Where to Find Tech Funding for Your Nonprofit in 2022 and Beyond

Finding grants for nonprofit website development or other tech needs may seem like a daunting task–web design, digital marketing, etc can all seem like narrow needs. You might worry that you’ll never find a grant to cover them. This will be especially true if your organization is struggling to connect these tools to the meat of its mission.

Thankfully, there are many tech grants for nonprofits available. You’ll need to know how and where to look for them. You’ll also have to learn how to correctly frame tech projects in your grant applications. To help you get started, we’ve rounded up a list of more than 60 grants nonprofits can use for tech such as websites, plus gathered some tips for how to win technology grants.

What You Need to Know Before Doing Grant Research

Don’t jump in by typing keywords into a search engine. A successful grant research process means having a plan and knowing what to look for.  Getting information organized first will help you to streamline the research process and focus only on the grants that are a good fit for your needs. 

Gather information on these topics before beginning research:

• Date of incorporation and date of 501(c)3 recognition 
• Whether your organization is a United Way/Fund Affiliate
• Your annual operating budget
• A list of nonprofits with similar programs or services
• A list of grants you applied to, received, or were denied in the past
• The type of grant funding you’re hoping to procure

To which you’ll add basic information about your nonprofit, like:

• A list of specific funding needs
• The general type of work your organization does
• Your nonprofit’s location
• Whether you serve a specific population
• The counties or regions your organization serves

Grant Types

Each grant restricts the type of activities it will fund. For technology grants, you’ll likely focus your research on general operating grants and technical assistance grants.

General Operating Support

Also known as unrestricted grants, these grants support your mission rather than specific programs or projects. The goal is to increase creativity and innovation, so your nonprofit has more freedom to decide how to wisely utilize the funds.

Management and Technical Assistance

These grants are not linked to your nonprofit’s mission. Instead, management and technical assistance grants enhance the organizational and administrative capacity of your nonprofit. They support your organization’s marketing, fundraising, technology, and management tasks.

Common Grant Sources 

In addition to types of grants, your research will also take you to different grant sources. These will likely include government grants, foundation grants, and donor-advised funds. 

Government

Government grants are available at the federal, state, and local levels. They are appropriated by agencies and departments. Examples of these departments at the federal level include the National Endowment for Humanities, the National Institute of Health, the Department of Education, and the Department of Health.

You can find federal grants at Grants.gov. State and local grants are administered at those respective regional levels. 

Foundations

There are four different types of foundations: private, corporate, community and family.

• Corporate foundations: Funded by major corporations  (i.e. Target, Walmart, Verizon Wireless, Nike) that established their own foundations. Annual contributions vary relative to the profit of the company. The more the company makes, the more they can give away to their foundation. Also, they usually give in communities where there is a corporate presence. A corporate presence could be a storefront, warehouse, manufacturing facility, or a corporate office. This is distinct from the funding provided by private business which is usually directly related to their services: think Google Ad Grant, Microsoft Edge Grant, etc.

  Elevation used to offer select tech services with a 1 for 1 Matching Fund, which is currently closed and instead we offer a budget-conscious, pay-as-you-go Quickstart package.

• Private foundations: Like a nonprofit, private foundations have a mission and strategy. They’re required to give away money equal to 5% of their assets annually. This is because the government expects foundations to use their money to do good for society. Private foundations can only fund tax-exempt organizations. They must file a 990 PF, which stands for 990 profit foundation.
• Family foundations: Funded by contributions from individual benefactors or families. Small family foundations are often staffed by an attorney or gatekeeper. Family foundations often don’t solicit proposals.
• Community foundations: Funded by contributions from numerous individuals and families. They often limit grants to their community, and they’re frequently made up of a pool of Donor Advised Funds (DAFs). 

Donor-Advised Funds

Donors get tax benefits to invest their assets in a fund. That fund is allowed to grow but remains earmarked for charitable contributions. The funds usually have a low operating expense, but unlike a private foundation, there is no requirement for when to distribute funds.

How to Find Technology Grants for Your Nonprofit

When conducting prospect research for grants, you need to narrow down your search to those grants that you have the best chance of receiving. The best way to narrow your focus is to figure out which funders best match your needs. To improve your chances of success, ask yourself the following questions before you start:

• Even though we’ve already confirmed our eligibility, does our program/project align with the funder’s current area of interest or desired profile?
• Where will my program/project have an impact? vs. Where we are located
• Does the average grant size fit my need?
• Will we be required to match the grant? If so, by what percentage?
• Are we confident we can “find our match”?
• Are funds paid upfront or is it a reimbursement grant?
• Look at the application timeline. Grant funds can take 6 to 9 months to acquire. Will the dollars come in time for our need?
• Are there restrictions (i.e. faith-based, no transport, etc.)?

