CapacityBuilding – Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.

Capacity Building Series: The Power of Nonprofit Storytelling

Steven Cavazos on June 27, 2025

Once upon a time… we all know a great story beginning with this phrase, and it is a great example of how stories stick with us over a lifetime.

Think of a favorite adventure from your life. This could be a favorite day, activity, work event, trip, or any situation to utilize as the framework for your story. Now consider all the details you would include to describe the story to engage your audience and give them context and a sense of your experience.

Storytelling engages the sensory cortex in the brain, which allows the audience to feel, hear, taste, and even smell your story. Neural activity increases by five times when listening to a story, and Cognitive Psychologist Jerome Bruner suggested that stories are remembered 22 times more easily than data, facts, and statistics.

There can be immense power in utilizing nonprofit storytelling to convey the mission, vision, values, and impact of your organization. There is always an amazing story to be told weaving together the origin, purpose, and outcomes that showcase a nonprofit’s mission. A well-crafted story will make the information shared more personal and prompt an emotional response in the audience, making a stronger connection to the message.

Necessary pieces of a compelling story:

relatable details

expressive language

a problem to solve

a clear call to action

A focused effort on crafting the story of your nonprofit will allow a common message to be shared throughout the organization and beyond, garnering more support among staff, volunteers, and donors.

Utilizing Visuals & Data

Combining visuals with your nonprofit story is incredibly effective. Photos and videos have a way of grabbing the attention of your audience differently than words alone. People are accustomed to visuals being included in information and marketing, which makes it a necessary practice for nonprofits. Sharing visuals will connect your audience even more to the story with a picture of people, activities, and the valuable impact being made. For example, a potential donor may not remember your exact mission, but they will remember a video they saw telling the story of a local family experiencing job loss and food insecurity who found resources through your organization.

Your nonprofit probably collects data for various needs such as grant reporting and tracking outcomes. This rich data can be used to make your storytelling even stronger. Data can be put into charts or graphs to create a clear visual to accompany your story, and there are also many programs you can use to create infographics.

Canva is an online graphic design tool with many premade templates, including infographic templates, and they offer a nonprofit discount giving you access to Canva Pro for FREE! Additional tools to create graphics are Infogram, Google Data Studio, Tableau, and many others. Put your good data to use in your storytelling!

Empowering Advocates & Inspiring Action

With good storytelling, your nonprofit can inform, inspire, and catalyze the audience to take action to support your organization. Empowering advocates to tell your nonprofit story is a way of amplifying the message being shared, and building essential connections with your community, volunteers, board members, funders, and donors.

Storytelling traditions have existed across generations and can both identify and uplift community values. Participatory storytelling can be utilized as a strengths-based approach to co-creating stories involving specific examples from clients and within communities being served.Client testimonials add incredible value to your storytelling and give life to facts and information about the organization’s accomplishments.

Strong storytelling is a powerful tool for nonprofits to connect with donors, build trust, and demonstrate impact, ultimately leading to increased fundraising and donor retention. Creating an emotional connection with donors, volunteers, and the community with a great story will help people remember your cause and may be a great entry point to build stakeholders for your organization.

Tell the world your WHY!

· Free, on-demand training from Candid.org about how to use a simple storytelling framework to enhance the clarity of digital communications, create a digital communication strategy, and identify the most effective social media platforms: https://learning.candid.org/digital-storytelling-how-to-engage-and-activate-your-supporters-online/293214/scorm/2qqct3nq4yicr

Capacity Building Series: Board Member Engagement – Relationship Mapping

DW Admin on March 13, 2025

See our previous blog on Growing Board Fundraising Engagement

Prospective Donors (Find, Cultivate, Maintain, and Retain Relationships)

Finding new donors can be difficult: knowing where to start, where to look, how to find them. If you start with who you already know and those who are already passionate about and invested in your mission, then they can lead you to potential donors. A great place to start is with your current board members who have a responsibility to contribute to fundraising.

Why Lean on Your Board’s Relationships?

Board members are already advocates because they know about the mission and work and are likely current donors. Who better to help you find and cultivate new donors?

What is Relationship Mapping?

It’s mapping out who your board members know, or the connections and relationships they have. The focus should be on people or businesses board members have potential influence with and determine who could potentially benefit your organization’s mission.

