Grants Fundraising Before You Start Writing

Tony Martignetti
Hello and welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I'm your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdomadal podcast. Oh, I'm glad you're with us. I'd be stricken with quadrantinopia if I saw that you missed this week's show. Here's our associate producer Kate with what's on the menu.

Kate Martignetti
Hey Tony, I hope our listeners are hungry for Grants Fundraising Before You Start Writing. Byron Coke says there are 4 things that decide whether you should spend your limited time applying for a foundation grant. Mission alignment, geographic eligibility, funding stage, and award fit. If any one of these isn't in alignment between your nonprofit and the funder, you're wasting your time writing the application. Byron is the founder of Grant Fit. On Tony's Take 2.

Tony Martignetti
A book update update.

Kate Martignetti
Here is Grants fundraising before you start writing.

Tony Martignetti
It's a genuine pleasure to welcome the founder of Grant Fit, Byron Coke. Grant Fit is a funder research service for small nonprofits that don't have a development officer. His focus is the step most grant advice skips, the research and targeting that happen before a word of the application is written, deciding which funders are genuinely worth a small shop's limited hours. The company is at grantintelligence.co, and Byron is very active on LinkedIn. Byron Coke, welcome to Nonprofit Radio.

Byron Coke
Hi, Tony. Great to be here.

Tony Martignetti
It's a pleasure. Thank you. We've corresponded a lot on LinkedIn. It's good to see you. And you're coming to us from where in Britain?

Byron Coke
London, to be exact. Northwest London.

Tony Martignetti
Northwest London. What's the neighborhood? Not that I would know it, but what's the neighborhood called?

Byron Coke
Harrow. I'm actually about 10 minutes from the famous school.

Tony Martignetti
Say it again.

Byron Coke
Harrow.

Tony Martignetti
Oh, Herod. Okay. Okay.

Byron Coke
No, Harrow. H-A-R-R-O-W.

Tony Martignetti
Harrow.

Byron Coke
Correct.

Tony Martignetti
Harrow. All right. Okay. You're pronouncing it correctly. I'm bastardizing it, of course, as the ugly American, but Harrow. All right. Thank you. So listeners, there may be listeners who very well know Harrow. Outstanding. Thank you for joining. And are you from London area originally?

Byron Coke
Yeah, born and bred Londoner. My parents are from Jamaica, but I was born here.

Tony Martignetti
Outstanding. All right. Thank you for joining us from across the pond. All right. Yeah, I'm about as close. I'm not quite as close as you could get. I'm right on the beach on the Atlantic shore of North Carolina.

Byron Coke
That's not bad.

Tony Martignetti
That's not bad. There are lots of places much further. And, but if there are some that are a little further east, like if you go further northeast, Massachusetts, Cape Cod, Maine, you know, they stick out a little, little closer. They, they'd be maybe 100 miles closer to you or so. But I'm pretty— I'm close to as close as you could get to, to London from the US, right on the beach.

Byron Coke
Nice to be talking to an American cousin.

Tony Martignetti
Thank you. All right. So, so let's focus on the grant writing, the stuff that happens before A word of the application gets written, um, and you are set up. And we're going to talk about folks that don't have a development officer, and you're suggesting that they have about 5 hours a week to devote to grants fundraising. Is that about right?

Byron Coke
Yes. I mean, when you have a small nonprofit that probably has like between 5 and 10 staff, when it comes to the grant work, It's typically going to be done by the executive director, or maybe one other person who also has lots of other things they're doing as part of that nonprofit. So they don't really have the luxury of time. So what time they do put in into trying to raise money through grants needs to be spent wisely. You can't just be doing a spray spray gun effect and see what hits. That's too costly time-wise. And for that 10-15 minute quick check, you could rule out some of the funders you'd probably spend time putting together a perfect draft proposal only to get rejected at the end of the day.

Tony Martignetti
And, and the odds were, were near zero that it was going to get approved, right? Because, because it was mistargeted.

Byron Coke
Correct, yes. And some of those are very easy checks to determine before you even start writing, which will save you a lot of time and headache.

Tony Martignetti
Okay, and that's exactly what we're gonna dive into. All right, so you have this 4-prong test.

Byron Coke
Yes.

Tony Martignetti
And I wanted to say too, what connected us initially was the love and affinity for and work for small and mid-sized nonprofits. You're working small. I say small and mid-sized, you know, The tagline for the show is the other 95%. But that's what initially connected us was the affinity for small nonprofits.

Byron Coke
Yes, exactly that. When you have skills that you can leverage to help, it's, in my view, you target the people who would benefit the most but wouldn't necessarily be able to either afford the time or the money. Why should just the big guys have all the best stuff to play the game with when the small guys are doing the same kind of important work but just don't have the resources. And we all had to start from zero. So if I can use the skills I have to help someone starting up to grow and do better because of the help I can give them, I'm very happy doing that.

Tony Martignetti
It's exactly where— yes, we're perfectly aligned in that. Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95% is what We're here to talk about. So, okay, let us then go to your, your 4-prong test. I'm just going to tick them off quickly, and then we're going to go into detail. You want to ensure mission alignment, geographic eligibility, funding stage, and award fit in terms of size and type. Correct? Did I characterize the 4 correctly?

Byron Coke
Yes, you got those exactly right.

Tony Martignetti
Okay, let's go into these. So this is, this is the work that you do before You start looking at their proposal, looking at their, um, looking at their requirements, like what, how many, how many pages, what type font, what font size, you know, answer these questions. This is before all that.

Byron Coke
Correct. Um, like say for example, you're like going out on a date to meet somebody. If you don't do your preparation beforehand and say go straight from work, say for example, you're a constructor, you've been out on the field working all day, you literally just head straight from work over to the date, you're not going to make a good impression. Now, if you go home, do your preparation first, do your best to look good, but at the same time you've done a little bit of research to find out the things that other person's going to like, and you prepared that beforehand, you make a better impression. So the same way when you're doing an application for a grant, if you check those 4 criteria as a minimum, you know upfront if you're going to be a good fit for that funder. And you have to pass all 4. If you fail in any one of those, complete waste of time. Um, I'd say the important fit— for example, you could go to a funder's website, read all the nice stuff they put there, and they're all going to say nice stuff because it's part of their presentation. They're going to present themselves in the best possible way. But the proof of the pudding is checking where the money has actually gone. They can say one thing but give money somewhere else. You can have a situation where a funder will say, for example, yeah, we will give grants to the state of Nebraska, for example. But then when you actually look at where they've actually given money, it may be only 4 cities in Nebraska that they've given money to. The rest don't even count. It could be a criteria of the funding policy, like we received this money at a death bequest by somebody, and these are the places they want us to donate the money because that was their favorite places. This stuff they would not put on the website because it doesn't sound as good. But if you look into the background of where they've been actually giving the money and who to, you can get the details that's not on the website.

Tony Martignetti
Okay, okay. So yeah, so you're suggesting that— well, misrepresenting is not— maybe is not fair. That suggests something intentional. If not a misrepresentation, there's a disconnect between what the website says we do, we the funder do, and what the reality is. And you want us to investigate the reality. Yes. Not going deeper than the promotional language on the website.

Byron Coke
Sure.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. I

Byron Coke
mean, okay, there's no misrepresentation, but things—

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, misrepresentation may be overstating, or maybe unkind, but, uh, there's, there's, uh, there's not alignment between the promotional language on the website and the reality of where the money is going.

Byron Coke
Correct.

Tony Martignetti
So you got to go deeper. Okay, so let's get to your, your, your, your 4-part Test with mission alignment. Where, where are we looking? What are we looking for?

Byron Coke
Okay, from the mission alignment, say for example I'm doing this research for a nonprofit that works in the art field. So you've now got, say, dance, you've got theater, and a few other categories within the art field. Now you could have a non-funder That'd be an ideal fit across the board for all the other criteria, but they don't do art. They only do, say, health or food. Yeah, just different criteria. So they may pass on 3, but because you're into art and they don't look at art, they look at, say, farming, food, that kind of stuff, you don't qualify. So even though you might fit on the other 3, you put an application in, they see straight away you're in art, they deal with farming. Right. You're not a match. They won't even bother, because for them to try and convince who controls the purse strings, okay, these guys passed on these 3 but not on this one, not going to happen, especially when they've got lots of other people submitting the grant application who do fit. So they're going to stick to ones that do fit what they do rather than just decide, okay, these guys look really good in the top end, we'll give them a chance. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way when it comes to money.

Tony Martignetti
Right. Okay. This is pretty common sense. And as you had said, if you fail either one of these 4, yeah, there's really, there's no point in going on. Just move on, move on to the next candidate.

Byron Coke
Sure, exactly.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. So in terms of mission alignment now, based on what we were just saying about, you know, the website and whatever promotional material you might see about the funder, You want us to look deeper than that content?

