Missions to Movements
This isn't just another nonprofit podcast - it's your weekly invitation to think bigger, take bold risks, and create lasting change in an ever-evolving social impact landscape. Meet Dana Snyder, your guide through the evolving landscape of nonprofit innovation. She's on a mission to help change-makers like you push the boundaries of what's possible in nonprofit marketing and fundraising. Each week, Missions to Movements serves as your personal mastermind session, delivering actionable insights and bold strategies that challenge traditional nonprofit thinking. Dive into revolutionary approaches to digital fundraising, discover how to build magnetic monthly giving programs that create lasting donor relationships, and learn to amplify your voice as a thought leader in the social good space. Whether you're reimagining your organization's impact or forging game-changing partnerships, you'll find the ideas, insights, and inspiration to take your mission further than you've ever imagined. Ready to turn your mission into a movement?
Missions to Movements
Navigating the Federal Grant Freeze: What To Know & How To Adapt with DeaRonda Harrison
Last week’s federal grant freeze sent shockwaves through the nonprofit sector, and you may be wondering, what is the impact as it relates to funding and future sustainability?
DeaRonda Harrison, CEO of June First Firm, is here to break down what this means for grant-funded nonprofits. DeaRhonda shares her expertise on federal and private grants, explaining the ripple effects of the freeze, the confusion surrounding the government’s response, and how organizations can adapt in times of funding uncertainty.
She also shares a crucial grant writing tip that will help you improve your chances of securing future funding.
If you’re wondering what steps to take next, DeaRonda shares where to find reliable grant research resources like the Foundation Directory, how to adjust your grant applications, and why proactive fundraising strategies (like strengthening donor relationships and recurring giving programs!) are more important than ever.
Resources & Links
Connect with DeaRonda on LinkedIn and her website and subscribe to her newsletter for more resources.
DeaRonda’s go-to grant-writing resources include the Foundation Directory, Instrumentl, GrantStation (free if you’re part of the Grant Professionals Association), GuideStar, and Cause IQ.
Seeking more updates and guidance on the federal freeze? D
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Let's Connect!
So there was an executive order. President Trump basically halted all federal grants and loans. So if you receive funding, a lot of my clients get reimbursable grants. So once they charge the thing, they get the receipts, they present that to the federal agency and they reimburse them. So of course there was a panic and I have a lot of clients whose staff are grant funded. Their position is funded by this grant.
Speaker 2:I'm Dana Snyder, your host of the Missions to Movements podcast, and my path to philanthropy has been anything but traditional. This show is your weekly mastermind, designed to give you the ideas, insights and support you need to push the boundaries of what's been done before in nonprofit marketing and fundraising. Whether you're looking to build a magnetic monthly giving program, elevate your personal brand or create partnerships that amplify your impact, this space is for you. I'll bring you solo episodes and conversations with industry leaders offering actionable strategies and fresh perspectives that will move you and your mission forward. Let's turn your mission into a movement. Welcome back to Missions to Movements.
Speaker 2:Today, we are diving into a topic that has shaken up the nonprofit world a bit, which was the federal grant freeze. If you were listening to this live when it's coming out this just happened last week and if you're working in the sector, you've probably felt and I will say in the United States, this podcast goes out all around the world. If you're in the United States, the federal grant freeze that happened and then was rescinded, and there's some confusion about what's going on. So you've probably felt the ripple effects of whether it's applications being put on hold, budgets being thrown into question. Honestly, just a lot of uncertainty about what comes next, and I will be first to say about what comes next. And I will be first to say I am no grant expert, but I really wanted to better understand what's happening. And so when I don't understand something, I call on my friends, and I am very fortunate that Deronda Harrison and I both live in Atlanta.
Speaker 2:She is the CEO of June 1st Firm. She has been working for over a decade in grants and if you work in the nonprofit space, you might already know her, know of her. We have had the pleasure of working side by side and across from each other at coworking spaces over the last few years with other nonprofit consultants in the city, and immediately I texted her. I was like will you please come on the show and talk to me and you all about what is happening? And she's like, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:So we are going to break down what this means for organizations that might be reliant on these funds, what may be creative pivots she's seeing talking to with her clients, how we can really like shore up your fundraising strategies. And, of course, what I had to ask about was how this can really like shore up your fundraising strategies and, of course, what I had to ask about was how this moment really reinforces the power of monthly giving and even applying that into your grant application strategy. So we're going to cover a lot today, so let's get into it. Duranda, welcome to the show. I'm so thankful that you're here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks for reaching out, dana. She was texting me. I was actually out of the country, but I was like you were out of the country? Yeah, I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to stop talking to me.
