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One consistent reason is the high rejection rate of proposals caused by applicants who do not apply to the right funding agencies. It may sound obvious that this needs to be done, but in fact this is the first hurdle where many applicants fail. If you have had a grant proposal rejected, it may be that you are not properly researching Funder Profiles and mismatching elements of the criteria.

The geographical area and the demographic a funder wants to aid, is often the first mandate applicants overlook when screening Funder Profiles for a match. Or maybe they did look, but thought their program so worthwhile an exception may be made by the funder. This is not likely to happen. Funders do not have special case categories. They look for a very exact match when placing grants. So essentially, if you are a small business who wants to expand xyz program and you know this matches the information given by the Funder Profile, you may be surprised by a rejection. When asking for feedback, you may see that your program met all the criteria, and only failed because the operational plans were to expand in an urban area outside of the locality where you are based. This is the element of your program that conflicted with this particular funder’s mandate. This is also a part of the criteria often not properly researched by applicants before submitting a proposal.

In order to avoid missing some essential information given by the funder, applicants will often take the first step of asking the funder for Submission Guidelines and Requests for Proposals (RFP) to research. These documents offer an enormous amount of time consuming information to go through, almost guaranteeing something will be missed. Especially if you have applied to several agencies or foundations. The easiest way to make an initial list of matching funders is to go through the summary profiles displayed on their sits and marketing brochures. Normally you will find enough information here to let you know if which funders may be a good fit for your program and worth further research.

Then look for a list of previous grantees. This gives some insight into the preferences of the funder and how closely your own program matches. Systematically go through your lists of funders, deselecting those whose initial criteria is a mismatch with your program. You will soon have a smaller and more manageable list of Funder Profiles to start seriously researching, saving yourself a lot of wasted time and effort. If you are unsure and do not have time to do the research work yourself, then contacting a Grant Consultant will produce much better results.
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