Byron Coke
Well, if with the example I gave, you dig into what the site says the mission statement is against what you do, and you could even have a nonprofit that touches on food, touches on farming, a small overlap doesn't count. It has to be spot on. So you also need to be objective when you're actually doing the comparison. Because if you're running a nonprofit, you know exactly how that works. You know the ideas you have in your head for their mission, what you're trying to do, who you're trying to help. You know your location, all these other bits and pieces you know cold because it's your nonprofit. The funder, they don't care. They don't know you. They don't know any of that stuff. All they've got is the information you provide to them, what they can see on your site, and what they see you have done in the past. If they don't feel That matches 100% spot on, they don't have a reason to grant you any money. So rather than try and funnel your fit into what you think they're going to like and waste time putting a proposal together that's never going to win, you're better just being brutally honest and saying, yep, this is what they've done work on before. And they say they do. This is what we do. When you check into who they've actually given money before, you can compare yourself against the other grantees who've won money. And if you're a very good fit against those, then go for it. If you fail on quite a number, say for example you found seven nonprofits that were given money, you only are really close to one but not the others. There's no point because you're not a really good match. You're only a partial match. And that's one of the hardest things for someone who's really close to their business to do. They need to be able to be able to take a step back. That back and look at it as though someone who's got a vast amount of money who doesn't want to waste where they send it. They want to get a return because at the end of the day, funders, they're there to help, but they've also got an invested interest in what they get from it. It could be prestige, it could be, um, street cred, any number of those things. If they're not getting something back for their money, they're not giving it. Doesn't matter how good your cause is if it doesn't fit.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. So there's a fine line between optimism and— Yes. I don't know, should I say— I think I'm tempted to quote a movie. Like, there's a fine— I forget what the movie is, though. There's a fine line between optimism and stupidity. But I don't want to say stupidity, but I mean optimism and wildly irrational. If you're only a close fit to 1 out of 7 Grant recipients, the fundees. Yes. Uh, you're— it's not likely. You, you— and plus, you're a small shop. You, you, you should be devoting your time to more, more likely outcomes than trying to squeeze into one that, oh, come on, we could be— we can make it 2 out of 8 instead of 1 out of 7. We could be number 2 out of 8. Instead of trying to go for the 25% odds, you know, go for the more like 75, 80, 85% odds because your time is limited.

Byron Coke
Exactly. Now, I wouldn't really blame the nonprofits because you've got a situation where you've got this organization to run, you've got board members pushing you to like bring funds in to handle all these different bits and pieces of work, and there's only so many hours in the day. If from your casual research you found, say, 8 funders That look like they fit and you start putting a proposal together, you can keep the board members off your back. But keeping them off your back in the temporary situation doesn't always work long term. It's one of those situations where whoever screams the loudest gets the response. Yeah. And sometimes you need to be in a position where you can say, no, wait. And part of what I do, I provide data to help with someone going back and saying, no, we're not going to do this for this reason. But that isn't always easy to do when you're doing it on your own.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah. All right. Yeah. You just, you want us to be strategic about this. Be strategic, be sensible, align your time where it's most likely to get a return versus wildly optimistic and unrealistic, really. All right. Your second part of the test, geographic eligibility.

Byron Coke
Yes.

Tony Martignetti
Sounds common sense, but please flesh it out.

Byron Coke
Yeah, that one is, but a lot of nonprofits will fail on that without catching it. Like with the example I gave you earlier when I talked about a funder that says, yep, we give to Nebraska. Yeah, that sounds really nice. And then when you check, it was only like 3 or 4 cities in Nebraska and you were outside those 4. You don't realize until you've checked. That you're not a fit. Yes, we're in Nebraska as well. Yeah, that is true, but most of the ones we've gone to are for this city because the guy who left us the money, these are his favorite cities. He wants to go in there, or for some other reason. I mean, policies change all the time. Like, they may have given in one city the last 3 years, and then something changes, and all of a sudden they're not doing that. That situation you're not going to catch. But to make sure you're relatively safe on who you put the time and in investment in. If you check on who they've been giving money to before, and you can say the last 3 years there are only 4 cities in Nebraska that got the money, you know there's a good chance if you're not in those 4 cities or one of the 4 cities, you haven't got a chance. It's like going on a date. You go out with your buddies, you see these group of women there. The one you choose to go for decides she only wants a really tall guy who's taller than her because she's like 5'9 and you are just below her height. Now, if you already had an idea she was only into tall guys, you wouldn't have even bothered. Like, you may have charisma, charm, yeah, it could work. But yeah, there are some situations where there's a line where you can't cross. There's no point even trying.