Speaker 2:Wait, where were?
Speaker 1:you. No, I was actually in Jamaica. I went for a few days for a weekend trip, and it was already planned. And then this happened.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. So you were in Jamaica when everything happened.
Speaker 1:No, I actually wasn't there. I actually left, like literally like three days later. Okay, okay, I already had it planned. So, anyways, I didn't want you to feel bad for texting me. I was like it's fine, I'm on wifi, so.
Speaker 2:Oh goodness. Well, I'm glad you had hopefully a lovely trip and then to come back to everything that's happening. So I know you've been in the trenches and this is actually give a background a little bit too. What does June 1st Firm focus on?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I actually started in grants and I actually started in federal grants. I always tell people my first grant was a 21st century learning grant, which is a Department of Education grant. So if anyone knows about that they're like oh my God, I can't believe you didn't run away after doing that grant. It's a huge, complex grant but that was my first introduction to the grant world. I was working for a local nonprofit in my community, just helping out, was sitting under a more seasoned grant writer and just was helping them with their grants and just continued to do that. So that's kind of how I started. So I actually started in federal grants and then when I did my first corporate foundation smaller grant, I was like, oh, these are wonderful, these are easy. But I was introduced to grant world through federal grants so I have no other ways of comparing it to anything else initially when I first got started.
Speaker 1:So I've been doing the public funding and I actually prefer federal grants. I like the. It's like putting together a puzzle for me, all the moving parts, all the moving pieces put together a project plan, a work plan. You just put all the different items together and I like it because you follow a rubric and that's how your score is not as subjective as foundation. Foundation is more relationships and things like that Federal grant. You follow the rubric, meet the criteria, you get the score. Generally you'll get funded.
Speaker 2:Interesting. Okay, for those that maybe aren't familiar what's happening or what just happened in the United States, can you give us like a brief summary?
Speaker 1:So there was an executive order. President Trump basically halted all federal grants and loans. So if you receive in funding, a lot of my clients get reimbursable grants. So once they charge the thing, they get the receipts, they present that to the federal agency and they reimburse them. So of course there was a panic and I have a lot of clients whose staff are grant funded. Their position is funded by this grant.
Speaker 2:Yep, I was one of those when I first started.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, grant funded staff member, which is very common, it's not bad. And so it was just again a lot of uncertainty. So we were telling our clients go into the portal, go into HUD's portal, pull down as much funding as you can, whatever you can do. So of course they did that, but of course the portals were. They were locked down. They couldn't access them because I was like oh yeah, that's a great idea, just go in there and grab, pull down what you can, within reason of course. But of course they had everything locked down. So it was just a lot of, again, uncertainty. Like I was saying, dana, before we hopped on, some of my clients even reached out to their HUD point of contact and their HUD was like we haven't received no direction on any of these things, so we're still just waiting too. So, again, just it was a lot of unknown and a lot of things that people were still navigating, figuring out and still, even still today, yeah, are there places that you recommend that organizations?
Speaker 2:if there's still so much confusion, even in the government level, like you're talking about, are there certain organizations that you share with your clients to reach out to for the most, like updated information?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good question. I work with you know part of like other consulting groups and there's, like this resource document that I'm happy to share, dana, with your audience. That has all the different places of resources that they can reach out to, like a national council of nonprofits, and all the different updates, updates, executive orders, what's going on and where they can get support and different items again resources from. So it's a growing list. People are adding to it as, of course, the day by day, but I'm happy to share that as well.
Speaker 2:Okay, amazing, and I know you have your own newsletter right when people can be able to get more information. Can you share that too, where people can sign up?
Speaker 1:Yes, so it's on my website. It's junefirstfirmcom. If you put the forward slash newsletter, you can sign up. I call it GrantPro. In your back pocket, get all the information and updates that you need. I'm actually sending out, which I'm sure we'll dive into diversifying funding. One of the key things with the private funding is building those relationships, so I'm going to actually talk about that next week on how to do that. So definitely sign up for my newsletter.
