of Fundraising Professionals
The Grantsmanship Center
Grant Writing USA
Federal Government Grants
Federal Grants Wire
Fundsnet Services Online
Grants Alert
National Grants Management Association
Grant Advocate Resource Center
Giving USA Foundation & Giving Institute
Summary of Grant Writing: Funding Resources
 “The lives of all the people involved [can] be enriched by the
experience (Schaff & Schaff, 1999, pg. 106)."
 Traditional funding sources include money received through direct
mail fundraising, telephone-fundraising, major gift fundraising,
planned giving fundraising, online/internet fundraising, special
event fundraising, different foundation organizations, government
agencies at either the national, state or local level, United Way,
Lions, Kiwanis Club, Rotary Club, local community organizations
(AFP, 2009; Smith, 2010).
 Flying Change (2011) lists different funding opportunities on their
webpage to encourage the awareness of diversification of funding
sources and focuses including: (1)suicide prevention; (2) domestic
violence; (3) responding to the aftermath of disasters; (4)
responding to the aftermath of crisis; (5) youth and social services
(6) health; (7) schools; and (8) communities.
Summary of Grant Writing: Writing Skills
 Writing that includes originality, problem solving,
timelines, compelling need, and outreach; is needed to
convey stewardship in any proposal (Blum, 1996).
 The purpose of writing within grant writing is to enlighten,
educate, persuade and entertain (Smith, 2010).
 Resources include: A Writer's Reference (Hacker, 2010),
How to Write: Advice and Reflections (Rhodes, 1995),
Writing to Change the World (Pipher, 2006), Writing for a
Good Cause: The Complete guide to Crafting Proposals and
other Persuasive Pieces for Nonprofits (Barbato & Furlich,
2000), The Elements of Style (Strunk & White, 2008).
Summary of Grant Writing Skills: Proposal
Development
 Cover Letter
 Proposal Narrative (Smith, 2010)
 Proposal abstract
 History of the organization and mission statement
 Needs assessment and problem statement
 Goals of the organization
 Objectives of the proposal
 Plan of activities (who, what, where, why, when and how)
 Past year’s accomplishments
 Qualifications of key staff
 Accountability and evaluation plan of agency programs and
progress
 Sustainability plan
 budget
Summary of Grant Writing Skills: Managing the
Grant Process
 Grant Management Activities (Smith, 2010):
 Facilitation and/or supervision of a grant project team,
 Proposal research,
 Identification of funding and bid sources,
 Grant and proposal writing,
 Agency capability statement, and
 Program management and financial management.
Summary of Grant Writing Skills: Grant
Management Checklist
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)
(11)
(12)
(13)
(14)
(15)
obtain guidelines;
contact representative at funding
agency;
select primary authors of proposal;
prepare abstract or prospectus and
submit letter of intent;
contact departments and organizations
for support or collaboration;
obtain initial administrative approval;
complete literature review;
determine study design;
prepare first draft of proposal;
prepare abstract of proposal;
initiate internal review;
prepare budget;
revise proposal based on feedback;
solicit letters of support;
obtain written assurances from support
sources;
(16)
(17)
(18)
(19)
(20)
(21)
(22)
(23)
(24)
(25)
(26)
(27)
(28)
(29)
(30)
complete institutional forms;
type and proofread final document;
obtain administrative signatures;
proofread proposal;
duplicate proposal;
submit proposal;
follow-up grant review process;
monitoring of grant implementation
plan;
supervision reviews;
financial management reports;
implementation of evaluation;
evaluation reports;
program reports to funding sources;
grant close-out; and
audit and financial reporting (Smith,
2010).
Thesis Title: An Examination of Developing Grant
Proposals for Nonprofit Equine Facilitated Learning and
Psychotherapy Programs
The purpose of the qualitative study was to extend the
research on EAMH nonprofit organizations
commonalities in successful and unsuccessful
elements within grant development.
 Survey Research
 Design a Questionnaire
 Assessed representatives of NARHA and EAGALA
nonprofit organizations
 Grant Writing Projects with Horse Time
 Grant Inventory Summary
 Grant Proposal
Survey Research
 Questionnaire
 25 questions
 Questions are separated based on content starting
with:
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Demographic Information (q. 1-5),
Financial Information (q. 6-13) ,
Grant Writing Experience and Resources (q. 14-20), and
Successful and Unsuccessful Grant Elements (q. 21-25)
Survey Results
 188 (82 NARHA, 106 EAGALA) potential participants
were contacted for the research survey, 51 (19 NARHA,
32 EAGALA) participants agreed to participate, 24 (8
NARHA, 16 EAGALA) participants declined
participation.
 Eight Participants returned survey, all female
representatives of five NARHA nonprofit
organizations, and three EAGALA nonprofit
organizations.
Survey Results - Demographic Information
 All participants represented nonprofit organizations
 On average organizations registered with NARHA and
EAGALA have been in operation for five or more years
 The majority of EFMH nonprofit organizations rely on less
than five paid employees
 The EAGALA participants commonly ranked EFP services
first followed by EAL services, the NARHA participants
commonly ranked therapeutic riding services first
 The majority of participants, NARHA and EAGALA
representatives, reported offering services to children,
adolescents, and adult groups
Survey Results – Financial Information
 Participants most commonly reported their budget
being $100,000-$200,000
 NARHA participant members typically ranked grants as
the primary source of income. EAGALA participants
revealed no trends in the ranked sources of income
 The majority of NARHA and EAGALA participants
reported grant funds increased with a subsequent
increase in grant applications when the past year and
previous five years where compared.
 75% of participants responding as receiving both
foundation and community grants
Survey Results - Grant Writing
Experience and Resources
 No commonalities were found in relation to budget and years
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experience in grant writing
Participants where split between individuals versus teams
composing grant projects.
50% of participants reported using only one of the grant systems
(funding development plan and grant inventory), 25% reported
using none of the systems, while 25% reported using two or more
of the systems.
The majority of organizations employees will be accessing less
than two sources, both traditionally and EAAT oriented, when
searching for grants
The majority of organizations employees will be accessing less
than two resources, both traditionally and EAAT oriented, to
improve their grant writing knowledge and experience
Successful Elements in Grant Writing
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Gerding, (2008), Eight elements of Success
Gerding & Mackellar, (2006), Ten Points to Remember
Himes, (n/d), Four Proven Keys to Success
Bourne & Chalupa, (2006), Ten Rules in Successful Grant
Writing
Smaglik, (2004), Five Factors Grant Reviewers Choose as
Successful in Grant Applications
Porter, (2007), Five Strategies to Improve Academics Grant
Writing Skills
McCume, (2007), Ten Elements of Success
Porter, (2005), Six Grant Reviewers Expectations & Seven
Characteristics of a Good Proposal
Whatley, (2000), Ten Ways to Improve Proposals
Unsuccessful Elements in Grant Writing
 Porter (2005) reports common grant writing mistakes as
reported by grant reviewers. Grant reviewers critiqued: (1)
writing that is vague and unfocused; (2) lack of
proofreading; (3) incomplete response to the program
announcement; (4) the project is too ambitious; (5) the
research plan is vague; (6) the principal investigator lacks
proven competence to do the research.
 Carlson, & O’Neal-McElrath (2008) discuss common
difficulties in writing grants including: budget issues,
ensuring proper requirements of a grant proposal are
fulfilled to avoid rejection, and having a well written
research proposal.
Survey Results - Successful and
Unsuccessful Grant Elements
 Questions 21 & 23 Participants Ranked Successful and
Unsuccessful Commonalities in Grant Writing on a
Linear Scale of 1-7, 1 – Extremely Unimportant, and 7 –
Extremely Important
 The inter item correlation lacked statistical
significance due to the low sample size.