Tony Martignetti
Where do we go for this research? Where do we get specific on who they have funded and where the— where in this prong of the test, you know, where the geography is? Where are we doing this research?

Byron Coke
The site I go to, public access public database, is the ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer website. So it's basically the database that has all the tax filings for any nonprofit in the US.

Tony Martignetti
So these are the 990s, the form,

Byron Coke
correct?

Tony Martignetti
IRS 990s?

Byron Coke
Yes.

Tony Martignetti
Okay.

Byron Coke
Like free database, so anyone can go there and check. It doesn't always have 100% of the data, which is one of the pain-in-the-butt situations where you need to do a bit more research. Because you can have a situation where you have a small nonprofit that's done filing and they include all the data. Then you go to a big nonprofit who do a filing, and when you go to the relevant sections of the filings, there's like, click here to get an attachment. So you've got to go somewhere else to get the relevant data. So for the most part, it's probably a relatively 10-15 minute search. But on rare occasion, the data isn't always there. And then you need to do some additional search over the web to try and pull that information down, which isn't impossible, but it can add a bit more time. But for the most part, 90%, 70 to 90% of what you're going to check, you can get the data on that website, which is really easy.

Tony Martignetti
All right. And it's the foundation 990s that you're searching? No, wait, foundations don't do 990s. Is it the foundation filings that you're searching?

Byron Coke
No, the funder.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, the funder, the agency, right?

Byron Coke
Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Tony Martignetti
Yes. Yeah, the foundation. All

Byron Coke
right.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, foundations. All right. See, foundation world is a little outside. Well, it's quite a bit outside what I do. So foundations do 990s, don't they? Don't foundations have different IRS form filings, or do they do 990s?

Byron Coke
Well, based on the work I've done, all the ones I've looked at have all done 990s.

Tony Martignetti
They do the 990s. Okay.

Byron Coke
Okay. The only thing that's caught me out is that sometimes they're not as detailed as I would like.

Tony Martignetti
Right. So, well, that's all right. That's why we need somebody like you to go further. All right. I may be, I may be thinking of, you know, I may be thinking of charitable trusts. I think it's Form 706. Uh, sorry. Extraneous data that

Byron Coke
is

Tony Martignetti
only confusing. That's a totally different entity, a charitable trust. Okay. We're talking about foundation, US-based foundations.

Kate Martignetti
It's time for Tony's Take Two.

Tony Martignetti
Thank you, Kate. I have a book update update because I feel like in last week's Tony's Take Two, I dissed my 2 excellent editors, and that's bad. That's bad. So I made it sound like, yeah, I said I'm out of the process. You know, they just ask me questions here and there, and I made it sound like they're in control, like they take over, and they're, I don't know, like difficult to work with or overbearing or something like that. None of which is true. None of which is true. I have 2 excellent editors. Judy is the line editor and really has become the project manager. And then Stephanie is the copy editor, and they work very well together. They had worked together on a previous project years ago, so they, they have a history together, and they're just excellent, you know. And you want to have good, strong editors, people who, you know, their job— the editor's job, I learned, is is not to write the book or help you write the book that they think you should write. Their job, any editor's job, is to help you make the book you wrote stronger, to make it more of the book that you want to write, make it clearer, but not to divert like your tone or your message or any even little individual messages. Any of the— there's probably 1,000, you know, tips in there or something. I don't know. Yeah. There's many, many hundreds anyway, right? Not to change those, but to make your book stronger the way you want it to read, the way you want to convey to your readers. That's the right editing posture. If they want to write their own book, they can write their own book if they think it should be a book that's different than what you're trying to write. Their job is to strengthen the book. that you, the writer, give them. And Judy and Stephanie are doing that superbly. So I don't want you to think I was— in case I dissed my editors last week, no, I have 2 excellent editors, and I'm grateful to have them both working on the project. And then Stephanie, I mentioned last week, uh, the— like, one of the final rounds is a proofreader. Stephanie is even gonna do the proofreading. So double duty from, uh, from Stephanie, but Judy's taken on a lot as well. My 2 excellent editors for Planned Giving Accelerated, the cut-through-the-shit, no-nonsense, practical step-by-step guide to start legacy giving fundraising at your small to mid-sized nonprofit in a week, starting with bequests. The title may be longer than the book. Did You Need a Nap? That is Tony's take 2. Kate?

