The Tisch Food Center, Wellness in the Schools, and New York State Health Foundation co-hosted a webinar, Fundraising Strategies for Food Organizations, to help partners identify and apply for funding.
Here are the top three lessons we learned from this webinar:
1. Get to know more about the funder. There are a host of websites and listservs that provide information on funders, like those listed below. Get to know which funders support projects like yours and set up Google alerts so you know when they have a new grant opportunity available.
Resource Hubs
- Candid (formally Foundation Center), which includes the Foundation Directory Online
- Charities Aid Foundation of America
- GrantWatch.com
- Inside Philanthropy
- Nonprofit Learning Lab
ListServs
- RFP Bulletin (part of Philanthropy News Digest)
- Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food, Education & Policy: subscribe to the Food Ed Weekly Digest
2. Develop authentic relationships. Relationships with community members, other nonprofits, and funders are key to successfully raising money. If you do good work, community members will vouch for you. And if you are generous with your time and resources, partners will be more likely to introduce you to their funders. Some large funders that partners have worked with include:
- American Heart Association
- Brooklyn Community Foundation
- New York Foundation
- NYS Health Foundation
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
3. Explain how your work is the solution to an urgent problem. The best grant applications are backed up by data. Use data to explain both the problem and evidence-based solutions. Check out our new Food Education Fast Facts to reduce the time you spend reviewing the latest literature for grant applications.
You can find slides from the webinar here: