This weekend, I got to spend some quality time with my 3-year old son.
As a millennial does, I decided to teach him my phone game.
In it, you play a marble. Your job is to roll across the course, across obstacles, over jumps, and down narrow bridges…
and get to the end without falling into the water.
I watched him try it over and over again.
He would drag the ball up a hill, only to watch it roll down again.
Splash.
He tried this approach over and over again.
Drag up > splash.
Every time.
Eventually he got frustrated and put the game down.
Well, he chucked my phone, but he’s working on his emotional regulation.
Baby steps.
I have tried telling him to swipe fast to get the ball to roll up.
But he said no, he wanted to do it this way.
Because in his mind, the game is to drag the ball.
It got me thinking about how nonprofit leaders approach grants.
To most small nonprofit EDs, grants are the way you play the game.
You drag the ball up the hill with hours of funder research, long applications, and 6 month waits for a response. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don’t.
Often you just splash.
When you splash, you just drag harder.
Here’s the thing though. You can just swipe.
You don’t have to spend dozens of hours writing an application and praying to the grant gods that it gets approved.
You don’t have to apply for grants that aren’t quite a fit because you’re reaching.
You don’t have to pay thousands every month for a grant writer.
Right now, there are a “cloud” of potential donors surrounding your nonprofit – vendors who support you, board member connections, influencers, and community leaders – all of whom would love to support your nonprofit.
And don’t require a 1,200 word essay to do it.
In 2026, commit to looking at other ways to roll the ball.
Build a reliable system for your individual and corporate donors.
…end your feast-and-famine grant cycle…
…and don’t keep dragging the ball up the hill.
Like Shari, Glen, and Thomas, who raised $50,000 from individual donors this year and hired staff, Abby, who raised $15,000 and launched her nonprofit, and Bill, who doubled his corporate sponsorship for his event series.
Individuals and businesses are ready to support you.
You just have to let them.
If you’d like to explore what that might look like, you know where to find me.
P.S. Want your board to get active in 2026 too? My good friend Sarah is putting on a great class December 11 at 12:00 PM EST – how to get your board to take action in 2026. Check it out and get the help you need to fundraise: Registration link here.
To a great 2026,
Your fundraising coach,
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