By Sarah S. Brophy
(Mounted January 17, 2005)
When you’re asking for money, it’s all about your organization, isn’t it? Wrong. You’ve been trained to write that proposal to describe your needs and what you’re asking for, but let’s think for a moment. If you want someone to give you something that everyone else wants, too, how does that someone decide? They decide based on their needs first, then yours. The funder narrows the competition by choosing only those that satisfy what the foundation or agency wants, or needs. Then they look for projects that best satisfy the combined needs and interests of the funder and the applicant. This article is about making that first cut – addressing the funders’ needs. Please note in no way am I suggesting you create a program based on funders’ needs; create the program you need and sell it to the funders whose missions and interests match it.
If we were to commandeer Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, then the triangle for foundation and agency needs would look like this (you’ll remember from psychology class that fulfillment begins at the bottom of the pyramid):
Edge
Quality
Impact
Location & Audience
Organizational Mission
Let’s start at the bottom and work up as we explore just what is it about what you do that will motivate your funders.
Organizational Mission
So, how many foundations do you know that have “public history” in their mission? In the Foundation Directory – exactly zero. They describe themselves as funding:
- education
- historical societies
- historic preservation or restoration (but not conservation because that refers to land conservation)
- historical activities
- humanities
- museums
- and re-enactments
So, when you find a target donor in these categories, head to its website and read its mission statement. You’re golden if the phrasing matches, but that’s not always the case. Be very exacting when you compare missions; look for shared words and shared intent. Funders are just as concerned with mission creep as we are; so don’t expect them to stretch their mission to match your program’s goals. Next, check the guidelines for geographic restrictions and the preferred audience.
Location & Audience
Either you’re in or you’re out with the location concept. Rarely do foundations stretch geographic boundaries.
As for audience, funders often have multiple target audiences: youth, distance learners, secondary students, or anyone underserved in a particular area, for example. Of course you have to reach at least one of the funder’s target audiences; more importantly, however, you have to be able to describe that audience. How many? Of whom? From where? Is there something distinctive about them, for example, ethnic makeup, immigrant status, past experience, or physical condition? It is helpful if your intended audience describe themselves for you. Do they come from a particular source like the Council on Aging or Elderhostel? Do they give you zip codes when they sign up so that you can track residence? On the evaluation sheet do they have an opportunity to check boxes for describing their race? Can you get school department statistics on free lunches as a descriptor of your school population’s income status?
Yes, it’s a chore to collect this data, and it surely feels like it distracts you from your main purpose, but remember, and tell your participants too, that having information like this helps you attract funding to support this program and others like it. The donor is giving this money to your participants through you, so let the donor know exactly who gets the benefit.
Impact - What difference do you make?
It is very easy, when you’re in a hurry and there are many applications and much else to do, to simply describe what you’ll do, not what difference you’ll make.
What you’re going to do is open an exhibit on the history of town planning as a contribution to your community’s review of its planning by-laws.
The difference you’ll make is to open a long-delayed discussion of the history of zoning regulations and provide a safe forum for explaining the origins of the zoning law, the forgotten reasons for creating them, a tour of their historical evolution, and a welcoming opportunity for review and discussion of what the laws should be doing for the future, as part of the community’s by-law review process.
What you’re going to do, in the wake of parish consolidations, is to gather fast-receding memories of closed parishes and associated schools.
What difference you’ll make is to temporarily re-gather the school and church communities for reminiscence work and to collect oral histories. The records will be accessible to the churches and community for the generations growing up without the parish and the schools in the wake of parish consolidations. The reminiscence opportunity will also be a chance for many parishioners to say “good-bye” to their special places.
In our efforts to evaluate our work, especially using goals and objectives with numerical outcomes, we miss the opportunity to appreciate what the British evaluation program calls “changes in values, attitudes and feelings.” When you’re measuring the difference you make by showing how many children can correctly answer the three types of industries that shaped the history of your community, remember to tap their comments that say “I never knew so many different kinds of people worked in the mills.”
Quality
The Paul Revere House has 6.5 staff members and one-eighth of an acre with which to work. Two buildings and a small courtyard make up its physical resources. The public would come, even it were closed, simply for the Revere name. And the organization could simply interpret the Revere story, but by also carefully interpreting Boston’s history through architecture, artisans and tradesmen, politics, and the role of women, all starting from themes at their site, the staff has earned a reputation for thorough and excellent research. Historians cite the staff as providing the most rigorous manuscript review they have ever experienced. Their partnership with the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) isn’t based simply on the residence of the Revere Papers at the MHS building, but on a shared commitment to high-end research. How has this affected funding for the house? IMLS (the Institute of Museum and Library Services), and its predecessor IMS, has funded the Paul Revere House every year but three since 1983.
Edge
Just about anything they do at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York City is cutting edge. When staff began offering ESL classes using the museum’s collection, they were breaking new ground. Their work has professional and innovative edges because it is of such quality that it adds knowledge and value to the museum field.
A professional edge comes from advancing the field. It is a nice edge to have, but out of the reach of many. The leadership grants and inducements to creativity out there do tempt us, but they are not for everyone. Be sure first that your project is designed to make a difference to your visitors or your institution, not just to be professionally adventurous. But if it is on the professional edge, don’t be shy about it.
Innovative edges can be more local. Think in terms of your community and your region. If no one has yet worked with the local prison inmates, then your project to guide them in researching and presenting an exhibit on the prison’s history is innovative. If no one has yet figured out how to share resources among the historical society, town office, churches, and private collections, then your identification and planning project is new territory. If no one has created a regional network for identifying character performers and linking them to school programming, then you are innovative. Make sure the funder knows this.
I do recommend, wherever possible, that you provide a charitable edge. If there is a way that you can extend the grant to others, without compromising the value of the grant to yourself, then you have an edge over others. Often, but not always, the funder wants more bang for each buck. By offering free Thursdays, for example, and targeting special groups to visit on those days, you’re extending the grant’s impact. If you’re receiving archival training with the grant, is there appropriate staff at a related organization that could participate, too? That new scanner doesn’t get used on Tuesdays and Wednesdays when there’s no volunteer in the office; can’t the neighboring historical society use it once a week to send images to their own computer in return for a thumbnail file for your database? With just a bit of effort you can find a good way to make this grant do more than just one project in support of public history.
Next Steps
Of course, there’s an important part of this equation we have not yet discussed: your relationship with the foundation or agency. When you first consider whether or not to approach a particular funder, use this needs triangle to look for a good match, then call the funder and explain: you’ve read the guidelines, visited their website, and believe your program or organization is a good match for their needs and interests. Ask to speak with them for a few moments about the program to see if you should go ahead with an application. In that conversation, listen carefully for clues to what the funder really wants to see in a project and a proposal. If it all fits, then it’s time to apply. Good luck!
