Nonprofits

How to Decide if a Grant is Worth Pursuing

August 26, 2025

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I help nonprofit teams with smart strategy, clear thinking, and real-world support. 

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“I’ve found a great grant opportunity. We could get $1 million! There will be five awards across the nation. It’s due in three weeks. We can put something together in that time, right?”

If you’ve worked in a nonprofit as a director, program manager, grant writer, or front-line staff, this probably sounds familiar.

Grants help seed, build, and sustain programs providing important services in communities across the country. But with more than 127,000 foundations and 1.9 million nonprofits in the US, there’s a lot of opportunity and a lot of competition.

So how do you decide which ones to pursue? In my experience, it usually comes down to three things: alignment, capacity, and time.

Hey there! I’m Kristen, a nonprofit consultant and founder of Clockwork Scribe Consulting. I help nonprofit leaders and teams work smarter, tackle challenges faster, and free up time for the mission that matters.

Alright, let’s jump in!

Grant alignment: how to check against your strategic plan

The first question is simple: Will this grant help us further our mission? Your vision and mission are your north star, but the sharper test is whether the opportunity supports the goals in your strategic plan.

Ask yourself these questions: Does this align with our strategic plan and What goal(s) does it support?

Your strategic plan lays out what you want to accomplish (goals) and how you’ll get there (objectives). Think of it as your roadmap from Point A (now) to Point B (future).

It’s also an agreement among stakeholders about where you’ll direct your energy over a set time period. Seeing it as an agreement and not simply a document makes it harder to ignore or sidestep.

Assortment of vintage road maps piled haphazardly on a table.

And if the roadmap metaphor doesn’t do it for you, think of your strategic plan like bowling alley bumpers: It keeps your ball from veering into someone else’s lane and causing a spectacular crash.

Of course, sometimes it’s worth stepping outside the plan. Maybe a rare pilot grant could fund a program you’ve dreamed about for years. That’s fine; strategic plans aren’t shackles.

But those choices should be intentional, not knee-jerk reactions to someone’s “great idea.” Few things frustrate staff more than being handed extra work without being asked what’s already on their plates.

The bottom line? Evaluating alignment helps you stay focused, use resources wisely, and make better decisions when opportunities compete for your attention.

Grant capacity: costs and commitment you need to weigh

Grants are not free.

Yes, they’re money you don’t repay (unless specific circumstances, like instances of fraud, require it. Reminder: Fraud is illegal, don’t do it).

But applying takes time and money, and winning means committing to deliver on what you promised. Capacity is about both the short-term costs of applying and the long-term costs of managing an award.

Grant application prep (short-term capacity)

Submitting an application is an upfront investment with no guaranteed return.

If you don’t have a grant writer on staff, hiring a freelancer could cost a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. But even if the money is there, capacity isn’t just about budget.

Illustration of a woman clutching books to her chest while writing on a Kanban board.

Freelancers need guidance, meetings, information, and draft reviews. Staff time is an invisible but very real cost—and one that often gets overlooked. Ignore it, and you risk overestimating your true capacity.

Picture this: you budget for a freelancer but forget to check staff schedules. At the kickoff meeting, you discover three key staff are tied up with vacations and mandatory trainings.

Whoops.

Suddenly, what looked simple is now much more complicated.

Even if you have in-house grant writers, you need conversations about what’s already on people’s calendars. Otherwise, you may end up with rushed, incomplete applications or burned-out staff.

Post-award obligations (long-term capacity)

Capacity isn’t just about getting the award. It’s also about living with it.

Take federal grants. The U.S. Department of Justice requires financial managers, program administrators, and authorized reps to complete up to 20 hours of training before you can even draw funds. Skip it, and your award gets frozen.

And that means you can’t draw money to do important things like pay the program staff.

A young woman sits at her desk, rubbing her forehead, against a backdrop of slatted wood.

Then there’s reporting. Many grants require quarterly reports with financial and program data. If you’re juggling 15 grants, that’s 15 reports every quarter. Possibly for years, depending on the length of the grant.

Some funders, like the Hearst Foundations, even require annual endowment reports in perpetuity.

That’s forever-forever, y’all.

The bottom line? Make sure you review the Request for Proposals (RFP) carefully. Know what you’re committing to, not just in your program department, but across finance, HR, and beyond.

Timeline: do you really have time to pursue this grant?

In short: probably not.

I’m not trying to be that little rain cloud that follows you around, moping and thundering and drizzling desultorily on your parade.

But humans are notoriously terrible at estimating the time (and costs and risks) it will take to complete a project due to a phenomenon called the planning fallacy.

Psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky coined the term in 1979. In short, it’s the cognitive bias that convinces us we’ll finish a task faster than we actually will.

Vintage wind-up alarm clock with a single bell on top. Its hands read 10:10.

When you’re thinking about time needed to pursue a grant, you need to be realistic and, dare I say it, perhaps a tad pessimistic. The shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, but in reality, progress is rarely linear.

Think more winding treasure-map trail than straight arrow.

When considering your timeline, build in contingencies. Aim to submit two days early in case the online system acts up. Assume everything will take longer than you think.

Because it probably will.

Here’s an example: your grant writer estimates 20 hours to draft a proposal, plus 3 more to revise. That’s 23 total. Realistically? Plan for at least 26. It’s a small cushion, but it makes a big difference.

Time tracking helps. Even a simple notebook log will give you real data on how long tasks take, so you’re not just relying on memory. Over time, you’ll be able to forecast more accurately and spot where different types of grants (foundation vs. federal) chew up more hours.

The bottom line? Ditch your rose-colored glasses when you’re evaluating timelines. Track your time to help you forecast. Build in contingencies.

Wrapping up: the three questions to ask before you apply

Alignment, capacity, and time are deeply connected. You might pass on a perfectly aligned grant because the deadline’s too tight. Or you might pursue one with a rolling deadline because your small staff can realistically handle it.

Before you chase that shiny new opportunity, pause and ask: Does it align with our plan? Do we have the capacity? And is the timeline realistic? If the answer isn’t yes to all three, think twice before you pursue it.

Now it’s your turn! What do you rely on in your decision-making process?


Realize your organization could use help sharpening strategy, clarifying capacity, or building better decision-making frameworks around grants? That’s exactly the kind of support I offer. From mentoring new leaders to strategy sessions and real-time grants advising, I help nonprofit leaders and teams work smarter, tackle challenges faster, and free up time for the mission that matters.

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tell me more

I help nonprofit teams with smart strategy, clear thinking, and real-world support. 

meet kristen