Grants

Finding funding, learning how a foundation gives, and keeping track of every application and award in one place. The grants tools are part of membership, and none of them touch client records.

Set up your grant profile first

Matching works from your profile, so start here. Open Grants in the portal, then Grant profile. An organization administrator fills in:

• Program areas: what you do, in a funder’s words. “Food pantry” or “after-school tutoring” works better than “community support”.
• Keywords: other words a matching opportunity would use.
• Counties served.
• Minimum award worth applying for: smaller ones are skipped.
• Grants contact email: gets the nightly grant email with new matches, pipeline deadlines and recurring programs. Leave it empty to get none.

Kinshare matches open opportunities to the profile when you save it and again every night. The more specific the words, the fewer matches you’ll have to wade through.

Find funding

The Grants page lists what matched your profile. From there you can also look at:

• Foundation funders: foundations and charities whose IRS filings show grants into your area in the last five tax years.
• Funders that give every year: the ones that have given in your area in more than one year.
• Recurring programs: federal programs that post year after year, soonest first, so you can plan before they open.
• Apply for funding: opportunities that grant makers posted on Kinshare for members.

IRS filings run a year or more behind, so treat the foundation figures as history, not a promise.

Research a foundation

Open a foundation and choose Research profile. It’s built from the foundation’s IRS 990 filings and shows:

• giving by year and what a typical grant looks like;
• the causes it funds and the counties the money goes to;
• how often it funds the same organizations again;
• How to apply: what its latest filing says about forms, deadlines and restrictions, or that it only gives to organizations it picks itself;
• Board and staff: names and titles from the latest filing. Members only. Never share them outside Kinshare;
• Organizations like yours it has funded.

Watch a foundation

On a foundation’s page, choose Watch this foundation. Kinshare tells you when its website changes or a new tax filing arrives, and gives your organization a task. Everything you watch, and the news, is under Watching. Choose Mark read once you’ve looked.

Add your own opportunity

Found something we don’t list? Add it under Our opportunities with Add opportunity. Only your organization sees it.

If others should see it too, an administrator can choose Suggest for everyone. A Kinshare administrator reviews it. If it’s approved, it’s listed for every member and included in the nightly matching. You still keep your own copy to edit.

The pipeline

Pipeline holds every opportunity you’re pursuing. Choose Add to pipeline on any opportunity, or Track in pipeline on one of your own.

Each card moves through the stages: considering, preparing, submitted, then awarded, declined or withdrawn. Give it an owner, a due date, the amounts requested and awarded, and a checklist of steps. Keep the notes to grant work. Don’t write about the people you serve.

Report gives board-ready numbers for one year, plus anything due in the next 30 days.

When you win: award tracking

Mark the application Awarded on the pipeline. Then open Award tracking on that card. It holds everything you owe the funder and everything you’ve spent:

• Reports and deliverables: what’s due, when, and who’s doing it. Kinshare reminds the person assigned and your grants contact as the date comes up, and tells your administrators when one is overdue.
• Budget lines and Expenses: the page shows budgeted, spent and remaining.
• Outcomes and milestones: targets and how far along you are.
• Funder contacts: the people you work with at the funder.
• Documents: award letter, agreement, reports and budgets. PDF, PNG, JPEG, Word or Excel, up to 10 MB each.

This page is about the grant, not about clients. Don’t enter client names or anything about a client.

What the public sees

The public grants pages on the Kinshare site are a short preview: counts, a few foundation names, and open opportunities with their title, funder and closing date. Amounts, eligibility, research and the full lists are for members, in the portal.