Relationship mapping tracks these connections to provide data to help:

Identify potential champions and advocates of your mission (e.g. volunteers)
Expand your marketing
Evaluate the potential for campaigns
Secure corporate sponsors/partners
Raise money

How to Introduce Relationship Mapping to Board Members

This can be a delicate process. Be mindful that many people hesitate to offer up people they know will be asked for donations. Ask them why they joined the board and chose to support your organization. Then remind them their support is crucial in meeting your goals, accomplishing your mission, and serving your community.

Help them tap into the emotion that led them to become involved in your organization in the first place. Help them get more comfortable with the idea of expanding their circle of influence and ask for their help with it. Show them you will walk alongside each other in the journey and work together.

Next, be sure to communicate clearly about the goal—whether it’s finding raffle items for an event or donors for a capital campaign—so you can be specific about who or what you’re looking for. For example, small business owners who can donate items to be raffled off or corporate leaders who could potentially approve major gifts. The relationship with your donors can be mutually beneficial, so consider sharing how this donation can benefit them as well such as special events or business marketing through sponsorships.

If you have few or limited donors, try having board members map out as many contacts in their circle of influence as they can, such as from:

Social circles
Other nonprofits they’re board members of
Business connections
Alumni groups or organizations
Faith-based groups or churches

Be sure to have them provide more than just names. You’ll want to have a profile of each person, so you know more about them and how to approach them. You might ask them to include how they’re connected with each person, what their interests and passions are, perhaps their giving history and priorities, how they prefer to interact or be contacted, and of course, their contact information. In many cases, people will prefer to hear directly from someone they’re already connected with, but these profiles can help make approaching their contacts easier for board members or for your staff.

What a Relationship Map Looks Like

Your finished map should be a visual diagram of circles and lines that connect each board member to the people in their circles of influence and looks a bit like this:

Source: https://givingusa.org/board-engagement-mapping-your-board-for-fundraising-success/

Capacity Building Series: Learning About Your Board & Growing Board Fundraising Engagement

DW Admin on June 21, 2024

Who’s on Your Board & Why?

When it comes to getting your board engaged in fundraising, it’s important to consider who is on your board and why they’ve joined. Understanding more about your board members, such as why they are inspired to serve on your board, could indicate how they can support your organization’s fundraising strategies. Learning what inspires people, especially board members, can lead to higher engagement and enthusiasm from your board and cultivate stronger partnerships between staff and board members.

Who is in the seat? How to prepare your board to make impactful and meaningful decisions.

First, let’s think about who is on your board. Boards are unique and have different dynamics—they vary in size, service term requirements, qualifications needed to serve on a board, communication styles, giving and receiving feedback, emotional intelligence, etc. Consider the diversity of your board when it comes to race, ethnicity, gender, age, geography, personal and professional backgrounds, etc. Does the diversity of your board reflect the community your organization serves? How can the diverse perspectives of board members be utilized to further your organizational mission? Could your board be more diverse? If so, how? These can all be helpful questions to reflect on. Diversity can bring a lot of benefit to the table through knowledge, different perspectives, lived and living experiences, connections, and more.

Every organization has different expectations of board members. For example, boards may have policies regarding minimum financial contributions (100% board giving, for example) or not have any policies at all about fundraising. Be up front about your expectations as your organization continues to recruit for new board members. When new board members join your organization’s board, prepare them for success. This could entail providing your board bylaws (if you have them), implementing a service agreement, and most importantly, providing trainings to board members about their roles and duties, fiduciary responsibilities, fundraising expectations, etc. When conducting the trainings, provide as much clarity and consistency as possible to get everyone on the same page. When it comes to fundraising, also keep in mind that board members who come from corporate backgrounds might need a general education about how nonprofits work and how they are different from for-profits.

It can also be helpful to think about committees on your board. What are the committees, if any? Does your board have a fundraising/development committee? Having committees can help drive focus, action, and progress toward your objectives.

Why do they care? Aligning with your organization’s board

Devote time and connect with individual board members to understand why they joined the board. Their passion for the organizational mission is what they have in common with you, your staff and other board members; lean into this shared connection. Board members are natural advocates of the organization and its mission, which organically leads them to engage in fundraising efforts. When board members are having conversations with people about something they care about (your organization), it can feel a lot less like work or a hassle, and more like speaking from the heart.