Speaker 2:Yes, okay, I want to actually jump into private grants, so I have my own like perceptions, but I see a lot of like private grant applications out there and things. What's the actual size difference of private grants that are available versus federal? Okay, I guess that's number of dollars, and then also are there just a ton more opportunities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's way more opportunity, just more existing chances of private grants, but they're much smaller. I mean they can range from a thousand bucks for a junior league up to like it could still be up to high six figures, depending on the grant and depending on your relationship with them. But generally speaking, your private grants range between about 10K to about 25 or 50K Used to be like 75, but I'm only seeing now maybe 25, 50k, and again there's just more of those versus federal grants, because federal grants are larger, much larger, multi-year, and they're multi-million dollars. And then there may be more private funders that you match with versus, again, federal.
Speaker 2:I was going to think that too. So is there more opportunity for a more diverse organization base mission-wise to be able to go after private funding? Are they? Also because they're not as large of a sum, is it a quicker application and review process usually?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's typically simpler application. A lot of times you can just submit what we call LOI or letter of interest two to three pages. Highlight your organization, your mission, your program impact evaluation. Your needs statement is in that two to three page impact evaluation. Your needs statement is in that two to three page. And then some of them actually have application portals where you go into an actual portal and enter in your information and submit. For the most part a lot of them have been getting back with you with decisions in about three to four months, sometimes even sooner, four to six weeks. I've been seeing that timeline get smaller and smaller, which is good so people can know that is something that is ongoing, that is a service offer June 1st Firm does is the ongoing grant writing for those type of grants because they're more frequent and you just contract with us to manage those and do those for you.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, because there's probably a lot larger quantity of ones that you could go after. Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 2:So you know me and I'm all about something happens and even if it's like putting us against a wall, I'm like what can we do to take action? Like, what creative pivots or things are you seeing? I know there's a lot of uncertainty right now on what's going to happen, but with some of your clients, are they asking you about what options do they have if their grant was to be, or loan was to be, canceled or paused for a long, extended time? Like, what are recommendations you're providing or conversations that are happening?
Speaker 1:For the most part, all of my current clients are diversified as well. As they get individual donations, they get the private and they get federal, federal, state, county I'll call that federal, but it's like federal dollars or their state or their county. So of course they're leaning more into maybe even some state and county, even though that's public funding. Sometimes a lot of that money that they get through those type of contracts are tax dollars, so that is something they may be leaning into more. And then of course, their private grants and individual donations, monthly giving, which I always say doesn't matter. If your organization starts tomorrow, you can start a monthly giving program.
Speaker 1:Grants doesn't necessarily work like that you want to build a pipeline and have proven impact on all the different things. But monthly giving is so great. I love that. Dana is like the person for that. I'm like every nonprofit should have a monthly giving program.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so I mean, you know, I agree. Yeah, I mean of course. Which is actually like a really good point, so okay. So basically, most of your clients are diversified. If someone's listening and they're not, what would be your recommendation?
Speaker 1:So I have worked with nonprofits who are like 70, 80% funded and they maybe just get like some individual donations or event corporate sponsors or something like that.
Speaker 1:I'm not one of the big people like, well, this is why you should have been diversified. I mean, like I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with you being 70 or 80% funded, because before this everybody says that's what's guaranteed money. Federal grants are guaranteed money, as we can see, nothing is, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But this is a time to consider. If you are the consultant or the nonprofit or you want to diversify, gently nudge your clients into pursuing private grants or just looking at it and seeing what's out there and building a pipeline of prospect research and just seeing what private funders have a history of giving to their types of programs and services and see what a pipeline looks like and if there's any relationships there to start having those conversations. But I definitely would say look into that as an option and monthly giving or individual donations, really leveraging that, telling your story, storytelling to really really drive your monthly giving.
Speaker 2:Yeah, tell people what's going on, Like let them in on what's happening, Cause I think a lot of people that aren't in the weeds in the sector like we are in hearing the news might have no idea what's happening, Because I think a lot of people that aren't in the weeds in the sector like we are in hearing the news might have no idea what's going on, and so let them know your supporters. Reach out to local press in your community to talk about what's happening and how that could affect the community as a greater whole. People are going to want to hear about this.
