Tips for Grantseekers on Writing a Pitch Document
This post will be about funding and not about criminal justice work. I prepared the memo below to help people looking for funding, and I was asked to share it more publicly. I hope it’s useful to folks, and I welcome any feedback you might want to share.
This memo is written for people trying to raise money from individual donors and foundations for their organizations and campaigns. There are many components of fundraising. Here I focus specifically on why and how you should create a pitch document about your work that others can share on your behalf, with the aim of reaching major funding sources. A pitch document shares information about your organization and vision and conveys what more can be done with additional support. It is not a replacement for a grant proposal or your website or other communications, but rather an additional tool you can use for getting the word out to funders about the work you’re doing.
In writing this, I’m drawing on my nine years of experience in philanthropy, including numerous conversations and coaching sessions I’ve done with grantees. I am a member of multiple donor networks, and have advised dozens of donors on hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. My aim is to demystify the process of pitching your organization or campaign to major donors, and to offer concrete strategies for effectively communicating your case for support. My thanks to the several grantees and colleagues who reviewed this document for clarity and effectiveness in the writing process.
This document is structured around a series of questions you, the grantseeker, may be asking yourself. Let’s get into it!
Why is this worth my time?
It is absolutely worth your time to create a free-standing pitch document in addition to the grant applications you’re already doing. While your website hopefully contains great information about your work, it’s written for a public audience, whereas a pitch document can make a more persuasive case specifically for donor audiences for why your work is impactful, urgent, and well-led.
Leverages your network: One of the most important dynamics I’ve seen while working in philanthropy is the way that consultants, funders, and staff share information with each other about organizations, encouraging their colleagues to fund ones that they’re excited about. While it’s common to reduce funders to a single entity, like “MacKenzie Scott” or “The Ford Foundation,” in reality there may be dozens of people involved in the due diligence and decision making of these institutions and donors, either officially (on staff, consultants), or unofficially (through networks and communities they’re a part of), and usually both.
Bottom line: donors and their staff are heavily networked, and they talk to each other all the time. By creating a freestanding document, you give your allies the ability to help you by sharing it with people in their network who may be interested. In other words, a pitch document is an organizing tool, making it easy for your allies to spread the word about your work. Once you’ve created something, you can brainstorm who you know, who may know someone who knows someone who can help you. This document can be like a flare you send up to make yourself known to the wider world.
Foot in the door with funders reluctant to talk: Funders often avoid speaking to potential grantees unless they are pretty sure they’re interested. They don’t want to waste anyone’s time and/or get their hopes up. How do they know if they’re interested? They need to review something that efficiently and persuasively tells them why it’s a really good time to support that organization. And based on that document, they may reach out with questions, which can lead to a meeting. Grantees can also use this document as a calling card: asking a potential supporter to review the attached document and let them know you’re available to meet if they are interested in learning more can be a first foot in the door with a new relationship.
Who is reading my document?
Unless you already know your donor targets personally, your immediate audience includes people already in your network who can help you get your document to that person. They, in turn, may share it with allies in their networks, on the path to an eventual donor or their staff.
Here are some of the types of people who look at your document on its journey to a decision-maker: consultants, donor advisors, donor staff, influential leaders in the field who have relationships with funders you’re trying to reach, leaders in the field who others may ask for advice when they receive your document, individual donors, foundation staff.
Given the variety of possible readers and the distance between you and your ideal targets, your goal is to share information that will help your friends help you. You need to have a simple framework that allows a busy person who’s not in the weeds of your organization to make a quick pitch to someone else they know in an email or conversation while offering to share your materials. Equipping your allies with a document that they can share when they are talking you up enables them to make a really concrete appeal to their networks on your behalf, potentially reaching numerous donors that you might not have been able to reach yourself. Once your ally sends it to someone they know, the document must have enough of a hook that each person who looks at it will feel excited about sharing it further.
What questions should I anticipate?
