When you want to connect with a funder, your best bet is an old-fashioned phone call to share your plans and listen to their feedback. The goal of a phone call is to learn about their organizational funding goals, and where they tell you what they think the alignment is between your programming and their funding strategy.
If you’re note sure what to say, follow my funder engagement script:
[Note: if you or your contact are deaf or hard-of-hearing, or have speech challenges, and traditional voice phone calls don’t work for you, you can still use this script using your preferred one-to-one communication method, such as teletype, email, direct message or chat.]
Ask your contact if they’re free for a 15-minute conversation to talk about your organization’s program plans for 2023. Set up a time for an informal chat.
Before the chat, prepare by having high-level details on 2-3 program themes that you know aligns with that funder’s strategy. No need to worry about details, you just want to start an alignment conversation, get and/or remain on their radar, and deepen the relationship.
Start with:
“We’re in planning for the next 12-18 months, and I wanted to talk to you about our program plans, and see where there’s alignment there between our organizations.”
Give them brief theme notes and ask what resonates:
“We want to expand our financial inclusion programming to 3 more regions, developing a tool to measure and evaluate financial equity at the municipal level, and deepen our capacity to include service users in our design process. Do any of those resonate with you?”
“Do any of these resonate with you?” is the most important question to ask. You are asking about alignment between your program plans and their giving strategy. You are giving them the opportunity to tell you how they could fund your programs.
Listen, take notes, listen, take notes. Let your contact talk about what does resonate. Hear what questions they are asking–those are clues about what interests their organization.
Ask if/when they will have their giving strategy or next funding stream public [so you can plan].
Ask “Do you fund seed or feasibility funding, or are you more likely to fund well-established, ongoing programs? Because a lot of what we are planning is early-stage program planning and implementation, so I want to know where we fit.”
Confirm they are the best person to connect with when making the grant application, because you’ll want to give them a heads up when you apply. If yes, great. If no, ask to be introduced to the person who is, and get an email introduction. You can then set up the exact same conversation with that person, who will have more/better info on funding priorities.
Don’t let your initial contact fall by the wayside, however.
The more people on a funder’s team who know about your program and like it, the more people pitching to give you funding.
Good luck!