Speaker 2:And they're going to want to give yeah, exactly, and want to give and give them the opportunity to do that, and ideally in a recurring fashion. The other side I've been trying to find it in my Ooh wait, maybe I just did In my book. We talked about this a little bit pre. This isn't the first time and I'm sure it won't be the last. Unfortunately that, because administration changes all the time.
Speaker 2:There was an organization that I had read about when I was doing research in my book that also was like 85% federally funded. They were around for 123 years the whole house so they've been around a while. It was an organization. It was a historical social services organization in Chicago. It was co-founded by Jane Addams, the first woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1889. And they filed for bankruptcy in 2012. And the reason that that happened and what was really interesting about their financial model is before the charitable tax deduction took effect in 1917, they were entirely founded by private gifts when there was no tax benefit to donors, which I think is so interesting. I think like I don't even think about that time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people just were nice people they wanted to give.
Speaker 2:So entirely funded and then they shifted to be highly dependent on government dollars. Things were changing at the time, and so they ended up not being able to progress back to individual private funds fast enough and that led to their bankruptcy. But I think it's stories like these where this has happened before, and how can we make sure that we're in a good place moving forward? And so when you talk about diversifying funding and we've talked about this when we've been in co-working spaces together within grant applications you've mentioned to me the importance of talking about an organization's monthly giving program. Can you share what you mean by that?
Speaker 1:program. Can you share what you mean by that? Yeah, I always say I mean ideally you're starting a nonprofit, people that should be giving, or your donors, or people that believe in your mission and work that you're doing. We call it a monthly giving program, but it's essentially individuals that are giving to your organization and ideally you would like them to get monthly. So I always say, starting with that, and then you may do events where you fundraise, have corporate sponsors, other like program fees if you do any type of consultant work, or even some people rent out their space. They make money like that. And then grants. So I always say grants is icing on the cake. So having all those layers before you kind of go into grants.
Speaker 1:I've pretty much seen 90% of grant applications ask what I call the sustainability question. Grant writers would call it the sustainability question and it's essentially what are you going to do when we stop giving you money, when we stop giving you grant money? How are you going to sustain this work? How are you going to keep doing these things, Even if we're directly funding a project for two, three years? What are you going to do? What's your plan? And clients always struggle with answering this question and I'm like you all basically want to share what is all of the revenue streams for the organization, and that's what we have. We have individual donations. We have a development department or development team that pursues grant funding every year. We have events that we raise. We may have two large events every year that brings in funds for us. So listing all those different things, that's what funders want to hear and they love to hear the diversity in your revenue.
Speaker 2:Amazing. So even like working on this now, being able could help win more grants down the line.
Speaker 1:Exactly and leveraging your monthly giving. You can even say, like we have individual donors and we have a very strong monthly giving where we have this many donors every month that give consistently to our organization and that is very comforting to funders and they honestly don't want to continue to fund the work that you're doing because they're confident that you're going to be around.
Speaker 2:I just had. This is so relevant. Last night, one of the women from my first monthly giving mastermind in 2022 emailed me and when the email title said data, she was like I had to share this data with you that 33% of her donors are monthly donors now, with a 93% retention rate, which is amazing, amazing and it's like I couldn't only imagine if she's applying for a grant.
Speaker 1:She can actually say that. Yeah, she can say that it's an exact thing. Yeah, that's rare. Like even some large nonprofits, they may just have some individual donors that give like at the end of the year, every year. When I say large, I mean like 5 million, 10 million or more. Yeah, but to have that type of data or statistic and put that in your grant application, especially when you're applying, and they haven't they've never funded you, that's definitely powerful, amazing, okay.
Speaker 2:So if somebody's trying to like DIY this, are there some resources that list private grants that they can research and apply for?
Speaker 1:Yes, so I use FBO, which is Foundation Directory, online and Instrumental, is really good as well. These are paid services. I mean they're pretty pricey, but if you are pursuing private grants, they are pretty robust and, as I always say, they pay for themselves if you get one grant or two grants or whatever. So definitely worth it. There's so many out there, but I've been using FBO for so many years so I've just I just default to that and again, it's pretty comprehensive. And then there's like GrantStation out there.
Speaker 1:If you're a grant writer, if you're a part of Grant Professionals Association, that's a part of their membership, so GrantStation is a good tool to use. But if you're a nonprofit, you can check out GuideStar and CauseIQ for like different resources, but a lot of them are paid. There's not too many free, available tools that can collect that information from you. The research tools you put in your cause, whether it's workforce development or job training, education or youth afterschool program, being as specific as you can and pulling organizations that fund that type of work, it pulls together a list for you. You can go through it. That's definitely those tools you can utilize to start building your private grant funding pipeline.
Speaker 2:Okay, amazing, super helpful. We'll list some of these in the show notes for everyone to go check out. If they're like I do not have the bandwidth, I do not have the time, which praise to you, listener, if you are saying that and you're like I need to put this in the hands of someone else who is an expert. Duranda, are you open for people to work with you?
Speaker 1:right now? Yes, absolutely, they can go to my website and schedule a call. We definitely will have a conversation to make sure that you're a good fit for the services that we offer.
Speaker 1:If you just look for prospect research, we can do that. If you're looking to go on a monthly retainer, we can do that. If you just want to apply to this one state opportunity, we do that as well. But a lot of our clients want ongoing support, especially because they're pursuing grants throughout the year. So we do have retainer clients as well. So you can definitely go onto the website and learn more Amazing.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for making the time to hop on this. I think, if anything, it helps us just to work with an expert to talk through strategy and the rest of what the rest of the year looks like from a budgeting perspective and what opportunities are out there that maybe weren't considered before, and so I know I will be reaching out to you and leaning onto you if anybody comes my way. But please, please, please, listener, if you are someone who is dealing with any issues within the federal space, lean on these experts who are just dealing with this across the board with different clients. So, thank you for everything that you do. Thank you for joining me. Is there any final piece of advice or anything that you want to share with listeners before we wrap?
Speaker 1:Yes, and I just wanted to say there's again a part of the consulting group, especially grant writers, and there's a thread of how to shift language. So like I've been under multiple administrations, so but now you know, of course DEI is not appreciated, for lack of better terminology.
Speaker 1:So, like shifting that language instead of saying DEI, saying other language instead of saying cultural competency or staying away from the word indigenous. So you're not changing your program, you're not deviating from your mission and this has even happened again under different administration. You're changing like you're repackaging how you're communicating your offer. So, again, grant writing specialist or expert can definitely help you with that. That's something that we do at my firm really well, just helping clients think through that strategy. So that's something to consider. I don't want people to think, well, we do this work, it can't get funded, we've. So that's something to consider. I don't want people to think, well, we do this work, it can't get funded, we've got to figure something else out. There's definitely other opportunities. You can repackage your way of doing things.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for saying that. I don't like that. We have to do that. It changes language, but I'm sure, like you said, you've been through multiple administrations and things change regarding who's in leadership. It actually reminds me of when I used to do a lot of ads on Meta their automatic algorithm flags, certain words and kind of similar. You have to tweak the language that you use or else your ads could get flagged and they could not run. That's kind of like my comparison in my mind to what you're referencing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And so sometimes you just have to tweak it, even though you can still get it pushed through. It's just like the bots are firing to try and monitor what's being pushed out, but love that. Okay. So that's a beautiful tip that funding can still be possible even if you think that your organization might not be able to receive funding.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely yeah, yeah, definitely. Think about strategy and other ways to say the thing that you're doing.
Speaker 2:Okay, joronda. Thank you again so much for being here. Everyone go follow Joronda junefirstfirmcom. Sign up for her newsletter so you can get all the information that she's sharing out. Do you do weekly newsletters? I do.
Speaker 1:I send a newsletter every week, every Monday. So yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Perfect, awesome. Thank you, and we will see everyone next Wednesday. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of Missions to Movements. If you enjoyed our conversation and found it helpful, I would love for you to take a moment to leave a review. Wherever you're listening, your feedback helps us reach more change makers like you and continue bringing impactful stories and strategies to the show. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button, too, so you'll never miss an episode, and until next time, keep turning your mission into a movement.