Kate Martignetti
You can't be burning bridges with editors. The book hasn't even come out yet.

Tony Martignetti
Well, in case they— yeah, you're right. You're right. Uh, I don't know that, that they are listening. Probably not. So it's not that they said anything. I don't think they're listeners. But which, you know, it's, well, it's their life. You know, it's only so much. You can only lead a horse to water. But yes, your point is very, very true. Don't be dissing your editors during the editorial process. You're cutting your own throat.

Kate Martignetti
We've got beaucoup but loads more time. Here's the rest of Grants Fundraising Before You Start Writing with Byron Coke.

Tony Martignetti
Third part of your 4-part test is funding stage.

Byron Coke
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
All right, that doesn't, that doesn't sound as common sense just in that phrase. So what do you mean here, funding stage?

Byron Coke
Let's see, what's the easiest way I can describe this? It's down on where the nonprofit is, the kind of money they need, And compared to the funder, the size of money they've awarded before and the organizations they've given those money to. So the easiest way of describing it, you can have a funder that their baseline cutoff— so if you're below that, you're not even on their radar— they have given money in the past to nonprofits that work from, say, $200,000 to $500,000. If you're a nonprofit that has only ever gone up to, say, $150,000 or $190,000, you're below their criteria. You won't even match. Now, the only way I can confirm that is going to the 990, seeing who that funder has given money to before, find the grantees and go to their websites and find out the range of the kind of stuff they're doing to get an idea of, am I inside that range or am I outside that range? If you're outside that range, no point trying. If you're inside that range, then you're a good match, and that's another hurdle you've passed.

Tony Martignetti
Okay, okay. And, uh, you also mentioned, um, you know, the stage of the organization or what the, what the money is for, like maybe general operations. Is that what you mean? Like general operations versus specific program funding versus technology funding versus some other capacity building? You know, you have to be looking at that variable also within this funding stage.

Byron Coke
Yeah, like in the art field, one of the ones I was working on earlier this week was a nonprofit that are doing construction work to create a whole new attachment to their main building so they can do like their own— trying to think how to describe it. Like their own studio. That's the best way. Yes. So they're trying to build their own studio. Now, I've found quite a few funders who cover arts, but only a fraction of those will cover doing grants for construction work. They'll do things like a program. So say, for example, you want to introduce literary reading in a local area. They may cover money for that. But if you want to say, do a renovation on your main building, they won't cover that even though you're still in the art field. So there's certain things a particular funder will finance and other things they won't, even within the criteria of the organizations they work with. So that also needs to be locked into as well.

Tony Martignetti
Okay, okay, all very sensible, uh, and, and again devoted to aligning your limited time with what's most likely to provide an ROI. No guarantee, but we're trying to increase the odds.

Byron Coke
Correct. No one can guarantee, but if I can reduce your odds, or rather improve your odds—

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, reduce your odds of being turned down or increase your odds of being awarded. Okay.

Byron Coke
Yes.

Tony Martignetti
And your last prong is the award fit. Size and type. What, what's this about?

Byron Coke
Well, you can have a situation where you found a funder, you fit in all the other 3 criteria, but you're only after $2,000. Now, is it worth putting in 4 or 5, maybe up to 20 hours putting in a grant application for $2,000? And then you've also got a situation where a grantor in the last 2, 3 years, you've looked over what they've done, the minimum grant they've given was $70,000. You need 50. Again, you're not on their radar because you're under what they will do. You don't even qualify. But that isn't obvious from looking at their websites. It's only when you look at the 990 and see who they've given money before and how much you get a better sense of the range that they cover.

Tony Martignetti
Okay, size, right? Size and type. And that also overlaps with what we were just talking about, you know, type, but whether it's restricted or it's general operating, or even maybe— well, I don't think funders give to endowment. That's a bad example. So, but yeah, the type, what the purpose is.

Byron Coke
Yes.

Tony Martignetti
Okay.

Byron Coke
I mean, things can look nice on the website. You can speak to somebody who's part of the organization, they can give you all the nice stuff. But I'm a techie. So for me, things tend to be black and white. If you go to the website and you see all this evidence that points in one direction, even if you can sort of read another direction via the site or interpret it via the site, I go by the numbers because that's safer.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah. Again, aligning time with ROI. It's— you have to— you just got to be strategic about this. All right.

