GrantStation
Full Membership Access to GrantStation.com
Your membership with the West Virginia Nonprofit Association gives you Full Membership Access to GrantStation.com to help you with your grants research and proposal development! Just click on the icon below to log into GrantStation.com:
You will then have access to all of their Member Benefits:
- Search through their listings of active grantmakers.
- Write winning proposals with their tutorials.
- Learn to create your grants strategy with their tools.
- Read through the archives of the GrantStation Insider newsletter, which you receive in your email inbox each week.
Getting Started
If you would like guidance on how to use GrantStation:
- Watch their helpful video tutorials on their Tour page at http://grantstation.com/public/tour.asp
- Contact the GrantStation staff with any questions you may have at 1-877-784-7268 or info@grantstation.com
*New* E-book: Intentional Grantseeking: Planning to Win
In this e-primer (FREE to WVNPA members), Grantstation founder and CEO, Cynthia Adams shares her ideas around thinking strategically as you undertake your grantseeking efforts. She says, “I will also describe my step-by-step approach to building a strategy around each project or program that needs funding. I hope the examples I provide will help clarify how this process could work for you. Download the E-book here.
Funder Name
GrantStation.com lists those grantmakers who are active and accepting unsolicited proposal from a variety of nonprofits. If you want to see if a particular grantmaker is active and what their current giving priorities are, click on “Funder Name”. To test it out, type in 3Mgives and you can see a sample profile.
Advanced Search
This is the most powerful search, since it leverages the coding of GrantStation authors who write, organize, and update the profiles.
| Step 1. Geographic Scope | You can search for National Funders or those giving in the state of West Virginia. For your first search, select the third box to search throughout both. In the drop down menu, select West Virginia. |
| Step 2. Areas of Interest | Here is where you can indicate what your program is about. These are the terms which many grantmakers use to describe what they will fund. You can find out the definitions of these terms and what’s behind them in their Search Terms glossary.Perhaps you are looking for community funds focusing on environmentally positive housing for low-income families.- Under Community & Economic Development, click on Housing.– Under Environment & Animals, click on Green Economy/Building.– When you select both, you will get targeted results. However if you want to see more results, click on the back button and select one at a time. You will get more results that way.To see the results, scroll down and click Find Funders! Click on each of the grantmakers listed to review a full profile.You can also include a Target Population at the bottom of Step 2.– In the above example, click on Seniors/Aging.– If you get few or no results, go back and remove Green Economy/Building. |
| Step 3. Type of Support | You can leave this blank, since many grantmakers do not specify a type of support. But if you want to narrow your results, select one of these.- For example, if you want to secure land for that housing project, select Land/Property Acquisition along with the terms you selected in Step 2.- If you get few or no results, go back and remove Seniors/Aging. |
Don’t forget to check out the Search Terms to help you fine-tune your results.
Keyword Search
You can use this to search for terms outside of the Advanced Search. You can combine these with one of the Search Terms as well. Be patient with this search, as it can take up to 20 seconds.
- Geography: You can search to see if the grantmaker mentions a specific city or county in their profile. For example, try searching for Beckley. You can combine that with an Area of Interest, e.g. Beckley, health.
- Deadline: You can search to see if an application deadline is mentioned in the profile. For example, try searching for July, housing.
- Areas of Interest: This search is helpful if you want to search for a term more specific than the Search Terms, such as Trafficking. However, don’t stop with such a limited search. Also try the Advanced Search as well to use broader terms.
If you have questions, contact GrantStation and they will be happy to help!