Creating the Foundation

Once you’ve connected with your board members and built strong relationships, it’s time to lay the foundation for your board’s engagement in fundraising.

Here are some steps you can follow to build that foundation:

Make sure that all members are clear on the board’s fundraising
responsibilities.
Develop a fundraising plan for your organization with input from both board and staff.
Dispel early on any myths or concerns your board members may have about fundraising.
Be clear that asking for money is not the only fundraising task that board members can be involved in.
Make the fundraising ask easy by thoroughly preparing your board members and providing them with relevant information they can communicate to prospective donors.
Provide your board members with fundraising training/assistance.
Set up a board development committee with orientation & training about board members’ duties, fiduciary responsibilities, fundraising, etc.
Provide each board member with a concrete opportunity to contribute to the organization’s fundraising efforts.

Check out the board vs. staff responsibility checklist in this resource below from Community Change! It could help your organization gain more role clarity between board and staff members. Sources: http://www.campusactivism.org/server-new/uploads/boarvst.pdf and Community Change

You might also want to consider what your policies for board members are when it comes to board member donations/contributions. There are at least two common issues with this type of policy because it can:

Exclude people with fewer financial resources, who might not be able to meet that minimum, from serving on the board.
1. Limit the amount given by board members who are affluent and may interpret that minimum as the maximum. A board member who may have been prepared to give $10,000 might see a $1,000 minimum and only make the minimum required donation. Source: https://thecharitycfo.com/3-tips-for-successful-board-development/

Remember: your board members are fundraisers, advocates, supporters, and advisors that champion your mission. Given that there is a natural partnership that boards and nonprofit staff can maximize, fundraising is simply an extension of that partnership. Getting your board engaged in fundraising might not always be easy, but it can be as simple as starting there.

Capacity Building Series: Taking Peer Relationships One Step Further – Tips for Collaborating with Organizations

DW Admin on March 28, 2024

How to Approach and Build Collaborations

In our last blog, we explored collaborative peer relationships. We shared why and how nonprofits might collaborate with each other—the benefits, reasons, and methods of collaboration. We now want to dive a little deeper into what collaboration could look like for nonprofit organizations. Let’s keep in mind that the goal of collaboration is not always to write a collaborative grant, but it could be, if it’s what might be best for your organization. Sometimes it’s even more beneficial to partner with other organizations—and funders—to seek out more funding and maximize your impact on your community.

“Most funders and nonprofits value working together, and many are looking for ways to improve the quality of their collaborations. Even if some of what we try doesn’t work, deepening relationships with grantees and other stakeholders builds a strong foundation for future efforts. With the right conditioning and enabling environment, we can make progress on effectively partnering with others to achieve meaningful impact.” Source: https://www.geofunders.org/resource/what-are-the-different-ways-to-collaborate/

Here are Some Tips for Collaborating with Organizations:

Tie collaboration into your organization’s goals:
- Be clear on your goals and how collaborating can help you achieve them.
Determine how you fit into the landscape:
- Learn more about the subject matter, issues being addressed by the collaboration, other collaborators, and the roles they play.
- Ask yourself, “What role do we want to play? Where can we add value?”
Lay the groundwork through relationship building:
- Time to utilize those relationship building skills we discussed in our previous blogs (linked below)! Be intentional about developing trust by showing your flexibility, ability to compromise, and communicating openly about your community’s needs and how a collaboration can make a meaningful impact.
Build a diverse and committed leadership:
- Having a diverse staff and board that’s representative of your community helps provide a variety of perspectives and connections that can strengthen your network, and therefore your collaborative.
- Get your staff and board on the same page in prioritizing the collaborative. Make sure they have buy-in and get them involved.
Focus on communication:
- Communication is key, right? So, communicate often and well—both within and outside of your organization—to ensure everyone is aligned on the vision of the collaborative. Carve out space and time early on for your organizations to get to know each other. Having these connections can make it easier to talk openly about challenges and hold each other accountable.
Provide the resources required:
- Be mindful of the amount of time and money needed to invest into a collaborative as well as your team’s capacity to focus on it. Remember to secure funding appropriately to help cover the associated costs of a collaborative.
Ensure that collaboration remains a priority:
- Be clear about expectations and help your team recognize areas of growth. Try weaving essential elements to collaboration such as relationship building and communication into your staff’s job descriptions, performance goals, and professional development. Source: https://www.geofunders.org/resource/what-are-the-different-ways-to-collaborate/

How to Write a Successful Collaborative Grant (Just One Way to Collaborate!)

