By Lauren Steiner, Founder & CEO, Grants Plus
Every autumn, nonprofit leaders begin thinking about year-end appeals, annual reports, board meetings, and budget projections. Grant strategy often gets pushed into the background until January, when organizations suddenly realize they need a plan for the coming year.
By then, valuable time has already been lost.
The organizations that achieve the greatest success in institutional fundraising understand that success is built through strategy, relationships, organizational readiness, and consistency over time.
Nonprofit leaders are navigating a period of significant change. Economic uncertainty, shifting public policies, evolving community needs, and changing expectations from funders continue to reshape the institutional funding landscape. Recent Giving USA findings suggest that many funders are responding by increasing their investments in multiyear and unrestricted support, placing an even greater emphasis on relationships, trust, and long term organizational strength.
In many ways, the grants your organization receives in 2027 are already taking shape.
Whether your organization operates on a calendar year, a July to June fiscal year, or an entirely different cycle, the final months of the year provide an opportunity to strengthen relationships, clarify priorities, and establish momentum for the year ahead.
Every January, we see a noticeable increase in activity as organizations realize they need a plan for the year ahead. By then, many funders have already established their priorities, relationships are already developing, and first quarter deadlines are fast approaching.
The strongest organizations understand that preparation is cumulative. They use the final months of the year to strengthen relationships, evaluate opportunities, and build a clear strategy for the months ahead.
Here are six ways to do exactly that.
- Revisit your strategic priorities
Every funding strategy should begin with a simple question: What are we trying to accomplish?
Many organizations begin by looking for available funding opportunities and then trying to determine whether those opportunities align with their work. The strongest organizations start from the opposite direction. They begin with their mission, strategic objectives, and long term vision.
This is an ideal time to bring together leadership, program staff, development professionals, and board members to discuss what has changed over the past year.
Consider the following questions:
- Which initiatives have become more urgent?
- Which priorities have shifted?
- Which investments would create the greatest impact?
- Which opportunities fall outside our strategic focus?
The clearer your priorities become, the easier it will be to identify the opportunities most worthy of your time and attention.
- Evaluate the strength of your funder relationships
Strong relationships remain one of the clearest indicators of long term success.
Funders want to understand the organizations they support. They want to know how leaders think, how decisions are made, how challenges are addressed, and how resources are used to create meaningful change.
Take time to assess your current portfolio of funders and prospective funders.
Ask yourselves the following questions:
- Which relationships have grown stronger?
- Which have become less active?
- Which deserve greater attention?
- Which new relationships should we begin cultivating?
The objective is not simply to build a larger list of prospects. The objective is to create stronger alignment between your organization’s work and your funders’ priorities.
- Learn from both successes and disappointments
Many organizations celebrate funding victories and quickly move on to the next opportunity.
The most effective organizations pause long enough to understand what contributed to those successes. They also take an honest look at disappointments and examine what they can learn from them.
Patterns often emerge.
You may discover that your strongest proposals were supported by long standing relationships. You may find that a particular program consistently generated enthusiasm among funders. You may realize that some opportunities required significant effort while delivering very little value.
Every result offers useful information that can strengthen future decision making.
- Assess your organization’s capacity
Ambitious goals require adequate capacity.
This extends far beyond the number of people on the development team. Capacity includes leadership engagement, financial management systems, technology infrastructure, program expertise, data collection practices, and board involvement.
Organizations often assume that submitting a greater number of proposals will naturally lead to better results. Experience suggests that focus, discipline, and consistency matter far more.
As you look ahead, consider whether your existing systems and structures are sufficient to support your goals.
If they are not, now is the time to strengthen them.
- Clarify your funding priorities
Every opportunity comes with an investment of time, energy, and attention.
The organizations that achieve the greatest success understand that thoughtful decisions about what to decline can be every bit as important as decisions about what to pursue.
As opportunities emerge, ask the following questions:
- Does this opportunity align with our mission?
- Does it advance our strategic priorities?
- Does it strengthen an existing relationship?
- Do we have the capacity to pursue it successfully?
- Will it create meaningful impact?
A disciplined approach creates space for organizations to focus their efforts where they will have the greatest effect.
- Identify and Research Aligned Funders
Once you have clarified your organization’s priorities, turn your attention outward. Which funders are already investing in work like yours? Which organizations receive their support? What themes emerge from recent grant awards, annual reports, tax filings, and public communications?
This process should extend beyond creating a list of names. Look for alignment. The strongest institutional funding strategies are built on shared priorities, shared values, and a clear understanding of the impact a funder hopes to achieve.
The months before the new year are an ideal time to conduct research, identify patterns, and begin building relationships that can be strengthened throughout 2027.
- Build a cultivation plan
Cultivation should never be viewed as an activity that begins a few weeks before a proposal deadline.
Strong relationships are built gradually through conversations, shared learning, thoughtful stewardship, and a commitment to transparency.
This is an ideal time to identify the stories you want to tell, the outcomes you want to highlight, the relationships you want to strengthen, and the conversations you hope to have during the coming year.
The work may feel incremental in the moment.
Over time, however, those small efforts accumulate into stronger partnerships, deeper trust, and greater opportunity.
Looking ahead
The pace of change across the nonprofit sector continues to accelerate. Economic uncertainty, shifting public priorities, changes in government funding, and evolving donor expectations are all reshaping the landscape.
Organizations that enter the new year with a clear strategy, strong relationships, and a well-defined plan are far more likely to maintain momentum than those that begin building their approach after the calendar turns.
The work of securing funding in 2027 has already begun.
The question is whether your organization is prepared to begin shaping it.