Here are some of the questions that a reader might want to know about your project: is the leadership skillful and strategic? Does the leadership and staff reflect the community it’s purporting to serve? Does the organization have the capacity to execute on this plan? How much impact might a grant have on issues/problems that the donor is focused on, and is it worth paying this amount of money for that impact? Is it something exciting to focus on right now? What is the organization's track record for doing the type of work proposed? Is the organization likely to be self-aware about its own mistakes, and to learn lessons from them? Do the values and approaches of the organization fit the values of the donor?
In addition to ‘donor fit,’ people working in philanthropy tend to be on the lookout for things that fit various ‘buckets’ of work that they specialize in, are responsible for, or know that others are interested in. So keep that in mind when framing your document, and think about how to signal that you may fall into their funding categories. For example, is your project a great fit for someone who cares about economic justice, women and girls, criminal justice, reproductive health, youth organizing, etc? If so, make that clear up top.
Don’t prioritize design over content. Even a basic document with no pictures or charts can make a strong impact on readers. In fact, sometimes a slick presentation can be detrimental, sending the message that the organization is already well-resourced.
Instead, focus on framing your work in a simple and straightforward way. Expect to do this several times as the work and mission of your organization shifts towards new opportunities to make change. If you have the capacity to do so, consider if a chart or two, or visualization of a complex idea, might help the concept to be communicated more clearly.
How should it be structured?
Each person looking seriously at your document will be looking for signals that what you are proposing is good work that’s going to be a good fit for a donor. Because people tend to look at documents quickly and may lack the expertise to appreciate the sophistication of your strategy, you can’t rely on dense text to do the job for you. Instead, things like clear formatting (where the key ideas are very easy to spot, and they add up to the case for the grant), concise presentation, specificity about the nature of the work and the good outcomes that are possible with funding, and some clear indication of why this leader/organization is the right one to execute on this grant all send the signal that you know what you’re doing and will be a good bet.
Your document/pitch may pass through many hands on its way to its destination. People will need to be able to glance at it quickly and decide if they are going to do something with it. So, please try to keep it short - I would say no longer than 3 pages. You do not need to explain every facet of your work or the most sophisticated version of your theory of change. Stick with the core thrust of the work, and format your document in a way that someone scrolling quickly will get the idea and be excited, with major headings being in larger font. Please also try to write at a 7th grade reading level, using short words that are not jargon. Your readers may have graduate degrees, but they are reading quickly and their attention is divided. Make it easy for them to comprehend. Here’s a place to check the reading level of your writing.
Your document should include:
Your organization’s logo at the top. If you don’t have a logo, still print the organization name in large font.
A very brief summary (3 sentences max) at the top about what you’re seeking money to do. What’s the opportunity? Why now? Why are you the right organization/leader to do it?
Some background on your organization. You might include: (1) the problem your organization is responding to; (2) your approach or philosophy to addressing it; (3) what is distinctive about you, compared to other similar organizations; (4) how you relate to / work with other similar organizations (aka how do you fit into your part of the ecosystem); (5) any impressive results you’ve achieved so far - aka, what track record should excite donors to fund this work?
A more meaty description of what you’re doing, including what makes this organization so interesting/important/exciting to fund right now. For example: you’ve piloted an approach and you’re ready to grow it, and if you do, X important/big thing becomes possible; you’re poised to win a big victory; you are the best positioned to stop some terrible setback on an issue; you are ready to train a wave of leaders that will transform your community/state/field etc.
Some indication of the scale of money you are seeking, and very broadly what it will be spent on (hiring two lead organizers, for example). You may want to include a high level budget, or a target amount, or a range. And/or you may want to indicate that with X amount you could achieve Y result, and with some higher amount, more impact. Not everyone wants to do this, especially when seeking general funding. Do what feels right to you, but my personal experience is that I find it very hard to engage with a pitch when I have no idea what range of funding will be required to do the things described.
Your contact information. It’s surprising how many people leave this out!
How should I describe my organization’s path to scale? Is that necessary?
Many funders care about structure and scale. They want to know how a particular grant is going to have some kind of outsized impact. The scale you describe should be relative and appropriate to the problem you are trying to solve, the ecosystem of others working together to address it, and your organization’s unique intervention.