Collaboration takes many forms. Building relationships and partnerships might be all that your organization needs. However, if you find that exploring a collaborative grant with fellow organizations might advance your organization’s mission in impacting your community, we would love to provide support. If you’ve never applied for collaborative funding, that’s okay! We’ll break it down in a few steps.

Step one: Identify Partners

You’ll want to begin by identifying other organizations that could be great partners and reach out to them now. Great partners often address the same or similar challenges of your community, have similar mission, vision, values, and goals to yours to make a broader impact. Or maybe they have an entirely different approach to addressing the challenge that compliments and aligns with your organization’s goals.

Establishing trust and getting to know each other’s expertise and available resources takes time. You can think of developing a partnership as an ongoing part of your grantseeking efforts. You can start by appointing a team leader and establishing a workplan and project schedule. You then might assign roles and responsibilities and agree on how you’ll make decisions. It might also be helpful to designate one person to do the writing and have everyone read a draft and suggest edits.

Step Two: Establish Communication and Infrastructure

Although we know that frequent communication is critical, everyone communicates differently. Be sure to discuss communication approaches and ensure a strong infrastructure with tools that all organizations can utilize. There are many types of collaboration tools available online such as:

Project management software
Document sharing tools
Communication tools to stay in touch remotely via messages and video calls
- e.g. Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts, Skype
Time tracking tools

Step Three: Call on Community

When you’re concerned about a community issue, act. Let the needs of the community be your driving force rather than funding opportunities. Before searching for funders, consider which other organizations you can partner with to address the issue together, leaning on your respective viewpoints, assessing data, and brainstorming possibilities.

Step Four: Talk Money

Discuss money early on. After agreeing on an approach with your collaborative partners, create a budget that details what each partner needs in the collaborative. Without a clear and comprehensive budget being established, a collaborative proposal can fail. Although, remember that a collaborative project budget does not always completely fund an initiative, program, or personnel. This means that organizations who are part of the collaborative might have to seek additional funding to make collaborative efforts monetarily whole.

Step Five: Confront Discord

Confront discord right away and ensure that all partners commit to civil, honest discussion to address the issue. If you are unable to find a solution, strive to maintain ongoing relationships even if a partner organization decides to part ways with the collaborative. However, keep in mind that collaborative relationships are often very fluid and just because a partner needs to bow out doesn’t mean the collaboration is failing. Source: https://www.tgci.com/blog/2020/11/four-more-tips-collaborative-grant-proposals

Hopefully some of these tips and suggestions will help you in your collaborative journey. We know that collaboration can look different from one organization to another based on needs, goals, connections, and resources. Your organization might be newer to collaborative efforts and eager to learn and get started. Maybe your organization is more seasoned and experienced in collaborating with other organizations, or collaborative funding, and ready to dive a little deeper. Perhaps you’re somewhere in between! We can all learn much from each other’s experiences, no matter where we are in our journeys.

So, let’s chat! Tell us below…what has your experience been with collaborating with other organizations? Have you experienced any barriers to collaborating? Would trying a new approach to collaborating help address a barrier? What experiences have you had with collaborative grants? What was that like for your organization? What lessons did you learn?

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Learn more about what Methodist Healthcare Ministries’ Capacity Building team is doing to assist organizations in improving operations and performance through its Capacity Building blog series on mhm.org. If you have any questions, please email us at claurence@mhm.org.

To read previous entries in the Capacity Building blog series, see below:

Capacity Building Series: Relationship Building with Funders (Part I)

Capacity Building Series – Part II: Why Relationships Matter

Capacity Building Series: Building Collaborative Relationships

About the author: Chloé Laurence (she/her)

claurence@mhm.org

With a professional background working in education, mental health counseling spaces, and the nonprofit sector, Chloé serves her community through education, advocacy, and capacity building. She utilizes her love of learning and connecting with people in her work as a Capacity Building Specialist at Methodist Healthcare Ministries to support and empower our funded partners. Her mission is to strengthen our partners’ organizations so they can continue their incredible work building health equity and serving underserved individuals.