Writing a Compelling Application

When it comes to operating cost versus program, funders often choose programs. This is because usually programs focus on the change you are trying to achieve and those narratives are more compelling. We share some tips for how to frame your project with a compelling narrative in our Checklist for a Compelling Tech Grant Application, below. 

When it comes to your application, don’t focus on what the features can do or your clear need for them. Your best bet is to make your website a central tenet of your outreach, or of a specific program or project. As you work to reposition your proposal, make sure to set clear goals.

For example, avoid writing explanations like: 

Instead, you can rewrite the activity as a quantifiable goal: 

If you can’t quantify the goal, you can still define a successful outcome: 

Any proposal you submit must specify a clear outcome in terms of what success is and what it looks like. This makes it easier to write your grant applications and easier for funders to fund you because they recognize that your request has a clear beginning, middle, and end for their funding goals.

There are also great resources out there for conscientious language use as well as discussions of what makes for ethical storytelling.  Grant writing isn’t about fawning on philanthropists; language choices can uphold harmful systems of oppression, or they can further anti-racist, community-centric principles.

Capital Fund vs. Operating or Program Cost

Another obstacle to winning grant applications for nonprofit tech is categorizing the costs appropriately. The Greater Washington Society of CPAs’ Nonprofit Financial Accountability Task Force provides guidance on how to correctly classify your nonprofit’s tech spending. Begin by identifying whether your expenses are from adding significant new functionality or from improving an existing website: 

Improvements to an Existing Website 

Any changes that update content or improve ease of use, but not functionality, are expensed as operating costs because they are similar to ongoing maintenance for a building. 

New Website or Significant New Functionality

Adding significant new functionality, whether to an existing website or building a new one entirely, requires analyzing the costs involved at various stages of development. Some of these costs will be capitalized and amortized over time; others will be expensed as incurred.

Planning for a New Website

You should expense planning costs as they are incurred. Some examples of common costs are:

• Developing a plan that outlines the expected uses for the site
• Identifying the hardware and software needs for credit card processing or information databases
• Determining whether appropriate software exists
• Reviewing vendor proposals
• Addressing legal considerations for copyrights, trademarks, and privacy issues

Developing Applications and Infrastructure

Once you’re ready to actually begin creation, you should capitalize all costs. This includes all the work on the back end that is needed to provide the desired functionality. Costs incurred might include developing or acquiring software, databases, code for Web applications, and integrations with other applications. This is also when your nonprofit will purchase any hardware necessary to support the website. All purchases should follow the nonprofit’s existing capitalization policies.

Graphics

Capitalize costs that are associated with the visual impact of the website and its readability. This stage includes the layout of the site with backgrounds, fonts, frames, and buttons. Just as the costs to develop the back end functions are capitalized, these design costs should also be added to a balance sheet and amortized.

Website Operations

Once the new or enhanced website goes live, your nonprofit will continue to incur additional costs to operate it. Expense these costs, including training, content updates, and maintenance, as incurred. Then follow these guidelines to appropriately categorize additional costs related to operating the website:

• The cost of any additional enhancements should be treated as new software, which requires certain costs to be capitalized if they add functionality or are a product enhancement to externally marketed software. 
• Internal costs for minor upgrades and enhancements may be expensed as maintenance costs if they cannot be reasonably separated. 
• In addition to training and website maintenance costs, you should also expense costs of creating new links, registering with search engines, analyzing usage, website hosting, and performing routine backups.

Tech Grant Round-up

Now that you know what to look for and how to categorize your funding needs, start keeping a list of prospects. Not all grants will be specifically for website design. Some grants may be for marketing or operations. Spend more time on grants you’re more likely to win, rather than applying for as many grants as possible.

The tech grants below were identified using Instrumentl, a grant software that we’ve found to be a good paid option for finding grants. By signing up for a free trial, you can not only pull a list of grants that might fund your project, you can also build application checklists and get deadline reminders.

Can you recommend additional grants? Please help us build this list by emailing them to efriedrichs@elevationweb.org.

January Deadlines