Exercises — Chapter 28: Grant Writing for Nonprofits

Work these with a real or planned nonprofit in mind (yours, or one you know). The aim is to see grant-writing as one strong leg of a diversified funding strategy — and to build a funded organization, not just a funded project.

How to use these: Part A checks recall; Part B applies the chapter to concrete nonprofit funding decisions; Part C asks you to create at a real nonprofit leader's level (a diversified funding plan, a capacity assessment); Part M interleaves earlier chapters. Answers to selected exercises (★) are in the back matter.

Part A — Recall and Understand

A1. ★ State the chapter's threshold concept in your own words. Why is grant dependence a form of fragility?

A2. Which funding source is the largest across the nonprofit sector, and why does that matter strategically?

A3. Name the legs of the diversified funding stool.

A4. ★ Distinguish general operating support from program support, and explain the overhead-myth/starvation cycle.

A5. Define: development, diversified revenue, board give/get, fiscal sponsor, earned revenue, capacity.

A6. What is the small-shop reality, and why is "investing in development capacity" so important within it?

A7. How can a small nonprofit compete against larger, better-resourced organizations?

Part B — Apply

B1. ★ Diversify the stool. A nonprofit gets 90% of its revenue from grants. Identify the risk and name three concrete steps to build the other legs.

B2. Operating or program? For each need, say whether it's best funded by general operating support, a program grant, or unrestricted individual donations, and why: - (a) The executive director's salary and the office rent. - (b) A defined new after-school program at three sites. - (c) Flexible reserves to weather a slow funding year.

B3. ★ The capacity question. A small nonprofit is offered a large, compliance-heavy federal grant that exceeds its administrative capacity. Advise it: take it, build capacity first, use a subrecipient role, or decline — and why.

B4. Fight the overhead myth. A board insists on minimizing overhead and resists a development hire. Make the case (using the chapter's history and logic) for investing in development capacity.

B5. Compete small. A small community organization competes for a grant against a large institution. Name the small organization's real advantages and how it should position itself.

Part C — Analyze and Create

C1. ★ Draft a diversified funding plan. Using the Section 28.4 checkpoint, draft one for your nonprofit: current funding mix and over-reliance, where grants fit, steps to strengthen weak legs, development-capacity assessment, and board engagement. This goes in your "My Proposal" document.

C2. Grants for what they're good for. Using Section 28.6's "Going Deeper," list what you'd use grants for in your organization (program scale, credibility, capacity, seeding) and what you'd fund from other sources (flexible core, stability) — and why.

C3. ★ Capacity assessment. Honestly assess your organization's capacity to manage grants of different sizes (a \$25K foundation grant, a \$250K government grant). What can you manage now, and how would you build toward larger grants?

C4. Asset inventory. Inventory your grant-writing assets — tracked outcomes, participant stories (with permission), organizational materials, relationships — and design a system to maintain them continuously rather than scrambling at deadlines.

C5. Individual-donor plan. Sketch a plan to build the individual-donor leg of your stool: who you'd cultivate, how, and why unrestricted donor dollars matter for the core and for mission integrity.

Part M — Mixed and Interleaved Review

M1. ★ (Ch 27 + 28) How does the academic's "fund a program, not a project" translate to the nonprofit "build a funded organization, not just a funded project"?

M2. (Ch 18 + 28) How does foundation relationship-and-stewardship logic fit within the diversified-funding picture as one leg of the stool?

M3. ★ (Ch 14 + 28) How does the sustainability principle — earned revenue, diversified funding — connect to the diversified-stool threshold?

M4. (Ch 13 + 28) How does the capacity question (can your organization manage the grant?) shape which grants a small nonprofit should pursue?

M5. (Ch 12 + 28) How does the overhead-myth/starvation cycle connect Chapter 12's indirect-cost justification to this chapter's development-capacity argument?

M6. (Ch 21 + 25 + 28) How do the localization (Ch 21) and authentic-equity (Ch 25) lessons explain why a small, community-rooted nonprofit can beat a large institution for the right funder?

🪞 Metacognitive check-in. Did this chapter shift how you see grants — from the whole funding picture to one leg of a diversified stool? If you (or an organization you know) have been grant-dependent, notice the fragility that creates, and the freedom that diversification brings. The healthiest nonprofits operate from the security of multiple funding legs, not the panic of depending on each grant. Where is your organization on the diversification spectrum, and which leg most needs building?