Capacity Building Series: Building Collaborative Relationships

DW Admin on February 29, 2024

Building Collaborative Relationships: Relationship building with peers and other nonprofit organizations

We’re back with our third blog post in this Capacity Building Series! Let’s explore the practice of building collaborative relationships with peers and nonprofit organizations. So, what is collaboration? According to the Cambridge Dictionary, collaboration is the act of working together with other people or organizations to create or achieve something. In short, to collaborate is to create, produce, or achieve together.

You might be asking yourself, why do nonprofits collaborate anyway? How might working with another nonprofit benefit my organization? You might wish to collaborate for three main reasons:

to boost organizational efficiency, so your organization can accomplish its work more quickly and with fewer resources. For example, nonprofits can work together to create a community resources directory/website. This guide of shared resources helps organizations more efficiently navigate Social Determinants of Health needs for their clients.
to increase organizational effectiveness, so your organization can advance its stated mission more successfully. For example, organizations working together to bring new resources to another organization to better meet their mission. This could look like collaborating with organizations that have community counselors who can work with food banks and then food banks bringing services to community mental and behavioral health clinics to care more holistically for clients.
to drive broader social and systems change, so when executed successfully, collaborating organizations can collectively strategize to identify solutions that address a social issue in efforts to change systems. For example, a mental health provider, law enforcement, and jail system may collaborate to meet the needs of a person’s crisis mental health needs, diverting them from jails and hospital emergency rooms who are commonly under-resourced to effectively address such needs.

How might nonprofits collaborate with each other? Each partnership between nonprofits will look different depending on the end goal. Nonprofits can work together through cooperation, coordination, and/or collaboration. Let’s look at the 3C Model below that demonstrates the distinguishment between these levels.

Source: https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/features/the-sustainable-nonprofit/why-and-how-do-nonprofits-work-together

For a great example of a local group demonstrating collaboration principles, BUILD Health Challenge® (BUILD) 4.0 awardee, Bridges to Care San Antonio (BTCSA), is a collaborative made up of NAMI Greater San Antonio, City of San Antonio Human Services Department, H. E. Butt Foundation, and WestCare Foundation, that is working to bridge the gap in mental health issues for underserved and predominantly Black and Hispanic/Latino communities and create more welcoming, inclusive, supportive, engaged, and resilient communities by collaborating with faith and community-based organizations.

The BUILD Health Challenge® (BUILD) invests in multi-sector, community-centered partnerships and champions the national movement for health equity by moving attention, resources, and action upstream to support health and well-being across the United States. Since 2019, Methodist Healthcare Ministries has been a philanthropic partner of the BUILD Health Challenge. Learn more about Bridges to Care San Antonio (BTCSA) and their work as a BUILD Health Challenge awardee at https://buildhealthchallenge.org/communities/bridges-to-care-san-antonio/.

Check out more resources on collaboration from BUILD Health Challenge® (BUILD):

There are many types of collaboration in the nonprofit space, and it can be difficult to differentiate between them. However, it is important to identify the best type of partnership for your organization and situation, which requires reflection, dialogue, relationship building, and communication. Collaborative efforts can look different for various end goals, can ebb and flow between collaboration types, and can also incorporate multiple types of collaboration all at once.

Let’s take a look at these common types of collaboration, from least formal to most formal:

Networks: People connected by relationships, which can take on a variety of forms, both formal and informal.
Coalitions: Organizations whose members commit to an agreed-on purpose and shared decision making to influence an external institution or target, while each member organization maintains its own autonomy.
Movements: Collective action with a common frame and long-term vision for social change, characterized by grassroots mobilization that works to address a power imbalance.
Strategic Alliances: Partnership among organizations working in pursuit of a common goal while maintaining organizational independence. This could mean aligning programs or administrative functions or adopting complementary strategies.
Strategic Co–Funding: Partnership among organizations that work in pursuit of a common goal. This could mean aligning programs or administrative functions or adopting complementary strategies.
Public–Private Partnerships: Partnerships formed between government and private sector organizations to deliver specific services or benefits.
Collective Impact Initiatives: Long-term commitments by a group of important actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem.

