Ask a Funder – What High Impact Funders Look for in Your Funding Requests

To be successful in non-profit fundraising you have to have a plan and a point of view that aligns your infrastructure and your vision. Having integrity, a stellar reputation, and the ability to execute what you promise is vital to your organization’s sustainability and long-term growth. Without these key components developing and executing a successful fundraising strategy is nearly impossible.

Dr. Cathryn Dhanatya is Co-founder and President/CEO of Growing Good Inc., a professional services firm that partners with non-profit organizations and companies who aim to do good in the world. Cathryn has previously held key C-suite executive positions and board director and advisory positions for organizations in the areas of research, higher education, and across the non-profit sector tackling complex social issues from healthcare, education, diversity and gender equity, microfinance, green technology, and food insecurity. She has lived and worked on five continents; earned her Ph.D. in Social Science and Comparative Education from UCLA; and has led and conducted research on media and technology as it relates to health issues around the globe. She has been a keynote speaker at several international and domestic conferences, events, and trainings, and has been featured in numerous media outlets and publications addressing the issues of non-profit leadership, funding, the future of philanthropy, health equity, diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice, women executives in the workplace, redefining success, and work-life balance as a professional and mother.

More information at https://www.growinggoodinc.com/ Cathryn L Dhanatya, PhD

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The Interview Transcript

Hugh Ballou
Welcome to the Nonprofit Exchange. Every week, we’re here with a guest. Oh, and this one’s going to be a great topic that I know you’re interested in. This is Hugh Ballou, along with David Dunworth from Center Vision Leadership Foundation, where our work is transforming leaders, transforming organizations, and transforming lives. And we do that by helping you build a capacity to do what’s in your mind. You want to go somewhere. Well, you’re not supposed to know all the rubrics of building this business model out. So we help you by giving you knowledge. So you can find us at thenonprofitexchange.org, all these episodes. And if you want to join our community, we’ll talk about that later, because we support each other. Our guest today is a special guest, and she’s got a great topic. And I’ll tell you the topic. Catherine Dhanatya is here from LA, California. Her topic today is to ask a funder what high-impact funders look for in your funding requests. So Catherine, welcome to the nonprofit exchange and tell people a little bit about who you are and why you do this important work.

Catherine Dhanatya
I would love to. Thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited to be here. I tell people, first off, that I’m a recovering academic. I came from academia and I started as a researcher. So I applied for lots of funding, lots of grants. I was actually pretty good at it. I ran a lot of research projects all over the world. I think I’ve worked on five different continents doing research. And so it was an interesting transition for me. I kind of burned out. I was teaching at a tier one research institution. I was an assistant dean at the University of Southern California for a number of years. And I decided to leave academia because I wanted to work more on the funding side. And I ended up becoming the Chief Scientific Administrative Officer and Chief Administrative Officer for Stand Up to Cancer. And Stand Up to Cancer is a funder. We give out hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding every year. Since then, I’ve worked on the board of numerous nonprofits and nonprofit funders and philanthropies to give out hundreds of millions of dollars in different types of funding, mostly around the cancer space. So I’m very familiar with the funding landscape as well as what funders look for, what I look for when I’m looking at projects that potentially would be of interest to invest in. But I’ve done it on both sides. I was a researcher, and I asked for money. I still ask for money because I do a lot of work with nonprofits. but I also understand, and I still give out money. So I kind of do both.

Hugh Ballou
Well, so your chosen area of work now, you’ve escaped academia, you said. You focus on working with the sector we call non-profit, which isn’t really a good name, but that’s how we identify the sector. So why do you choose to work here at this point in your life?

Catherine Dhanatya
So I’ve worked in the nonprofit social impact good space for my entire career. Currently, I do have a professional services firm that works with nonprofits, but we also work with for-profits, mostly startups, that promote the social good and benefit the social good. So their products or their services have to be a direct benefit to society in a meaningful way for us to work with them. I really believe that we should be doing, leaving the world in a little bit better than when we found it. And so if I’m going to spend my days working, then I want to work in a space that allows me to help grow good and benefits to society in the world. You know, that’s the name of my company is growing good because I really believe that even if we’re only able to not see the full results. We need to plant seeds wherever we go. And I want to plant seeds that are actually meaningful and that are going to do something that’s going to make the world better. I don’t really want to make widgets.

