Grant Writing 101: Giving Thanks and Saying Thanks

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” ~ William Arthur Ward

Lessons of thankfulness are highly applicable in the world of grant writing. Being thankful and saying "thanks" to funders who have helped you achieve your goals is imperative to a lasting relationship and future giving. Whether the funder rejected your proposal or continues to give, year after year, saying “thank you” will help cultivate long-term giving and represents gratitude to the funder in a way that money can’t.  

The idea of “giving thanks” and “saying thanks” resonated for me last week when I was volunteering with a local arts organization that uses the arts to help kids excel in school and in life. I was sitting in a room with a handful of high school students and we were all wildly beating on our djembe drums in fantastic harmony…it was brilliant! I was older and less cool than my fellow drummers, but I had a blast! 

What occurred to me during this moment was what how grateful I was for sharing in a creative experience with amazing teens. They welcomed me into their group and shared openly. I was free to make mistakes, laugh, and learn alongside them. I was genuinely filled with gratitude. Immediately, I felt like I had to thank each one of them for the brightness they brought to my day, but the session ended and I didn’t get to share my appreciation. My gratitude was the wrapped present that I didn’t get to give away. I was disappointed and feeling a bit guilty—like I had taken something without the proper “thank you”. I was grateful, but never said it. 

This same principle is applicable when fostering relationships with funders. What if your program receives a $20,000 grant and only sends a form-letter thank you. It’s enough by legal standards, but something is missing—right? Something in the back of your mind is constantly nagging, “I should really tell them ‘thank you’ again” or “I need to let them know how this money helped our organization” or “If they could only see how these kids light up with new instruments in their hands”. How often do we act in a timely and personalized way to say “thanks”?

Another example came to me earlier this week when I heard about a mother who used an iPad to sing lullabies to her child who was staying in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). Infection-control concerns made it impossible for the mother to sit next to her child, but technology gave her a way to still comfort her child. The iPad was donated by a donor and they didn’t know this was the impact of their gift. It might be shared in a year-end report, but that’s it. The organization had good intentions and thought “it would be great if we could tell the donor about this, but we have been too busy”. We all have genuine intentions, but sometimes they just don’t come to light. Too many tasks and too few hours complicate our efforts. It's important to remember that if the donor knew now how their gift made a difference, they might feel more like a partner in the success and less like the piggy bank. 

As the end of the year approaches and we are looking towards next week’s Thanksgiving celebrations, I urge us all to see the difference in “giving thanks” and “saying thanks”. Nonprofit professionals are always grateful for donors, volunteers and funders, but do we say “thanks” enough? Do we say it in the right ways? Do our donors, volunteers and funders hear us? Let’s step up our game and reach out a little more to say the “thank yous” that we are all thinking. Hearing “thanks” is universally appreciated and rarely inappropriate – even for big funders. Gratitude is always remembered. 

Give thanks. Be grateful.

~Cheers!