Submitting, Accepting, Managing and Reporting on Grants

You are encouraged to apply for non-government grants that are aligned with the mission of your project. However, before you do, practice thorough due diligence to make sure your project is a good fit for the funding source. Before beginning to work on a proposal, ask yourself these questions:

• What are the grant requirements? Have you read everything you possibly can about the specific grant you will be applying for?

• Is a fiscally sponsored project eligible to receive a grant from this source?

• Is government funding involved? Even if the granting organization is a foundation or non-profit, if government money is the source of funds for a given grant, SGF is generally not able to accept, and absolutely will not if funds are federal. Generally grant materials of this type (that SGF does not accept) will ask for a SAM or Unique Entity ID (formerly DUNS) number.

• Does this funder have a track record of funding new programs and initiatives and/or programs such as yours?

• What are you allowed to use the funds for?

• What will the funder NOT pay for?

• Is there a specific grant cycle that does or doesn’t make it a viable potential funding partner for your project?

• What is the average $ size of grant this funder typically make?

• What % of your overall budget will your request be for? Many funders will not fund a project/organization/initiative if its grant will make up the majority of your funding.

• Does this funder have any geographical restrictions or requirements?

• Does this funder have a track record of funding organizations/projects such as yours? If they provide a list of past or current grantees, can you imagine your organization being on that list? Does it make sense for you to apply given all you know about the funder and the grants it makes?

• Have you given yourself enough time to submit a high quality proposal?

• Don’t forget to include your sponsorship admin cost in the budget of your proposal!

Social Good Fund wants to see and approve all proposals asking for $10,000 or more at least one week before it is submitted. We will not do the copy editing. Ensuring good grammar, good formatting, clarity and conciseness is your responsibility. We will read it, review details and provide feedback as best we can via email. Please fill in all the information you can before sending it to us. We want to review final drafts only. Please note, if the proposal requires an authorized signature from the “organization” submitting the proposal, this means Social Good Fund must sign it, not you. Please send proposals for signature to: [e-mail]

If you have submitted a proposal for us to review (using the Grant Proposal Submission Form) but for some reason do not hear from us and the due date is approaching, go ahead and submit the proposal without our review.

For proposals and applications under $10,000, Social Good Fund does not need to see and approve these prior to submission, however, we ask that you still submit it to us for our records. This will assist us in matching incoming money with your project and help us answer questions if the funder reaches out to us.

Submit copies of completed applications and grant proposals for review here: Grant Proposal Submission Form Depending on the funder, they may or may not have built in a section for you to easily tell them that you are fiscally sponsored by Social Good Fund. In cases like this, where the proposal asks for the name of the Organization, use Social Good Fund and where the proposal asks for Program or Project, enter the name of your fiscally sponsored project.

SGF Grants Contact

Social Good Fund’s Co-Director of Project Support, Ly Nguyen, should be listed as the “Organization Contact” and “Authorized Signer” of the agreement. The associated email is the same, general email: [e-mail]. You should list the project director (yourself) as the “Program Contact”.

Finally, it is the project’s responsibility to understand and abide by all grant reporting requirements. This includes writing and sending reports to funders as requested. While we will do all we can to remind projects of due dates, ultimately, it is the project who must submit grant reports as required.

Note that if at any point we become aware that government funding is part of the grant, we unfortunately will not be able to accept it. Occasionally that may only become apparent at the point of signing an agreement, though we do our best to catch earlier in the submission process and encourage projects to inquire early on with the granting organization to determine the funding source. More information on government grants follows.