The Proposal Funders Read First

Gripe all you want about foundations that don’t accept proposals. There’s one certainty in Nonprofit Land: It’s thrilling to receive a big check, no prospecting required.

Last year alone, multiple clients of mine “fell into” seven- and even eight-figure grants they did not seek out. The results were no accident. We later learned where funders built confidence. They found a proposal equivalent: the website.

Yet most sites fail to speak to big philanthropy.

That’s because the sector reduces grant seekers to one-dimensional document writers, shutting them out of the public-facing case for support that serious investors scrutinize. Our communications traditions exclude the internal experts fluent in grant makers’ preferences.

The website is a prominent storefront. Your most promising philanthropies arrive unannounced, and the window display doesn’t entice them.

Funders as a Core Communications Audience

Websites address volunteers, clients, and individual donors. That’s understandable, since those constituencies fuel organizations. But consider their interests: Volunteers want opportunities to give time. Clients seek out services. Donors love stories and a smooth giving experience.

These messages leave program officers, family office representatives, and wealth advisors adrift. It’s an expensive liability given how much new philanthropy rests in the hands of these giving proxies.

Philanthropy’s scouts are building a case for their bosses and boards to approve. They don’t expect, nor should they, an online experience designed for them alone. But if they struggle to find relevant information, expect them to walk away.

What Funders Find Online

When I revise my Major Grants Roadmap course each year, it’s hard to find examples of nonprofit sites that reflect funders’ interests. Most are too general to build confidence in large investments. Many are dated and backward looking. They lack concise, compelling messages.

I researched two organizations this week and clicked multiple links on each site before I found any semblance of program results. I found no indicators of what these organizations plan to do in the coming months or years. The longer I looked, the more tense and frustrated I felt.

Imagine a funder doing the same. It wouldn’t end well.

The most accessible and complete telling of a potential grantee’s work resembles a scavenger hunt. Impact? Four clicks and a lot of scrolling inside an annual report. Differentiators? Three clicks and some creative interpretation. Bold, investible plans? Don’t bother.

For all the care that goes into major funding proposals, this prime space rarely even reveals what current dollars will fund.

Website as a Foundational Vehicle

Think of your website as a proposal, available 24/7. This is the one funder-facing property fully owned by a hopeful grantee. While it’s not a mode for discovery, referrals, public engagements, and the media send stealth and closed invitation funders online to learn about your leadership, finances, and plans.

The site is also a hub that can lead visitors to the thought pieces, podcasts, and videos that enhance credibility. When word of mouth prompts an online site visit, funders scour for evidence that makes your organization investible.

AI taps into your website, too. If a program officer knows she’d like to recommend your agency to the board, she can prompt Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT to learn more. That organization-specific request draws mostly from your agency’s own digital content. The results create a quasi-application, potentially the only one your funder ever sees.

Whether funders are learning about, verifying, or summarizing the work, this old-fashioned technology offers a grand opportunity.

Grant Seekers’ Online Role

The website is more than a communications asset. It is, in part, a grant-seeking asset that communications brings to life.

Yet the institutional giving team leaders I talk to rarely intersect with their comms teams. They are excluded from conversations around core fund development messages. They feel powerless when they see major grants going to peer agencies when they’re prevented from the pivotal messaging that lives upstream from a proposal.

When nonprofits isolate grant seekers from communications, they segregate the staffing functions that solidify credibility in funders’ minds. Grant seekers need a seat during website revisions and redesigns, so that big philanthropy gets the content it needs to make serious funding decisions.

Strategic communications is increasingly the work that leads to major grants. The website is still a powerful place to own the conversation.