Source: https://www.geofunders.org/resources/what-are-the-different-ways-to-collaborate-650

So, what has collaboration looked like in your organization (with or without a grant)? We’d love to hear about your experiences with collaboration and what you’ve gained or learned about collaborating with other organizations.

About the author: Chloé Laurence (she/her)

claurence@mhm.org

Capacity Building Series – Part II: Why Relationships Matter

DW Admin on February 5, 2024

In the first part of this blog, we learned why it is important to build relationships with funders and explored some ideas to help create genuine relationship connections. Now, let’s focus on the many ways an organization can approach funders and initiate engagement.

Approaching a funder in a personalized way to strengthen or establish a relationship can make a big impact and there are many ways you can do so. Consider the following:

Call a funder. For example, is a program officer available at the foundation for a call? Have a phone script ready with some sample questions to ask. They can answer any questions you have about the foundation’s giving and/or current grant cycle.
Write a letter of introduction/inquiry/interest. A letter to a foundation might be the first impression you make with a funder about your organization. Since these types of letters are often a page or two, the key is to be concise and compelling. Convert your elevator pitch (see below) into written format, telling the funder what your organization does and the outcomes of your organization’s work, sharing an impact story, and how you align with the funder’s aims.
Network (Board of Directors, professional associations, foundations). Once you’ve made a list of contacts with whom you want to establish a relationship, look for ways to interact with them. Friend them on LinkedIn and “like” their posts. This will keep you on their minds. Foundation leaders often attend and speak at conferences and seminars. If there is a foundation representative there, try to seek them out or attend their session. Introduce yourself and ask to exchange business cards (yes, business cards are still a thing!). Make sure to follow-up after the event saying it was nice to meet them.
Connect on social media. Sharing news on social media – impact stories, client testimonials, upcoming events, etc. – can attract the interest of funders. Also, be sure to follow the social media platforms of current and potential funders. Funders often post about upcoming grant opportunities, share stories about grantees (helpful to determine if you are a funding fit), and highlight issues they care about so you can learn about their funding priorities.
Ask for an introduction. When cultivating a relationship, having an introduction can go a long way. Create a list of trustees and staff from the “invitation only” funders you have identified. Share these lists with your organization’s own staff and board members to determine who they might know. Would they make an introduction?
Send invitations. Invite a funder for a site visit of your facility with opportunities to see your mission in action, or an upcoming event along with complimentary tickets if you can spare one or two. Review your organization’s programs, events, and offerings at least quarterly to determine which are the most powerful platforms for “friendraising.” Consider your list of foundation contacts and send an invitation to an activity or event you think might be of interest to them—it’s particularly effective coming from someone they know! Ask a board or staff member the funder knows to send the invite with a personal note.

Elevator Pitches

Imagine having only a few precious minutes – or even one minute – with a funder you have been trying to meet. How do you make a connection with that funder? What do you say? The ability to deliver a strong elevator pitch can be a gamechanger. It’s an opportunity to share your organization’s story in a compelling way. Share your passion. Write a script. An elevator pitch can be used for so many occasions–your letter of interest to a funder, grant applications, fundraising campaigns, phone calls, meetings, etc.

Here are some tips:

Utilize storytelling skills to share the impact of your organization – aim for 60 seconds or less.
Start with the hook – 10 seconds or less – who you serve, how you help, and what impact you make.
The pitch – 30 seconds
What differentiates your nonprofit from others in the same space?
How effective are your current programs?
Do you have a compelling story?
How can a prospective funder get involved right now?
What do you plan to accomplish in the near and distant future?
The wrap up – 20 seconds – “the ask”/what outcome are you seeking?

Remember, this is just a general guide – consider adapting your elevator pitch to meet the moment. It should sound natural so be sure to practice! Start by practicing with friends first, get their feedback, and practice as often as you can. Practice will help build your confidence and improve your flow and pace, allowing you to sound more natural and compelling.

Maintaining the Relationship

Now let’s keep that momentum going. Once you’ve approached the funder, the relationship building has only just begun! Cultivating, building, and maintaining your relationship with a funder can not only increase your chances of getting the grant, but also help the funder feel appreciated and valued as you stay connected after receiving the grant.