Hugh Ballou
I get it, David. I think there’s a lot of synergy, isn’t there?

David Dunworth
Oh, there’s synergy is for sure. And then she’s got vision too. Catherine, I have a question for you. You know, you work with a lot of different organizations and you’d see them at different levels. You mentioned you work with startups and you’ve worked with tier one organizations and those types of things. But, you know, the average, well, let’s talk about the average nonprofit or servant leader type of organization. What are some of the key things that you wish that all nonprofits knew? What are those things that sometimes they’re just not shining a light on? What are those?

Catherine Dhanatya
Well, I think for me, the first is that it is a business, right? And no matter how much good you want to do in the world, if your friend came to you and said, I want to start a business, I have no business plan. I have no idea how I’m going to make money. but I think it’ll be a really good product. You’d look at your friend and you’d be like, well, maybe you may want to rethink this, right? And I feel this, but I feel like people who want to start a nonprofit, they don’t understand that it’s the same thing. You have to know where your donors are coming from. You’re not going to be sustainable if you don’t have an infrastructure. and that nonprofits are heavily regulated. So even more so than starting a business, starting a nonprofit can be really challenging in terms of understanding the legal ramifications, understanding all of your requirements for registrations, whether they be for fundraising in various states, or maintaining an audit once you get to a certain level, right? Those are all things that I want new people who are starting to understand that it is something that requires a learning curve and requires some business acumen. Because at the end of the day, you’re making relationships with donors. It’s the same as when you’re kind of making a relationship with a consumer, right? You’re trying to sell something to somebody who, for them, they’re not even necessarily getting a product. They have to believe in what you’re doing. And so you have to be really clear on the business aspects of it as well.

David Dunworth
Oh yeah, I think so. Hey, Hugh. I was just going to say. It sounds like he’s talking about they don’t know what they don’t know. So that’s key, sure.

Hugh Ballou
It looks like we have some overlap, of course. There’s a lot of overlap between all of us, and a lot more people need it if they knew about us. So thank you for sharing this with us. So the infrastructure part of my gift is helping people build their strategic plan, out of which we export a business plan and a one-page review for those summary documents we need. But it’s interesting how many aha moments there are because that really defines your infrastructure and your operations. And it’s really an engagement tool. And you’re so spot on. This is a business. And it’s so much more difficult than running a for-profit business. We call it sometimes a for-purpose business. But we ought to all be purposeful in our businesses. But this is more so. It’s not about the money. It’s about the purpose. So you help people with infrastructure and operations. Why is that so key to fundraising?

Catherine Dhanatya
You know, I’ve been a very successful fundraiser, I’ve been able to raise a lot of money for different causes. And what, from the funder perspective, when I look at things, it’s well, is it feasible? Right? People promise a lot of things. But if your budget’s not together, if you don’t have the staff to actually be able to execute, I don’t necessarily feel confident in investing in you, right? And as the funding landscape is changing and you have more and more business people and tech people on boards who are making these decisions, it’s not enough that you want to do something for the good of the world. They want to see, well, what’s your plan? What is their return on their investment rather, or return on impact, I’d say, instead of investment, right? And so having all of those pieces in terms of the, organization structure is really important. And at the end of the day, funders also fund people, right? Do I trust you that you’re able to execute on what you say? It’s a relationship. And if you don’t have your ducks in a row, then It makes me question whether you’re really going to be able to execute what you’re saying and promising you’re going to be able to do. And that all comes to infrastructure. Do you have the right people? Do you have the right systems in place? Are you able to use the funds that we donate wisely? What is your balance in terms of overhead versus programming? All of those things matter, and as funding becomes harder to get, it’s those things that’ll differentiate people, right? If you can come in and show me, wow, I have full confidence that you have the right people, you have the right infrastructure, you have the right systems in place to execute and not be on a huge lag, and you understand what it’s going to take to do all of this work that you’re promising, and that you can do it for the right price like that’s very attractive.

Hugh Ballou
And you’ve got the infrastructure to report on how you use the money. Well, yes.