Byron Coke
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Um, before we started recording, you, uh, you mentioned to me that you have a 5th one. So it's, it's still a 4-prong test, but this is like something very common sense.

Byron Coke
Let's talk about your—

Tony Martignetti
all right, well, let's say, let's, let's state the obvious. That's okay.

Byron Coke
Can you actually apply? Because you have some funder organizations that don't allow unsolicited proposals, is invite only. And that you can get directly off the website. But situations like that, you may fit across the board and everything else, but if you need to be invited before you can apply, you've already lost.

Tony Martignetti
Or sometimes it's a letter of interest or a letter of inquiry first. So you don't start with a proposal, you might start with a letter.

Byron Coke
Yes, but even that will tell you at what stage you're at and what you should do before you move a step forward. So in the situation where you've found a foundation, That you fit on everything across the board, but there's this invite only, then the work you would do over the next, say, 1 to 3 months will be building a relationship with someone who's there and gain an invitation before you start doing anything else. But if you hadn't done the research beforehand, short of someone who's sitting down to write the grant who goes to the website to check things out, they're going to find out. But then you've already committed someone to put the time in to write your grant. You may have to pay them to write the grant, even though they're going to write something you can't use. it because it's invite only. So doing this check beforehand just saves a lot of grief.

Tony Martignetti
You mentioned something that I'd like to pull on a little bit, which is the relationships, the building, building relationships with, with funders. Uh, let's, let's broaden it a little bit, whether it's invitation only or, or it's, it's open, uh, open application.

Byron Coke
Yes,

Tony Martignetti
there's, there's value in, in Talking to funders, getting to know funders.

Byron Coke
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Before you start asking for their money.

Byron Coke
Correct.

Tony Martignetti
Let's talk about that. How do you— what's your advice around building these relationships?

Byron Coke
Well, for a start, like, just going up to somebody completely cold and asking for money, I'd find a bit rude, even if they're in the position where they're going to be giving you some money. And apart from the 4 criteria I mentioned, People like working with people they like, know, and trust. The same way we've got to know each other via LinkedIn. If it wasn't due to that, we probably wouldn't really be talking now. If the first contact you had from me was like, hi, I've got this really cool thing that we think would be good for your listeners, when can we talk on your podcast? It'd be like, yeah, thanks very much, but I don't know you. It's like, yeah, I get put to the bottom of the pile if you consider talking to me at all, which is completely normal. Same way if you're out on the street, But we have this in the UK where you can be like just going out into central London. You've got these guys that are working for charities and their job is to pin you down, talk to you, explain what the charity is, and get you to donate. Nothing wrong with that, but the good ones find some common ground to get you to stop and start talking, and they build the rapport first before they get into the pitch, even though you know the second they've stopped you exactly what you're doing. So as long as you've got the time, And the person who's approached you has not been annoying about it. Yeah, say something stronger, but I'll skip that.

Tony Martignetti
It's okay. You could say like being yeah, all right, being a different person. Okay, yeah.

Byron Coke
But at the end of the day, it's just a sales job. It's just a different form of sales. You need to build a connection with the person you're dealing with, and once they're familiar with you, in the situation I mentioned with the four criteria, there are rare situations where you might slip past them one only because the person. who can make the decision knows you and is willing to give you a chance. Most of the time, that's not going to happen. But what can happen is that person may give you help and how you could more fit. In the geography, that's not going to work because you're sort of moving, you're not going to fit. But there might be other ways you can frame something where you would be a fit. Or better yet, they know somebody else, another organization that you're unfamiliar with, that they can point you in the direction of and give you an introduction. I mean, one of the advantages of what I do, I can find foundations that the nonprofit I'm working with hasn't even thought of because they don't have the same kind of resources I have access to. So they can do a search and maybe find immediate funders in their immediate vicinity. But because of the tools and the setup I have, I can find foundations that cover a bigger area that they still qualify for based on certain things that I find in their filings, which I've done for a few nonprofits I've done reports for, I've actually found things, oh, based on the amount of money you've done and the kind of work, this particular organization you'd be a good fit for. And they've come back and said, yes, we did not know about this one.

Tony Martignetti
Why don't you— can you tell us a specific story of a nonprofit that you helped, or, well, certainly a nonprofit that you helped, Maybe you, you, uh, well, you, you, uh, you helped them at the early stage to save time because before they, before they met you, they were spinning their wheels and being largely unsuccessful in grants. But, you know, you helped turn it around because you did the strategy before we started, we started typing applications. Can you— Tell another little— tell another story.