Remember, relationship building with a funder often begins when seeking a grant but doesn’t end there. It should continue throughout the inquiry and application process and even after being awarded a grant or not.

After Being Awarded the Grant:

Most importantly, express your gratitude! Send funders thank you emails, handwritten notes or cards, or even give them a call just to say thank you.
Be transparent. Maintain honest and open communication with your funder. Share your organization’s needs and challenges—being vulnerable and sharing wins as well as pain points will allow the funder to get a better sense of what your organization needs from their support.
Connect with funder staff and board—remember, they’re passionate about the work, too!
- Ask if they’d like to be added to your email list to stay updated on big developments.
- Get more personalized and offer information and updates on your organization’s programs and projects during one-on-one time via phone, mail, email, etc.
- Utilize social media networks to continue to engage and stay connected. You can use LinkedIn to see if anyone in your network is connected with key foundation program officers. If so, ask if they can give you an introduction.
Get creative! Try some of the following approaches:
- Share stories of lives changed and impacts made—storytelling is a strong way to connect, show appreciation, and strengthen a relationship.
- Invite them for a site visit tour and/or to events.
- Call to ask for advice.

If You Did Not Get a Grant Award:

First of all, don’t be discouraged. Most funders receive far more proposals than they can support.
Thank the funder. Express your gratitude for the funder reviewing your proposal.
Seek feedback about your proposal. It can be extremely helpful to see what strengths and weaknesses the funder noted in your application. Important to note: some funders/foundations will let you know in their application guidelines if they are able to provide any feedback.
If you remain interested in the funder, keep in touch, and follow their social media platforms.
Try again. Yes, reapply when eligible. If you were able to obtain feedback about your previous proposal, incorporate that feedback into your proposal.

As we’ve discussed in this two-part blog, successful grant seeking can include much more than submitting a proposal or application. Building a relationship with funders is foundational and key to helping your organization secure funding and support your mission.

Now you can apply some of these relationship building principles and practices to your grant seeking efforts. We hope these strategies and tips help you and your organization.

Discussion (You can leave a comment below to continue the conversastion.)

Which types of funders has your organization connected with and how? Are there types of funders you want to reach out to, and which ones? Has networking been on your radar and how has that been for your organization?
What approaches have you used to reach prospective funders?
What were some challenges you have faced when trying to connect or maintain a relationship with a funder? How did you overcome them? Has anyone had similar experiences with these challenges/methods and have other solutions in mind?
How does your organization maintain relationships with funders?
For those organizations working in rural areas, what are your experiences/approaches? Frustrations?

*In Part 3 of this blog series, we will explore the practice of building collaborative relationships with peers and nonprofit organizations.

Click here to read Part 1 of this blog series, Building Realtionships with Funders.

About the author: Chloé Laurence (she/her)

claurence@mhm.org

Capacity Building Series: Relationship Building with Funders (Part I)

DW Admin on November 22, 2023

Why do relationships with funders matter? Consider these facts:

Charitable giving reached a record high in 2020 with $471 billion donated to nonprofits. Foundations contributed $88.5 billion (Giving USA).
More than 1.6 million nonprofits are registered in U.S. (Urban Institute, National Center for Charitable Statistics 2000).
There are an estimated 115,000 foundations in the U.S. (Candid 2018).

So, what can a nonprofit do to stand out while also getting to know funders? In short, having a genuine connection with a funder can break through the competition. The goal is to build authentic relationships. At Methodist Healthcare Ministries, we know through experience that relationships built on false narratives, or projections of how you want others to perceive you instead of who you really are, won’t last. However, making connections by focusing on and prioritizing relationships and trust can help a funder get to know you. Remember, growing relationships is like any other organic process—they need tending on a regular basis.

Creating a Return on Relationship: Importance and Benefits of Relationship Building with Funders

You’re probably familiar with the term “Return on Investment” or ROI. What about ROR (Return on Relationship)? Ted Rubin, a social marketing strategist, trademarked the concept of Return on Relationship. Think about relationship building in terms of a Return on Relationship—there is value accrued due to nurturing a relationship. Relationships inherently are not financial assets; relationships are priceless.

Here are some ideas for increasing your Return on Relationship with funders:

Move beyond only being in a transactional mode with funders. Transactional actions can include questions about grant applications, grant guidelines, grant reports, etc. Instead, think of funders as allies. Funders want their current and prospective partners to succeed. So, find funder allies and then listen carefully to their suggestions regarding your partnership to get the most out of the financial support provided and, perhaps, support beyond the check such as capacity building services. Funders often have expertise, insight, and social capital you can use to be more successful. Many nonprofits and grantees miss out on useful opportunities because they are solely focused on just getting the money versus building a relationship.

Be transformative. Strive to interact in a transformative mode with funders. Being transformative is dynamic. It’s your organization engaging outside of the grant cycle time period. It’s storytelling – your organization’s current events, future plans, and outcomes; sharing ideas or ways to be more strategic. It’s important to set realistic expectations of how much time funders can spend with a partner or prospective partner, so keep balance in mind.

Initiate engagement. Be proactive and seek out funders. This is especially important when it comes to rural grant seeking & philanthropic deserts; funders likely won’t find you. You have to find them! Some resources to help with rural grantseeking:

Rural Health Information Hub (https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org)
Texas Rural Funders (www.texasruralfunders.org)
Daily Yonder (https://dailyyonder.com)
Office of Rural Health Policy (https://www.hrsa.gov/rural-health/index.html)

Seek peer advice. Don’t forget your peer organizations in your relationship building strategy with funders. Search a foundation’s list of recent grant recipients. If a peer organization has recently received funding, reach out to ask how they established the connection. While grant seeking is competitive, your peer organizations will understand that foundations often have diverse funding interests and will trust you to build a relationship based on your organization’s unique programs and services. Incorporate the tips and feedback you receive from your peers into your cultivation strategy.

Understanding the “Foundation” of Foundations

Understanding Foundations

⇢ What is a community foundation?

⇢ What is a private foundation?

⇢ What is a corporate foundation?

Source: insidephilanthropy.com

Once you know the different types of foundations–Community,
Private, Operating, and Corporate–you can then research how foundations operate and discover their “why” and/or purpose. Knowing this information can help you vet foundations and grant opportunities more appropriately. In your vetting process, look for alignment with organization type, programs, and services that have been funded. Research the typical grant award; grant periods (one year or multi-year); criteria for funding; funding restrictions; timelines; grant guidelines and application process, etc.

A community foundation is a grantmaker that serves a specific community or region. Distinct from a private foundation, which is usually funded by a single individual, family or corporation, a community foundation is a public charity that is funded by many donors and governed by a board that reflects the community it serves. Examples: San Antonio Area Foundation, Coastal Bend Community Foundation, and Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country.

A private foundation is a non-governmental agency who might be an individual or family that establishes a private foundation to give money (and sometimes other resources) to nonprofits engaged in charitable activities. Examples: Meadows Foundation, Nancy Smith Hurd Foundation, and Anderson Charitable Foundation.

A corporate foundation is a private foundation whose money is contributed by a for-profit business. Think Home Depot or State Farm.

An operating foundation is a private foundation that provides public programming and services and charitable funding. Examples: St. David’s Foundation and Episcopal Health Foundation.

Be curious – Funders who don’t accept unsolicited proposals? Consider and approach funders who don’t accept unsolicited applications if they are a good funding fit for your organization’s work and mission. Many of these foundations are willing to consider new applicants but are using other methods to learn about potential partners to limit the number of proposals they have to review. Your organization deserves to be considered. Don’t dismiss a prospect just because you have read that they do not accept unsolicited proposals, especially if it fits your organization’s work and mission. It doesn’t hurt to ask. Don’t tell yourself no by assuming they’ll tell you no. If it’s a no, then let them tell you no.

^Source:^{https://help.candid.org/s/article/applications-not-accepted}

Look at the funder’s grant awards from the last several years to see its giving trends. The funder could be a good prospect if the funder awards grants to different organizations from year to year, has a similar funding priority to your organization’s mission, and makes grants in your geographic region. However, if a funder makes grants to the same organizations year after year, you might consider looking at other funders instead.

^Source: ^{https://help.candid.org/s/article/applications-not-accepted}

*In Part 2 of this blog, we will focus on a multitude of ways your organization can approach funders, initiate engagement, and maintain relationships with funders.