Building a grant writing team for your church will increase your funding success rates.
According to Tracy Middleton, “Research shows that collaborative problem solving leads to better outcomes. People are more likely to take calculated risks that lead to innovation if they have the support of a team behind them. Working in a team encourages personal growth, increases job satisfaction, and reduces stress.”
Teamwork really does make the dream work
In the process of writing grants, it’s extremely helpful to have multiple people working together to increase chances of being successful and nailing a grant. Grant writing has so many steps and it can be easy to get lost in the sauce of it all.
From laying the foundation and brainstorming ideas, to finding grant opportunities and writing the actual grant, it can be overwhelming. If you utilize your team for some of the steps, however, it will alleviate some of the pressure you can feel as the grant writer.
In the following article, we will be walking you through discussion points for team meetings to determine what grants to go after for your program!
BIG PICTURE goals
Naturally, the first step of any process is to brainstorm, but sometimes when trying to rack your brain for ideas, everything can become a little hazy and that’s where having a team to help you comes in handy.
If you are working at a church who is looking for grants, the first thing you will want to do is gather your department heads. This would be everyone who is in charge of all your different ministries at your church. By having all the department heads present, you increase your chances of discovering ideas which can then turn into dollars.
When sitting down with your department heads, discuss what you are currently doing and where you are wanting to go. It is important to collectively talk about each and every department or ministry’s big picture goals.
Now, what is a big picture goal?
A big picture goal is a long-term, overall end result that your program is trying to achieve. These are broad statements that guide decision making. By brainstorming and finding out what your big picture goals are, it will allow you to figure out where you are wanting to go as a ministry.
This big picture goal is futuristic in nature. It should almost seem unachievable to you based on your current abilities and resources. But if you are not going to dream big, then why bother dreaming at all? If you can dream it, you can achieve it!
Current activities and program elements
Once you have figured out what your ministry’s big picture goals are, it is important to talk about the different kinds of activities or program elements that you are currently offering. Simply put, program goals determine what program elements and activities need to be offered. Inversely, the action plan and strategies enable your church ministry to reach its goals.
Program elements could be described as training, counseling, mentoring, classes, materials, even planned services, events, or activities. In this instance, services does not refer to church services, rather humanitarian or educational services.
Specifically, consider how your church is impacting the needs of individuals of all ages in your community. Think about the following questions:
Does your church offer some kind of training or counseling?
Does your church have a youth ministry, or a young mother’s ministry?
Do you feed the homeless on the weekends?
Do you have a bus ministry that picks up people who don’t have rides to church?
Do you open your facility to the public for other humanitarian services?
Having a team to talk about this will ensure you do not leave out anything. When brainstorming for grant opportunities, you want to carefully consider a broad range of ministerial initiatives.
Grant dollars are sitting out there waiting for you to grab them; don’t leave any rock unturned!
Current supplies and resources
After discussing what activities or program elements you are currently offering, you will want to talk about the various supplies, equipment, facility, staffing that this program already has.
Consider what your church already has that uniquely positions it to meet community needs. Then, also reflect on the “if our church had this, we could do this” elements.
Ask yourselves:
Where is your property located?
What does your church campus offer? What could it offer?
Are there any unique or unused parts of your facility?
Do you have a huge auditorium, gymnasium, undeveloped property?
What about a kitchen, classrooms, equipment and supplies?
What about your active volunteers?
Do you provide food donations in your church? How many individuals can be served? What capacity do you currently have for your different programs? Are you seeking to build capacity?
By discussing what supplies, equipment, facility, staffing your program currently has, and having a vision for where you are wanting to go, you should see some gaps in the plan.
Ask yourself and your team: If we are to take this program to the next level, what do we need? Is our building currently at capacity and in order for this program to grow, do we need a bigger facility? Do we have the capacity to hold all the people we want to, but we lack supplies for the programs that we want to do?
Or, maybe you have both the facility and the supplies, but you lack the staff to run the program and you need to hire someone on. All of these elements are things that need to be thought of.
Add metrics to the mix
Tracking metrics and data enables you to make realistic decisions and projections about both program elements and outcomes. Outcomes are the end results for specific, measurable activities performed to reach a goal. Since every grant application requests information that requires key metrics for substantiation, it’s a great idea to begin laying the groundwork for metrics every program should track.
So, what type of metrics should churches or faith-based organizations be tracking for grant writing purposes.
Let’s examine some possible metrics to track.
Capacity: If you are addressing a program’s capacity, or how many individuals can be served, then it would be beneficial to know: how many unique individuals has your program served in the past year, two years, five years? How many individuals attend each program session? What is the average repeat attendance rate per individual? How many individuals can you comfortably serve at one time? Has participation levels increased? By how much over what period? To increase capacity, would your church need more space? More frequent events? More supplies? More equipment?
Target audience: If a grantor wants to fund programs that serve a specific (target) population, such as a minority group, an age group, a socially disadvantaged group, do you have the metrics available to speak to those populations? Helpful program metrics to track for individuals include: age, sex, race/ethnicity, family size, marital status, disabilities, household income levels, household structure (2 parent/single parent), and so forth.
Program data: You may also want to track historical data on the program itself. When it comes time to describe the program, make plans to take it to the next level, and then write about it for a grant application, knowing this historical information comes in handy:
Number of activities per week and per month
Number of and types of special events held
Duration of each event
Types of activities offered
Number of volunteers
Days of week held
Location held
Take it to the next level
The next discussion question you should put on the table is if you had these resources, these supplies, more equipment, a bigger facility, more staff, what would you do? Your program or project starts with a mission and vision, then moves forward with plans and strategies on how it will be implemented. As you execute plans and strategies, you must have the methods in place for evaluating your success.
This is the time to dream big. The Bible says, “Ye have not, because ye ask not.” This is your time to reach for the stars and ask big!
Would you buy a bus and staff it so that you can run it on Sundays and Wednesdays to pick up the youth in your community that don’t have access to transportation? Would you buy puppets, a sound system, chairs, and a new curriculum to provide a fun and safe environment for your children’s programming? One where they can learn and feel love because you know they are not receiving it at home?
Empowered Youth of Oak Park Pentecostal Church in Richmond, Indiana has received grants from the United Way for $50,000, allowing them to pay for their students’ cell phone bills for a year, buy them new clothes, transport them to and from events, cover youth event registration fees, plus equip the youth classroom to handle a larger number of youth participants.
They say it takes a village to raise a child, likewise, it can take just as many people to facilitate church ministry ideas to fund. The end result though is so worth it.
Teamwork in the Bible
In the book of Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, the Bible says, “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
The Word of God tells us that every single person is a member of the body of Christ. Everyone has their own individual purpose and job, and they exist to be a part of the body which functions as a whole.
Having other people to help you brainstorm ideas for grant opportunities is key to being successful when writing grants. Try and utilize this process and series of questions the next time you set out to discover grant opportunities for your church. It will make a world of difference.
Check out our Brainstorm Funding Worksheet to guide your team through the process!
Additional resources
Exousia seeks to educate and consult church leaders on how grants work and the importance of working together with your team within grant writing. Our prayer is that you are inspired to go out and implement networking for grants in your church ministries. If you desire to learn more about grant writing, check out our online grant writing institute or attend one of our in-person workshops near you!
If you enjoyed our Brainstorm Funding Worksheet, feel free to check out our worksheet packet which aides grant writers through the process by breaking down each step into an in-depth worksheet.
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