 The Frequency Distribution for Questions 21 and 23
indicated that participants rated 68.4% of the
elements as Quite Important (6) to Extremely
Important(7)
Survey Results - Successful and
Unsuccessful Grant Elements
Successful Commonalities
Unsuccessful Commonalities
 Grant work should always begin
 Not being clear and concise with
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with planning
Include the appropriate
background and preliminary
data
Create an evaluation strategy
and build the method into the
project from the start
Clearly defining the needs of the
organization
Detailed budgets that match the
proposed program or project
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the proposal idea
The grant proposal not
matching the grant funders
concept
Not beginning grant work with a
plan
Failure to use an evaluation
strategy
Expenditure and/or cost
estimating that is not
thoroughly detailed
Survey Results - Self Reported Answers
 Self Reported Answers for Questions 22, 24, and 25:
 Q. 22
 "reporting back to show accountability and desired results were met”,
 "be sure your project falls within the realm of the grantors guidelines”,
 “make sure the request falls within the giving guidelines of the grant
maker"
 Q. 24
 "how many grants are submitted, they may like the project but it could
be the wrong time to submit"
 Q. 25
 "collaboration with individuals that have been successful and or
familiar with the grant offering group"
 "grantors like to see background facts"
Grant Writing Projects with Horse Time
 Grant Inventory Summary
 Three projects, grants identified for each
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The first project is a brick and mortar initiative, as the organization needs a multiuse building
The second project is a program initiative, to provide a social skills group for boys
at the Sharp Learning Center, an alternative school located in Covington, Georgia
The last project as being a staffing initiative, to provide funds for a Volunteer
Coordinator/Recruiter at Horse Time
 Commonalities in Grant Inventory Development Process
 Finding grants for operating expenses such as the staffing initiative was
the most difficult portion of the process
 the government database was extremely difficult to navigate and
understand the qualifications necessary to apply and the application
process
 Grant funders had different formats and applications required for their
grant proposals, no trend in requirements was evident, providing
minor direction in a successful grant submission.
Grant Writing Projects with Horse Time
 Grant Application
 Robert W. Woodruff Foundation (Preliminary Planning
Construction Grant – Brick and Mortar Initiative)
 Commonalities in Grant Application Development
 The funding focus area of human services, particularly for
children and youth, was heavily emphasized in the grant
proposal to ensure linking the funders initiatives to the
project
 The majority of the information for the organizational history
and program overview included in the grant was available on
Horse Time's website or within the clinical training manual
 The grant proposal aspects of writing including: relevant
statistics, program information, quotes, concise and clear
writing were most prevalent.
Thesis Limitations
 Limitations of Survey Research
 Low number of Participants
 Survey as a word document compared to an online survey
 The best individual within the organization to approach
regarding grant writing survey research was unknown
 Questionnaire design
 Limitations of Grant Writing Projects
 Lack of an evaluation of the chosen grants appropriateness for
each of the three projects
 Lack of an evaluation of successful and unsuccessful
tendencies in the developed proposal
Thesis Recommendations
 The first recommendation is the movement in the
field towards research specific to EAAT grant writing
 The second recommendation specific to the
application of grant writing skills by nonprofit
organizations, is the increased devotion of staff to
utilizing more knowledge and resources to grant
writing
 Future grant writing research should consider
assessing grant funders beliefs of successful
commonalities in grant writing specific to EAAT
nonprofit organizations
Thesis Conclusion
 The non experimental design was utilized to determine
what individuals are involved in EAAT nonprofit programs
are thinking and doing in regards to successful
commonalities in grant writing.
 The survey research demonstrated a lack of significant
results regarding successful elements in grant writing.
There were strong similarities in participants' ranking of
successful and unsuccessful elements surrounding
planning, budgets, and evaluation strategies in grant
writing. A policy change in grant funders providing clear
criteria for evaluation of grant applications is needed.
Grant Writing Conclusions in Nonprofit
EAAT Programs
 A large factor in business success is the ability to maintain a consistent
cash flow, nonprofit organizations offering EAAT programs benefit
from traditional business knowledge of diversifying funding.
 Sources of funding need to reliably support an organization through
consistent funds respectively to maintain income to strengthen an
organization within the current economy.
 Nonprofit organizations seeking grant funding are attempting to make
a lasting and profound impression on grant reviewers, in hopes of
receiving grant funding.
 The success of EAAT nonprofit organizations receiving and utilizing
grant funds for their businesses is dependent first on the decision and
devotion to integrating grant writing policies and procedures as one of
many sources of diversified funding within the nonprofit organization.