Catherine Dhanatya
Absolutely, right? And you’re able to actually utilize the money in a meaningful way. I always talk to people, everybody wants the million-dollar donation plus, right? But it’s like, you don’t want to be the dog that catches the bus and is like, what do I do now? Because I don’t have the mechanisms to actually manage that money or do you have a place to put the money? Do you have an investment strategy if you end up having a lot of reserves that you’re not using right away from a grant? There should be different ways of sophistication in terms of how you’ve created your infrastructure. And I think the other piece of it in terms of infrastructure is understanding that there are different ways to build a successful organization, especially in the nonprofit sector. And you have to understand who you are. Are you going to be the organization that takes, you know, $5 donations from thousands of people? or are you only going to focus on large-scale grants, right? Because the infrastructure are very different than what is needed. So understanding your perspective in terms of who are your donors, how do you want to raise funding, and over time, how do you want to grow? And all of those things will matter as you build your organization forward.

Hugh Ballou
Oh, tons of good stuff. I want to let people know there will be a transcript because these good ideas are flying by. And you went, wait, I didn’t get that. Don’t worry. You’ll get the recording, both video and it’ll be on our podcast. And you’ll have a transcript, so you can find that place where you heard something. Say, oh, that’s what it is. So there’ll be a transcript to capture these great sound bites. Before David has his next question, a couple of things came out of what you’re saying I’d like you to highlight, please. It was the changing landscape for funding. And then you spoke about differentiation. You know, we think about saying all kinds of stuff, but we want to do me too, me too. I see somebody else got funded to do that. We want to copy that. Well, what are you doing or how are you doing it differently? So I think there’s a lot of requests that funders get. So standing out from the crowd is important. And then how is that landscape changing? And then I’ll let David ask his question. But those, I think, were important things I’d like to hear from you on.

Catherine Dhanatya
So as with everything, funding is changing. As corporations, as individuals, when the economy is uncertain, even though there’s a lot of uncertainty around a lot of things, People are giving less. That’s just a trend in nonprofits right now. Donations are down. They’re giving less across the board. And so as that is happening, there’s more scrutiny too, right? Who are you giving to? Why are you giving to them? But I also see a change in terms of the way that boards and the way that people want information presented. The first rule give people what they ask for, not what they don’t, what you think they want, right? I’ve gotten applications where I’ll say, I’d like a two-page application and somebody sends me 40 pages. And it’s like, well, that’s not what I asked for. If you can’t follow directions, that’s not a good sign, right? Or I’ve asked for a budget in this template and you give me your own template. And it’s like, no, I asked for a specific reason why I want it this way. So questioning, thinking you know better than the funder is never a good way to start off, right? And so I think that’s changing. We’re moving also more into this pitch mode where people are less, they wanna know quickly. They wanna know within five minutes whether they’re interested or not. And so having really tight pitches and most nonprofits that are traditional nonprofits may not have been as used to this idea of like a pitching thing, right? I think like everything’s becoming sharp tankified, you know like we all wanna pitch, but for a lot of funders now, that’s the initial conversation is a pitch. I wanna pitch because that’s what their board understands, right? And so that’s a different frame of mind that you have to think about in terms of versus a traditional grant proposal and application and yes there are still tons of those I mean if you’re working with the government it’s not changing anytime soon, but if you’re working with more of these. philanthropic boards or social impact funds, which are new. There are also newer mechanisms of these venture philanthropy mechanisms, which are different. And those are very much more pitch-oriented. So having a very clear pitch. I’ve also worked with organizations where they talk to me and they never give me an ask at the end. And I’m like, well, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with all this information. And so I always tell people, I can’t lose brain cells. I don’t have enough time. So you need to make it clear to me what you want and what you need and why you’re the people to do it. And so if I get 1,000 requests, I can’t sit here and try to figure out what you’re trying to do for like 50 minutes. You need to be able to tell me what you need. So there’s that. And then I think, what was your other question? The changing landscape.

Hugh Ballou
The differentiation and the landscape. I think you’ve covered a lot of that. Yeah.

Catherine Dhanatya
Yeah. But the differentiation is for me, quality is about standing behind who you are authentically. It’s going to come through. If you’re trying to just do something because your neighbor did it, it’s not necessarily going to be you. That’s why I always say organizations should have their people pitch, it’s very hard. I mean, you can hire fundraising consultants to help you support the materials, but nobody’s going to pitch it like your organization because it’s you, right? And at the end of the day, the funder is going to have a relationship with you, you know, CEO, president, executive director, chief development officer, whomever. And so they need to have that relationship from the start. It’s a very jarring thing to like, develop a relationship with somebody and be like, oh, OK, they’re just a consultant. They’re going away. And now you’re going to be working with these people. It’s like, who are these people? So I think things that differentiate for me are organizations that are very clear on their mission, that are very clear on their value proposition, why they’re particularly strong to do this work versus somebody else, and then having interesting ideas that have a lot of impact. So, that’s measurable, right? That’s the other thing. There’s much more emphasis on metrics, on KPIs, on being able to quantify your success in a way that’s understandable and that’s measurable. And that is a shift for a lot of nonprofits too, that they may not be used to.

