Volunteer grants are an important supply of funding for nonprofits, enabling them to maximise their influence and encourage their supporters to do the identical. Nonetheless, navigating the varied applications out there to your group will be difficult. That’s the place volunteer grant databases are available!
In the event you’re trying to develop your group’s fundraising toolkit with a volunteer grant database, you’ve come to the fitting place. On this publish, we’ll cowl the whole lot it’s essential learn about high volunteer grant databases and the way they’ll profit your mission.
This contains:
By incorporating a database software into your tech stack, your nonprofit can streamline its fundraising, higher interact its volunteer base, and help its mission extra successfully than ever earlier than.
In a rush? Skip forward to find out about our high advice, 360MatchPro—or request a demo of the volunteer grant and matching reward database right here.
In any other case, let’s start with the fundamentals!
What Is a Volunteer Grant Database?
A volunteer grant database is a specialised software designed to assist nonprofits establish and handle volunteer grant alternatives. These grants, that are often known as “{dollars} for doers,” are provided by companies as a approach to supply financial donations to nonprofits based mostly on the volunteer hours their staff contribute.
Tons of corporations provide the applications, however protecting observe of every one’s standards and submissions can rapidly develop into an awesome activity for nonprofit groups. Supporters usually lack data of their corporations’ applications, too, so it usually falls on the group to uncover qualifying alternatives.
Thankfully, volunteer grant databases do it for you!
How? A volunteer grant database software compiles complete data on 1000’s of company giving applications (together with volunteer grants, matching presents, and volunteer day off). Every itemizing provides company-specific eligibility standards (e.g., qualifying staff, minimal variety of hours, grant thresholds, and so on.), hyperlinks to on-line submission varieties, and extra.
How Does a Volunteer Grant Database Affect Fundraising?
Incorporating a volunteer grant database into your fundraising technique can considerably improve your supporter engagement, monetary well being, and extra.
Right here’s the way it can achieve this.
Extra Recognized {Dollars} for Doers Alternatives 🔍
By offering entry to a centralized repository of grant alternatives, a volunteer grant database might help your group rapidly display screen for eligible volunteers. Even when supporters are unaware of their grant potential, your group can flag eligible people to pursue a extra customized method and encourage their submissions.
Simplified Request Course of for Volunteers ✍️
Talking of submissions, every volunteer is usually required to finish a request type for his or her employer with the intention to safe grant funding in your group’s behalf. Offering entry to a volunteer grant database is without doubt one of the greatest methods to streamline submissions and cut back pointless friction within the course of. All a person has to do is enter their employer’s title and navigate to the offered request type.
Enhanced Operational Effectivity ⚡
Manually figuring out and researching volunteer grant alternatives requires plenty of organizational bandwidth. By automating the method with a volunteer grant database software, you’ll be able to unlock your group’s time for different high-value actions.
Improved Grant Monitoring 📌
Volunteer grants comply with a multi-step course of from identification to submission and thru the disbursement of funds. A volunteer grant software like 360MatchPro gives monitoring performance that helps monitor the standing of obtainable grants and tackle any points that will come up.
Elevated Funding by Company Giving Alternatives 🏢
The better it’s for volunteers to request funding from their employers, the extra doubtless they’re to take action. Meaning extra company giving income making its option to your group.
However it’s not simply volunteer grants, both. A volunteer grant database will usually provide assets on matching presents and different company giving applications, too!
Our Volunteer Grant Database Suggestion: 360MatchPro
When choosing a volunteer grant database to your nonprofit, it’s essential to think about a number of key components. In spite of everything, you wish to make sure the software successfully helps your fundraising efforts and organizational wants—each now and within the time to come back.
Fortunate for you, we’ve explored potential database choices and wish to provide you with our high advice: 360MatchPro by Double the Donation.
Now, let’s see why this software stands aside because the main answer:
- Complete Database: Double the Donation maintains the business’s most in depth assortment of company volunteer grant applications, making it simple to find correct and up-to-date details about your supporters’ corporations.
- Person-Pleasant Interface: The platform is designed with ease of use in thoughts, permitting customers to rapidly seek for and entry the fitting data. Because of this, the software contains auto-completing search performance and mechanically accounts for subsidiaries and spelling variations, too!
- Integration Capabilities: Double the Donation integrates seamlessly with a big selection of CRM programs, fundraising instruments, and volunteer administration platforms. Once you add the software to your web site, donation varieties, and extra, it’s also possible to decide a person’s eligibility for a match as they offer!
- Assist and Assets: The platform supplies a wealth of assets and help to get your nonprofit up and operating. This contains customized onboarding experiences, instructional webinars, and extra to assist your group maximize its use of the database.
Different High Instruments & Assets For Rising Volunteer Grants
Along with volunteer grant databases, there are a variety of different helpful instruments and assets that may assist supercharge your group’s volunteer grant technique.
These embrace:
Volunteer grant compilations
In case your group has but to make the leap to a volunteer grant database—which we extremely advocate doing—free on-line assets (resembling these provided by Double the Donation) might help establish choose alternatives in your database.
For instance, this compilation of high volunteer grant applications highlights a number of beneficiant corporations’ initiatives. It supplies a great opportunity to cross-reference your supporter knowledge and see if any current or potential volunteers work for these well-known examples.
Volunteer time-trackers
Time-tracking instruments are usually software program purposes that assist nonprofits report and handle the hours contributed by their group members. When volunteers are inspired (or required) to trace the time they spend together with your trigger, you’ll discover it’s simpler than ever to streamline volunteer grant requests.
Needless to say these instruments can even fluctuate vastly of their degree of sophistication. Some organizations handle hour-tracking efforts with paper varieties, others make use of spreadsheets, and others nonetheless spend money on devoted options.
Volunteer administration instruments
You could have already got a Volunteer Administration System, or VMS, in your nonprofit toolkit. This sort of software is designed to assist nonprofits set up, recruit, and handle their volunteer workforce, sometimes providing options for scheduling, communication, activity assignments, and extra. When it’s simple for supporters to enroll and partake in volunteer actions, you’ll have extra eligible people to pursue volunteer grants within the first place!
To not point out, a well-managed volunteer program can sometimes present the mandatory documentation and proof of volunteer hours wanted for grant purposes.
CSR platforms
Company Social Accountability (CSR) platforms are complete options that help corporations in managing their worker giving and volunteer applications. These platforms additionally facilitate collaboration between corporations and nonprofits, making it simpler to coordinate philanthropic efforts for each groups.
In consequence, most CSR platforms incorporate a nonprofit-facing portal that organizations can entry at no cost. From there, they’ll handle their facet of the applications (i.e., reviewing and verifying volunteer requests).
Closing Ideas on Volunteer Grant Databases & Extra
Investing in a volunteer grant database can considerably increase your nonprofit’s fundraising capabilities. By streamlining the volunteer grant discovery and submission processes, devoted instruments like Double the Donation’s 360MatchPro might help maximize the worth of volunteer grants to your trigger.
Integrating these instruments into your tech stack permits you to guarantee your nonprofit is well-equipped to leverage the total potential of volunteer grants, finally powering organizational development.
Proceed rising your company giving data. Learn up on these really helpful assets to be taught extra:
