Find funders who already give to work like yours

Where funders are

For a small organization, the best prospects are usually close to home: family foundations in your area, your community foundation's funds, local businesses with giving programs, and city, county and state grant programs. Federal programs are listed on Grants.gov, where you can search by keyword, eligibility, agency and close date. Grants.gov also publishes feeds of new and changed opportunities by agency and by category, which are easier to follow week to week than repeated searches.

Grantkeeper searches public pages for you, reads guidelines and requests for proposals, and keeps a list in your files. Ask for a shortlist and it works through the search one slice at a time, then returns a ranked list with a link for every fact.

Read the 990-PF before you write

A private foundation's annual return, Form 990-PF, is public. Part XIV lists grants paid during the year and grants approved for future payment, with recipients, purposes and amounts. Line 2 of that part has a box for foundations that give only to organizations they choose in advance and do not accept unsolicited applications. The same part says how to apply: the form, deadlines and any limits.

ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer makes these returns searchable. Ask Grantkeeper for a fit check and it reads the most recent filings it can, then tells you the typical grant, where the money went, how many recipients look like you and whether the foundation takes requests. Returns run a year or two behind, and scanned filings may not be readable, which it says plainly.

Keep watch without checking ten websites

Rounds open and close on their own calendars. With Schedules on, Grantkeeper can open the pages you choose every week, compare them with what it saw last time and text you only when something is new: a round, a deadline, a changed amount. Pages that need a login or will not load are reported as unread, not as unchanged.

When a round fits, the next step is a letter. Candid describes a letter of inquiry as a short version of a proposal, usually no more than three pages, that covers the need, your approach, your organization and the amount. Grantkeeper drafts one in the funder's own order and limit, from your facts, with blanks where a number is missing.

What research cannot do

Good research narrows the list; it does not decide anything. Program officers, boards and relationships still matter, and a short call often tells you more than a page. No one can promise a grant. What Grantkeeper does is the reading and the watching, so your writing time goes to funders who might say yes.

Recipes for each step: the funder shortlist, the 990-PF fit check, the weekly funder page watch and the letter of inquiry draft.