Hugh Ballou
Yeah. David, that’s that business model. We, we teach people, you know, you got to know this stuff. Wow. That’s so helpful. Thank you.

David Dunworth
Yeah. You know, Getting those organizations ready to receive is what I like to call it, where people say, yeah, we want this money because we really have people that need this stuff done. But they don’t have the mechanisms or the structure or the infrastructure and organization behind them. So they’re not really ready to receive. They just think they are. Good point. I love what you’re sharing with us. Tell us about some of the typical mistakes that you see that really inhibit an organization’s sustainability or growth potential or how they trip themselves up. Have you come across some pretty standard stuff?

Catherine Dhanatya
I think one of the big standards is not understanding that you are also a brand. And so there’s a lot of diffuseness where you’ll have an organization who wants to get work in the community, right? And having worked for very large brands, there is something to be said about recognition. So if on this flyer, you look like this, and then on a different flyer, you have different coloring, everything’s different, this t-shirt is different from that t-shirt, it makes it really hard for community members and people to see your impact because they can’t recognize that it’s the same group. So I think that’s one of the things that I try to talk about with a lot of the nonprofits I work with, especially the smaller ones. It does matter, right? Pick a color, pick an identity, and make sure that wherever you go, it’s reinforced because then people are like, oh, it’s that food bank that’s working within my community. They’re all over the place. I should be helping them, right? Versus it’s very diffuse when you’re just kind of like all over. And then to reputation matters. And for a nonprofit, especially, it is your lifeblood. So who do you align with, who do you choose to be your spokesperson, how do you address crises? That all matters, because if you don’t have your reputation, you’re going to go under. Because you’re trading on goodwill. You’re trading on the ability for people to trust that you’re a good actor. And if you damage that, it’s very likely that you will no longer exist. So I mean, I think those are the two things that I would say that people need to take to heart.

David Dunworth
Great. Great. Good points. Good points. You can take that other food bank and all those other things too. Great.

Hugh Ballou
Absolutely. Um, one last one that I want to ask you to, we’re going to share your website so people can know where to find you, but, um, we’re preparing this request for funders. And I guess that could include sponsors too. It’s a very different pitch and it’s marketing money. It’s not donations but at a different, different purpose. But what are those funders just generally, what are they looking for?

Catherine Dhanatya
Well, I think ultimately one, if you’re going to like a traditional funder, right? Corporations are a little bit different. We can, I can answer in both ways. So if you’re looking at a philanthropy, they’re looking for something that’s aligning to who they give and what they’re interested in. Right. Most funders have a point of view of what they want to fund and what they don’t fund. And so sometimes you can have the best idea, but if it doesn’t align with what their strategy is, you’re not going to get funded, no matter how good you are. I think that’s fundamental for people to understand. And the fact that you get a lot of requests, so you can’t fund everything that’s amazing, even if you want to. So I think that’s the other thing, too, is don’t take everything personally. A no is not forever. And the other thing too is, if you impress funders, I’ve gone back to organizations and said, oh, I found a pot of money. I really liked your work. Let’s talk about submitting a proposal. So don’t necessarily think that it’s a closed door forever either, right? I mean, some people will be very specific, like this is not what we fund, this is not what we do. Then yes, you’re unlikely to be able to move that needle. But sometimes even if you’re just short of getting funding, doesn’t mean that in the future you might not be asked to submit a proposal. So always keep a good relationship with people and rapport. And people, and funders move around a lot. That’s the other thing that people don’t realize. Like we all kind of know each other. And we move around a lot. And so organizations that impress you may get funding from somewhere else. Like we’ve done that. I’ve done that. Like I will say, oh, you know, I don’t really fund this, but I think your project’s really good. Let me introduce you to this other funder. And vice versa, that’s happened too. So we all know each other and we all talk. And so it matters in terms of how you, the space is small. So what kind of impressions you give matters. That’s really important for people to know. On the corporate side, corporations give so that they can get a halo effect and so they can make money. And so they need to be aligned with an audience that they’re trying to reach, or if they feel like you’re doing good in the world is going to provide them a benefit for their corporate brand. So it’s a lot more transactional in that regard, whereas more of the philanthropies or the foundations tend to have a longer-term relationship.

