When Grants Aren’t Worth Chasing

HayDay Services is bringing you a series of “how-to” articles related to successful grant prospect research.

Part 4: Go/No Go Decision Guide

When Grants Aren’t Worth Chasing

Nonprofits and local governments are stretched thin, budgets are tight, and leadership is always looking for new revenue. So, when a grant opportunity shows up in the inbox, the instinct is often to go for it, because what’s the harm in trying?

Quite a bit, actually.

The organizations that struggle most with grant funding are often not the ones that apply too little; they’re the ones that apply for everything. No filter, no strategy, just a constant scramble to submit before the deadline. The result is a lot of mediocre proposals, a lot of rejection, and a team that’s too worn out to do the deep work that competitive grants actually require. Chasing every opportunity is not a funding strategy. It just looks like one.

The better approach is having a clear, consistent process for deciding which opportunities are actually worth your time before you commit to them. That’s where a Go/No Go review comes in.

Before your team invests serious energy in any grant opportunity, you run it through a quick checklist to decide whether it’s actually worth pursuing. Not every grant is a good fit, even when the dollar amount looks exciting or the deadline seems manageable.

Strong Go/No Go reviews ask things like:

– Is this grant a genuine mission match, or are we stretching to make it fit?
– Is the award amount proportionate to what the program actually costs?
– Do we have the staff capacity for the reporting and evaluation requirements?
– Are the required partnerships already in place?
– Can we put together a competitive proposal in the time available?

When the answer to several of those questions is no, the right move is to pass and protect your team’s capacity for opportunities where you have a real shot.

We’ve put together a one-page Go/No Go Grant Decision Guide that walks through each of these decision points in a structured format you can use with your team. Download your free copy HERE and start applying it to the next opportunity that lands in your inbox.

Saying no to the wrong grants is how you say yes to the right ones.