One way to persuade on this point is to outline a path of organizational growth where your effort is going to end up touching thousands or millions of people. If that kind of direct path to scale is part of your vision, you should be as clear about that as possible, as it could be very appealing to donors.
On the other hand, if that’s not the kind of work you’re doing, there are still options. Your work exists in an ecosystem. Does adding your piece make the entire ecosystem work better, for example by training leaders that will have a positive effect on many other organizations? Are you innovating an idea that could spread, or hoping to win an ambitious campaign that could inspire others to try the same? Are you trying a new approach that will generate valuable lessons for the field? Are you fostering a network of relationships that will benefit many groups? The concept of scale doesn’t have to be exclusive to organizations that are going to go big and broad – there’s a lot of room to be creative here. So, don’t avoid the question of scale – rather, try to creatively interpret it to fit your work.
What do I need to know about how donors react to a specific dollar request?
I would not advise including a very specific spending plan in a document that you plan to send to a lot of people, as things may change on your end, or you may want to emphasize different details to different people. So this section won’t give advice on that question. Rather, I want to touch on the question of how a total dollar amount can land with a new prospective donor. First, I’ll say that I think it is helpful to include a number in your document, as without that, donors may not know if they want to approach you at all to learn more.
There are two considerations at play for donors looking at a request for funding, which can sometimes be in tension with each other. On the one hand, donors want their money to mean something – so they don’t tend to be excited about adding a small amount to a large budget. On the other hand, they don’t want their money to be wildly out of proportion to what the organization has been able to raise in the past, unless you’re very specifically talking about a ‘first believer’ type of boost, which requires a special argument to make the case.
So, if your budget is $400k and you’re seeking an additional $500k, you’re going to need to make a really solid case for why you can (1) create a transformative impact by growing quickly; (2) handle that big influx of cash; (3) have the track record to show that you are going to spend the money impactfully; and (4) won’t collapse immediately if the donor isn’t able to reup the grant next year or the year after.
Conversely, if your budget is $1million and you’re asking for $25k, or you know the donor’s capacity is only going to be around that level, you will have to figure out how to make that feel meaningful for them as a gift. A donor giving a major gift doesn’t want a big investment (for them, in proportion to their giving level), to get “lost” in an organization’s budget.
Most grant seekers aren’t either of these extremes, but the principles still apply – if you’re seeking $200k to add to your $600k existing budget, you will need to show why this will make an important, meaningful difference to the world, but not such a huge difference to your organization itself that the donor worries it could destabilize the operation or create excessive dependency.
You may also be in the situation where you have been doing impactful work for years on effectively zero funding. Perhaps you have an all-volunteer team, and have won several campaigns, or created many useful resources in your community. You may have been operating on a very small budget (such as $20k a year), but doing the work of an organization with a much larger budget. In that case, I would recommend making your strong track record clear, and showing that properly resourcing the organization – bringing some of your existing and highly effective volunteer staff on board full time, for example – will allow you to significantly multiply your impact. Just because you haven’t received real funding before doesn’t mean you haven’t been doing real work. What you have done is demonstrate the immense potential for impact, and now you are offering donors the chance to grow that impact.
Some budgets may include more than one giving option – here is what you can accomplish for $X, and here’s how much more impactful and satisfying impact you can achieve with $Y. I would not recommend breaking down your work into distinct projects with dollar amounts attached, as the donor may pick something without understanding how it’s related to other pieces of work. Your goal should be to get general support if you can.
What else are donors thinking/worrying about that would be helpful to know?
There are other concepts that people in philanthropy tend to think about a lot – such as sustainability (not wanting the organization to become overly dependent on a particular funder), capacity (whether an organization can execute on an ambitious vision or put large amounts of money to work), and metrics (how the donor can know if a grant is working). All of these are very lively areas of discussion, and are contested. For example, assumptions about the types of organizations that have the “capacity” to do certain types of work can be heavily biased. For your pitch document, you probably don’t have to get into those, but it may be helpful that those concepts may affect how people receive your work.
I have been doing all the things you suggested but I’m still not getting traction. Why aren’t people appreciating the importance of the work I’m doing?