Byron Coke
Well, the work I've been doing recently, because I've been busy on LinkedIn, basically get myself out there and getting known the same way I've been doing stuff off LinkedIn. And one of the reasons I mentioned the art more, because I've been looking more at like, um, art sections, because I'm— I like music, jazz, all this kind of stuff, theater I'm into. So it was, um, a natural thing with the, um, sectors I could target. I ended up picking art first And initially what I've been doing is providing a free report. So basically, with the research I've done, most people only talk about writing grants because that's the obvious thing to do. Like, if you're trying to start up a side gig, or you can start writing grants for grant proposal for nonprofits, that's all well and good. But if you spend time writing the grant to submit to a foundation that you had no chance of getting into, especially if it's something you've done for the first time. So this might be your second, third job. You don't know enough to do all the research you need to do. You spend hours putting something good together, but because of a simple test check that you didn't even think to do because you weren't aware of it, you've wasted that time. So the free report I provide, which I've done I think I've done about 3 or 4 in the last couple of days, basically just to give an idea. Okay, hi, this is who I am, this is what I do. Let me put this report together for you, giving you— it'll be a list of one funder that I've found that is a good fit for them, fully worked out, give them the details of why they're a fit and what their next step should be to approach them. But I also list the number of funders I've found that did look like a good fit but weren't, and I've also explained why they weren't a good fit, and I've submitted those. And one of the first ones I did, going back a couple of weeks, the response I did get back was that I'd found someone that they weren't aware of, so it was someone new they could approach. When you're in a small business, there are so many different things to do, you don't always have a chance to like take a step back, breathe, and put due diligence into the research you might do. Plus, if you're running a nonprofit, you may not have the technical background to do that kind of research. Not everybody does. Even though you've got AI that you can use to help, unless you've used it a fair degree, you still can't really take advantage of AI tools. And even the AI tools leave a lot to be desired.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, you're still gonna have to do a human check. To make sure, to make sure, go through these 4 prongs to make sure that there's alignment because the, you know, the chat and Claude, etc., I mean, they can make, they make mistakes.

Byron Coke
That's putting it mildly. So yeah, so, right.

Tony Martignetti
So you have to check anyway before you start typing a grant proposal to them.

Byron Coke
Yes.

Tony Martignetti
All right. All right. Let's see, the arts. You gravitate to the arts. You have a background in the arts? Are you a dancer, musician, theater actor?

Byron Coke
Well, actually, I like dancing. And there was a point before I got into computers, I actually considered going to dance school. It just never happened. And I've grown up— growing up, I was stuck indoors. Like my mom being very strict, never let us out to go play with friends and everything else. She wanted her kids indoors and safe. So basically, I'm stuck watching TV. And I've grown up watching movies from the '30s and '40s where they like play jazz, swing, all this stuff. So I've got into that kind of music. And then growing up, getting more into like R&B. There was a period where if it wasn't R&B or soul-type music, I wasn't interested. As I've got older, I can appreciate country. Yeah. Rock, especially like a good rock guitarist. I like hearing them being just really creative with the guitar. And even just watching musicians who've been doing their thing for a long time just sit down with each other and jam. And one guy can improvise and then the others will just jump on top of what he'll do. And they've just created this whole thing out of nothing. It's just really cool. It's like watching someone create with music. I mean, I used to write games, computer games back in the day. And one of the things I liked about it, you started off with this blank canvas and then you could just create this whole universe that you could play from nothing. And it's the same thing when you've got like a music or an artist start with this blank canvas and just create this whole interpretation of something like a whole new world or their interpretation of an emotion. Or something they're trying to convey with an image. I love that stuff. So yeah, the arts I tend to go into first, but I don't mind nonprofit with the kind of work they do. I'll help, but I do find the arts interesting and I'm appreciating it more as I've got older.

Tony Martignetti
I can tell it lights you up. I can see. Tell me about growing up as a child watching old movies. Are you, are you still— I mean, do you, can you remember the lines from movies? And you remember, I don't know, directors, actors? Do you remember movies you used to watch as a child?

Byron Coke
I grew up watching Laurel and Hardy. And even now I can watch them, I'm cracking up. And their stuff's old, but still funny.

Tony Martignetti
They're from like Laurel and Hardy from the '40s, right?

Byron Coke
Yep.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, they are. They are. Yeah. Yeah.