Hugh Ballou
And corporations have two pockets. One is philanthropy, where there’s a giving, and they have a certain percentage. They also have marketing, which they’ve already budgeted. And it’s a little different, but you’re right. They’re giving it for there’s a self-interest in that. But it’s our job to tell them giving to nonprofits, and supporting nonprofits is good for business, isn’t it?

Catherine Dhanatya
Absolutely, especially I there was a there was a McKinsey study that said, you know, Generation Z and Generation Alpha were more likely to pay more well more willing to pay more for a product that they thought was ethically made.

David Dunworth
Yeah.

Catherine Dhanatya
And so you have future generations really looking at how things are made, the ethics behind it, the economics behind it, the environmental contributions behind it. And so the next generation cares about that. And so corporations, it is good business if you’re doing good in the world because it matters to your future consumers.

Hugh Ballou
They don’t want to damage their brand. They want to make sure they’re hanging out with some other good brand. Now, Catherine, we’re going to show people your website. If you’re listening on the podcast, um, you can find her website. It’s called growing good. Inc growing good. I n c.com, no hyphens or anything. What will people find when they go there? Catherine.

Catherine Dhanatya
Well, you’ll meet some of my other strategists, and colleagues that I work with. We’re all very seasoned professionals. It’s almost been like our second career. Jane, for one, she was the SVP at Stand Up To Cancer. She was the head of communications for Autism Speaks, and she would help with things like communications and communication strategy. Michael’s Associate Dean at the University of Southern, University of California, Los Angeles. A lot of organizational management. Marla is a former head of acquisitions for Goldman Sachs. And so she helps with pitches, which is kind of amazing, right? And Priscilla has a background in intelligence. And so she helps a lot with how people may be thinking about you know, how to make persuasive arguments and persuasive pitches because of her work, um, with the, in the intelligence field. So we have a kind of a good. Fun group. Sounds great.

Hugh Ballou
So, um, you said that you do offer a free consultation for people when we were talking earlier and the emails are right in here on your, on your website. And so some real person responds to those emails, correct?

Catherine Dhanatya
Yes, you have my email. So on that website, if you respond, it’ll go to me. We’re small enough that we still handle our own email. There are no AI generated responses.

Hugh Ballou
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Catherine, you’ve given us a lot of information in a very short focused period of time, and it’s just a wealth of data people really need. Remember, you can find these, the listeners at the nonprofit exchange.org the nonprofit exchange.org. you’ll find this along with other episodes. We’ve heard things today we haven’t heard before. Isn’t that right, David? It’s just such a brilliant interview.

David Dunworth
Yeah, it’s been really good to hear from that perspective because so many of our guests, everybody brings something different to this weekly contribution, but you’re bringing stuff we haven’t heard, at least in a long time.

Hugh Ballou
Yeah. Yes, it is. And that’s documented. We got all the transcripts. So, Catherine, I’m going to ask you in a minute to give a final thought to people before that. Center Vision has a private community for our nonprofit leaders and faith leaders. And we even have some people who are business leaders that support nonprofits. They want to learn because it’s business stuff they can learn. So our private community is nonprofitcommunity.org. It’s simple. It’s a nonprofit community. So go to nonprofitcommunity.org. It will lead you to an information page and you’re invited to join us and you get lots of free stuff when you join. If you don’t like it, That’s fine, but you get to keep all the free stuff, all the really high-value stuff. Catherine, what do you want to leave people with today?

Catherine Dhanatya
Well, I think my short answer is I just want people to be able to build sustainable and scalable organizations. And with that, just two things. Have a plan, like a real plan, not just an idea of a plan, but a true business plan for your organization. And make sure you have a point of view. You can build in all different ways, but understand what is it that your organization wants to do. Who is it that you’re trying to donate to your organization? And what are the infrastructure pieces that you need? All of these things require having a clear point of view on what you want to do. Beautiful.

Hugh Ballou
Catherine, thank you so much for being our guest today on the nonprofit exchange.

Catherine Dhanatya
Thank you so much for having me. It was great.