Need grant money to hire for nonprofit center
April 13, 2011 7:12 AM Subscribe
I volunteer with a nonprofit that operates a community center. We need to hire a Facility Manager but we can't afford it. I have been researching grant money but I only find grants for community programs not for hiring personnel to work in community centers. Are there any sources for grants where the money can be used to hire personnel to work for nonprofit groups?
There are also capacity building grants that will pay for staff, but those usually require a plan for making the positions self-sustaining, and also tend to step down the support over time (eg first year at 100%, second year at 75%, third year at 50%, fourth year at zero).
posted by Forktine at 7:25 AM on April 13, 2011
posted by Forktine at 7:25 AM on April 13, 2011
The keywords you're looking for when researching granting foundations and corporations include: capacity building, sustainability, general operating. You're going to have a challenging time putting a facility manager into a programmatic budget, so I understand why you're running up against these hurdles.
If you've got an eye for numbers, I recommend looking up competing organizations online, looking at their annual reports, and then looking up their foundation funders' 990s on guidestar.org.
If you can provide your location, I can help point you in the right direction.
posted by juniperesque at 7:43 AM on April 13, 2011
If you've got an eye for numbers, I recommend looking up competing organizations online, looking at their annual reports, and then looking up their foundation funders' 990s on guidestar.org.
If you can provide your location, I can help point you in the right direction.
posted by juniperesque at 7:43 AM on April 13, 2011
Instead of specifically noting that the funding will go to salary payments, you can call it "unrestricted general operating support," and as mentioned above, include the salary as a line in the projected annual budget. If the facilities manager will also be working on community outreach or other capacity-building operations, mentioning that may be helpful.
posted by elizardbits at 7:52 AM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by elizardbits at 7:52 AM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]
Ditto what EmpressCallipygos and Forktine said.
If I understand your post right, you're hitting the catch that programs that use the center sound like community programs that can get grant money, but the operation of the center itself does not. Are you sure that the grant-making orgs see it that way? Operating the community center seems like a community service to me, and a facilities manager would be a legitimate program expense. You can pitch this by explaining that you'd alternately need to charge a fee to the programs that use the, which would come out of their received grants.
I'd look for one or two larger (umbrella) grant making organizations in your area and see if you can set up a brief meeting to talk to them. Some are quite forthcoming about what they're looking for, or how they might match you with foundations they work with.
(Larger cities will have umbrella foundations which manage gifts from many (wealthy) donors towards different areas of interest--that'd be the ideal kind of organization to talk to, I think.)
posted by mvd at 11:09 AM on April 13, 2011
If I understand your post right, you're hitting the catch that programs that use the center sound like community programs that can get grant money, but the operation of the center itself does not. Are you sure that the grant-making orgs see it that way? Operating the community center seems like a community service to me, and a facilities manager would be a legitimate program expense. You can pitch this by explaining that you'd alternately need to charge a fee to the programs that use the, which would come out of their received grants.
I'd look for one or two larger (umbrella) grant making organizations in your area and see if you can set up a brief meeting to talk to them. Some are quite forthcoming about what they're looking for, or how they might match you with foundations they work with.
(Larger cities will have umbrella foundations which manage gifts from many (wealthy) donors towards different areas of interest--that'd be the ideal kind of organization to talk to, I think.)
posted by mvd at 11:09 AM on April 13, 2011
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posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:18 AM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]