There are a lot of possible answers to this question. “No” for better or worse is a reflection of funders making informed or uninformed decisions to decline, which is helpful information. Not every project will be able to find all of the funding they need, and at the same time some projects may attract more funding than they need as a result of power dynamics within the field. I would encourage you to not take a “no” personally or a reflection of the value of your work.
One challenge I want to address for you is that raising funds sometimes requires investment in donor education that may take some time. As someone looking across many proposals and trying to explain to many donors why they should do things, my experience is that the thing that makes you amazing may be a thing that people don’t even know to ask about, so they aren’t looking for it and aren’t going to sufficiently value it when you talk about it. For example, imagine someone buying a car who doesn’t know to think or ask about how many miles per gallon it gets. The fact that a car gets 35 mpg won’t mean anything especially positive to them, nor would 10 mpg be a flag. They would first need to understand that this is an important factor to look at. When it comes to your area of work and your organization, it’s possible that the reader doesn’t have enough background context to understand that what you are doing is impressive and important. So you will have to teach them. Pick a few categories of things you want to teach about; don’t overwhelm them. You are an expert in your milieu. Your audience knows little about it. Can you share the context with them?
For example, if you’re doing a journalism project, it may not be not enough to say that your pieces are being read by X number of people, or have been copublished with impressive other outlets. Those facts don’t mean very much if the reader doesn’t know how common those outcomes are. If you are one of 2 outlets with a budget under X that achieves average readership over X per story, or if you are able to get an in-depth investigative journalism piece to an audience for less than $X (one third the usual cost of such an article), then the funder has some context for understanding that this is impressive.
What happens after I send the document?
After you send your document to your contacts, I would advise against checking up on it before 3 weeks have passed. If you’re sharing it with a busy person, it’s going to take a while for them to get back to you. If you ping them too early, they will put it on the bottom of the pile again. In fact, I think it’s better to leave it a little bit long, vs. coming back too early, as the recipient might then feel a little guilty for leaving you waiting. How much time is that? Probably around 5 weeks. The exception is if you want to write to confirm receipt, but please resist the temptation to ask whether they want to discuss or have additional thoughts. Do not expect someone to process information you send them right away.
A note on the challenges and emotions of seeking funding
It is a bizarre and often painful experience to take work that you know to be lifesaving, profoundly important work and translate it into concise words for someone with money who may never respond. The audiences you are addressing often have no direct experience with the problems that you are seeking to solve. Even if they are directly impacted, they may be working in an organization that does not share the same understanding. Meanwhile, you are in the trenches, day to day, seeing the immense devastation that you could solve if you had the resources. This is a deeply inequitable and frustrating scenario, and it can often bring up very hard emotions. I’ll share some words of advice for this, but recognize that nothing about what I’m saying in this document can compensate for these structural inequalities. Here goes:
What you are offering to the person with money is an opportunity to recreate meaning, beauty, safety and healing for the world. You are giving them something very powerful, by offering them the chance to invest in good work. So, try to think about it as inviting them into something exciting and good for the world, rather than seeking charity.
Even very successful fundraisers must deal with a lot of rejection, or funders simply ignoring or not having time for the request. I have raised many millions of dollars, yet continue to face these challenges myself. This does not reflect on you personally or your work.
Everyone along the chain of communication about a grant is trying to make a good decision. Often people in this chain are uncertain about their decisions — how do they know what’s good? Whose words should they trust? You know the work is very good, but how can they know? This is why it’s helpful to create a document that your allies can lift up and share with their endorsement that it should be taken seriously.
The more you can tap into the emotions of optimism and hope for the world as you lead this work and seek resources, the more you can inspire your audience to do the same. There is much suffering in the world, and you are offering a path to make things better.
It’s ok to feel frustrated, angry, and nervous as you make your funding pitch. It can be helpful to find a community of support with others so you can share your experiences and not be isolated. You are not alone!
Thank you for being courageous enough to lead this work and to seek support for it. You are giving the world a great gift. My hope is that this document will help bring you more success in your journey.