Hi. I'm Shelley Birdsong-Maddex, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Foundation and Corporate Giving at the University of California, Davis. And today, we'll be talking about the basics of securing support from corporations and foundations. Today, you should walk away with an understanding of the role that foundation and corporate support plays in your development program. You should also understand the fundamentals of the corporate and foundation relations program. And you should also understand the basics of the grant writing process. The goal of our module is to provide the viewer with a better understanding of why foundations and corporations give to various causes throughout the US. We will walk through the various stages of the grant-making process, taking note of similarities and differences of foundation and corporate philanthropy. As a matter of context, I want to provide a quick overview and share with each other why your organization should consider partnering with foundations and corporations. In fact, in 2014, there are $358 billion given away by organizations and individuals in the US. Twenty cents of every dollar of those donations came from a corporation or a foundation. Why would your organization like to secure money from corporations and foundations? Well first, it's a matter of reputation. Partnerships with corporations and foundations generally endure an extensive vetting process, and this vetting process communicates a certain sense of confidence about their partnerships and thus, conveys the confidence about your organization. There is also a strategic perspective to the partnership with corporations and foundations. Corporate and foundation donors provide key programmatic support, allowing your organization to focus individual philanthropy on unrestricted capital and support in operations support. There are many kinds of foundations and corporations that you could pursue funding from. This is a list of the several types of organizations. Foundations generally fall into four different organizations. Independent foundations which would be a group like the Ford Foundation, the John T. and Catherine A MacArthur Foundation. Then there are also community and public foundations. Operating foundations include the Pew Charitable Trust. And then there're donor-advised funds which can be any community fund whether it be the Pittsburgh Foundation which is a donor-advised fund, or even the Sacramento Regional Charitable Foundation. Companies offer several avenues from which to secure funding, including at the company-based foundation which generally operates their corporate social responsibility agenda. There's also marketing and sponsorship budgets. And then, there's also business unit research where they actually conduct research related to their business. Why would these organizations want to give to your organization? Well, for foundations, they're actually designed to give away money, this is their sole purpose. The foundation actually gives to interests and passions that reflect the founders' interest, and they focus on societal improvement, things such as the eradication of disease, reducing poverty, improving the environment, we really like to refer to foundations as the venture capital of social change. Corporations, on the other hand, have a different motivation for giving. They are designed by nature to create goods and services for consumption and for the benefit of its stakeholders. Usually, their donations reflect business needs in the organization. The other purpose for corporations to give is to build competitive marketing edge, building brand recognition, encouraging customer and employee loyalty through things such as matching gift programs. So now, we're going to get into the basics of our foundation and corporate program and I'm using the grant seeking process to contextualize what I'm sharing today. We'll start off with programming budget planning. Foundations and corporations rarely support operational funds and this is a very important point to keep in mind as you were looking at this particular constituency for funding. They like to give programmatically. They also like to give to finite projects. So projects that are actually 1-3 years in length, have a definite start and an end, and where your organization has a sustainability plan. So, what you want to do is determine what project your organization wants to have funded and how much it will cost from start to finish. Projects should play to the organization's strength. It should make sense that you have a partnership with that organization. It should be a finite project, as I stated before, so you need to develop timelines, start and end dates, you need to describe for the organization how the project is going to advance their organizational mission. Why is this issue worth addressing? What will it accomplish? Who will it impact? And where will this impact occur? Your budget should reflect the actual cost of doing the work. Make sure that the budget includes personnel expenses including benefits. You will see in a number of guidelines that organizations don't allow for overhead and indirect cost. Now, what does overhead an indirect cost? Well, it costs money to do what you do. This is your basic organizational expenses whether it be turning on the lights, paying for a phone, paying for a computer, or any anything such as that, copies, pencils, pens. In general, organizations have a generalized percentage for their overhead cost. Organizations such as foundations and corporations tend not to be interested in providing that support. So, when you can itemize some of these expenses in your grant budget proposal, then you should. Prospect Research, now this is where the real work begins. Once you have defined your program in your budget, you need to be able to identify potential donors for your effort. Remember in the CFR world that donors are investors, and you talk about things as a partnership. We also employ a philosophy called donor-centered fundraising. This is the only kind of fundraising that you do with corporations and foundations, as it is a partnership which forms a mutually beneficial relationship and pursues a mutually beneficial goal. There are many tools out there to help you determine who to approach. One side is the Foundation Center which is a national nonprofit and provides a searchable database. The other is GuideStar.org which provides access to organization 990s. You should also start immediately after you identify an organization by looking at their website and reading very carefully, the types of things they give to, how much they give, and how long they give. These are all very important points in identifying your list. Once you have your list, see if there are other grantees that are related to your business or where you have contacts, and you can ask them about their experiences in working with that organization.
