Blog article written for the Alberta Camping Association
What is The Funding Portal?
The Funding Portal is a website that contains a searchable database of over 7,000 government funding, grants, tax incentives and private financing programs for business, universities, hospitals, charities and non-profits. There is approximately $30 billion in available funding each year. Is your camp familiar with The Funding Portal? Are you applying for grants you are qualified for?
Although this resource is a big draw for business related funding, it does have literally thousands of programs available for not-for-profit organizations across Canada, including in Alberta. If you can commit some time to do the proper search and thorough applications you could gain the extra funds you need for operational costs or special projects, and to keep your camp healthy and growing.
Using The Funding Portal
Use the Portal’s Find It search tool to search for the difference financing available. Don’t limit your search to just government grants. Search in several categories and keep a record of your finding. These categories could include government grants and contributions, institutional giving, and university partnership programs. Go through each search systematically, read about the funding, qualifications and determine if your camp qualifies. Even if it seems a stretch you should mark it down and consider creating an application. You could still be eligible for the funding.
For the best results, The Funding Portal recommends conducting a search based on your specific location, camp’s objectives as well as objectives you might have for a specific project at camp. For example, a summer camp in Alberta searching for a grant to help fund their community youth outreach program might want to search for Alberta, community, youth outreach.
There are 4,000 government funding programs available for non-profits and businesses across the country and each has its own eligibility criteria. There are some offered on a federal level that have a broad criteria. One example would be the federal Skills Link program that provides funding for organizations that offer activities for youth facing barriers to employment. This would be applicable to some camps in Alberta, and there are many like it available.
Grant Funding Application Process
Once you’ve selected and recorded the programs you think you’d be eligible for you can start the application process. The Funding Portal offers resources and tips regarding the application process. Charity Village has some good tips for writing effective funding proposal for government agencies. The first step would be to find out everything you can about the funding program, starting way before the deadline so you have plenty of time to apply properly.
Prior to filling out the application you should:
- Read the funding agency’s guidelines and application carefully, ensuring you know FOR SURE that your camp and/or project is eligible.
- Learn what projects the agency has funded in the past. This will help you learn about their priorities and how they make decisions.
- Learn about the review committee at the agency. Will they know anything about your camp, your goals, or your projects? Decide what you need to explain to them in your application to ensure they understand these things.
- Talk to people who have received grant funding from the same program or agency. Find out what they did that was successful and ask for advice. You can also find advice on online forums or websites of the funding agencies.
- Contact the agency directly and ask for advice. Most agencies will have staff available to field questions and offer advice as to whether your project or camp will actually fit with the grant qualifications and/or funding program. The agency is a great resource, they are prepared to answer questions so be prepared to ask them.
Make a list of what you need to complete the application and start writing it! There is no need to go outside of the agencies specific guidelines as they will only be interested in reviewing the materials they specifically asked for. Make sure you write a different application for each agency funding program and do not send the same copy to each agency. They are all different and they need to be tailored to meet specific guidelines. The best thing you can do is adapt your application strategy to each funder’s objectives and standards.
You can find services on The Funding Portal like Apply for It and Score It which will help you go over all of the technical guidelines of the funder to make sure your application isn’t rejected for non-compliance. The Score It will give an expert evaluation of the application draft before you actually send it.
Keep an eye on deadlines as procrastination and losing track of time is the number one reason camps don’t get a chance at much of the funding available to them.