Byron Coke
So Laurel and Hardy, I've grown up, I love them. Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin. Um, yeah, those are like the 3, 4 main comedians I've seen on film, like with silent stuff. I love— they're just really creative, and some of the stunts they pull are just like unreal. Like, you'd never get away with doing something like that nowadays, just too dangerous.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah. Um,

Byron Coke
of my, say, top 5 favorite movies of all time, I must admit I would have to put Young Frankenstein by Mel Brooks as number 1, only because in my teens the BBC did a season of Mel Brooks movies where they showed one a week for about 4 or 5 weeks. And I remember watching Young Frankenstein. I was sitting on the chair in my bedroom watching the TV. I must have fallen off my chair about 5, 6 times because I was laughing so much and ended up just sitting on the floor because it was just easier, because I ended up on the floor all the time. Now this is a movie you'd never be able to get away with making now.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah,

Byron Coke
but when you watch it, the creativity and the stuff he puts in there, it's just hysterical.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, nice knockers.

Byron Coke
Yep.

Tony Martignetti
For instance, or Frankenstein. It's Frankenstein. And Gene Hackman. Gene Hackman, I was going to make cappuccino. The blind man who welcomes the monster. Yeah, that's a classic one. All right, so that's your favorite. Name another movie. That's great. Name another movie you grew up with.

Byron Coke
Let's see. Gotta think back. Ah, Abbott and Costello. Actually, think about it. There was one, Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, where they meet these Amazonians on Mars. And The only reason they're actually interested in Bart because of his charm. But when it came to like picking them, they were showing pictures of the kind of men they used to go for that weren't on the planet anymore. And they were like these really muscular, handsome looking dudes. To be honest, as a child, I watched the thing. I need to start working out because I wanted to look like them. Yeah, Costello really funny. I've been Costello.

Tony Martignetti
I've been a bit. They had a TV series. They had a weekly TV show with regular characters. There used to be the landlord. I can't— if I thought about it, I could remember the landlord's name. But besides the movies they did, they also had a TV series in the US. Mr. Fields. I think their landlord was Mr. Fields. Okay. And, you know, they're always late on the rent and things, you know. But they had a regular— they had a series of— yeah, they just had a TV series with regular characters. I'm pretty sure Mr. Fields was their landlord. All right. So that's cool, Byron. Thank you. I like to just probe a little on the personal side. That's great.

Byron Coke
That's cool.

Tony Martignetti
To leave us with something. Okay. Something, some inspiration around what these small nonprofits can do With grants, funding, just, you know, being strategic?

Byron Coke
Um, this one isn't actually strategic. It's just, um, a viewpoint I have personally. Regardless what situation you're in, what, what business you're in, you're always going to come up with a problem. Always. There is no such thing as a situation, environment, or business that is problem-free. And you only ever have 2 ways of looking at a problem. One, it's impossible to overcome, so you're stuck and can't move. Or you just decide, regardless of what the situation is, you're going to find a way to overcome it. That's it. I've always found when you have that second viewpoint about a problem, you attract solutions. So even something that seems impossible, you will end up attracting the solution that helps. And I remember using that once when I was a lot younger, leaving my first permanent job. And I was on about $14,000 a year. This is going back a while. I'm older than I look. And I wanted to hit $20,000. And I was reaching out to a lot of recruitment agencies. And when I told them what I was on, which was $14,000, and I wanted to go to $20,000, which is a $6,000 jump, they were like, nope, not possible. It's just too big a jump. It was impossible to happen. So I thought, fine, I just wasted them. Yeah. I finally found one agent that said, yep, not a problem, we'll get you that. I ended up getting my job through them because they didn't consider it was a problem and just put me to the right people who would look at what I could do rather than what I was earning. So there is always a solution to a problem if you have the viewpoint it's going to arrive. It doesn't have to be right here and now, but you will attract it.

Tony Martignetti
Byron Coke, founder of Grant Fit. You'll find Grant Fit at grantintelligence.co. Connect with Byron on LinkedIn. Byron, thank you so much. It was a pleasure.

Byron Coke
No problem. Thank you.

Kate Martignetti
Next week, The Revolutionary Board. If you missed any part of this week's show,

Tony Martignetti
I beseech you, find it at tonymartignetti.com.

Kate Martignetti
Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I'm your associate producer, Kate Martignetti. The show's social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein.

Tony Martignetti
Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for Nonprofit Radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.