In this instructional video, the presenter outlines the major sources of funding available to nonprofit organizations, including federal, state, county, and city governments, private foundations, corporate foundations, and individual donors. The talk explains why each type of funder gives money—ranging from public policy goals to personal charitable interests—and describes the different categories of private foundations (independent, operating, and family) and how corporations set up separate charitable entities. The speaker shares 2021 charitable giving estimates (foundations $90 B, bequests $28 B, corporations $21 B, individuals $326 B) and notes that government contributions are substantial but not quantified. Donor giving priorities such as religion, education, human services, arts, and the environment are listed to help nonprofits align their fundraising messages. Practical guidance is offered on locating funding opportunities through RFPs, RFAs, NOFAs, and funder websites, especially from government sources. The video concludes with a call‑to‑action from a second speaker who leverages 37 + years of nonprofit experience, urging viewers to subscribe for more fundraising “nuggets.”
Chapters
Who gives money and why do they give money? So we're gonna look at the federal government, they give money, the state, foundations, corporations, individuals, counties, and cities, they all give money. And it kind of does a little trickle-down effect. The federal government may give money to the states, when the states will in turn give it to the communities, or they'll give it to counties and cities. And then as a nonprofit, you will go to the county and the city and the state and get that funding, Or you can go straight to the federal government to grab some of that funding. Then you have your private foundations and your corporations. So these are some of the avenues, these are many of the main avenues that you can get funding from for nonprofit. Why do they give money? Well, the federal government and the states and the counties and cities, they have reasons why they want to give funding because they want to make this world a better place, and a lot of our tax dollars goes towards things that need to enhance the quality of life for the community. Foundations give money for many reasons, and we're going to talk about the foundations and what corporations are, individuals. Individuals give money because it's a feel-good, and they, they have things that they want to accomplish and they don't have the time to accomplish, so give it to their favorite foundation or cause. Corporations, many corporations, we'll talk about how they set up their own funding source so they can give money to the community, and foundations the same. So these are areas you want to look at for funding. So with the foundations, you have the independent foundation, which often begins as a family foundation, but it's no longer controlled by the benefactor or the benefactor's family. So someone will set up a foundation as a family, and the person who set it up, they may have deceased, or they may decide they don't want to do it anymore. So most of the country's largest foundations, they fall within this category. Independent foundations. Then you have foundations that are operating foundations, and this is where they use their funds to operate their own programs rather than making outside grants. They don't give grants to others in the nonprofits, but they will use the money that they generate for their own goals. These are classified as private foundations because they generally do not raise enough funds from the public to qualify as a public charity, so they're most likely private private foundations. Then you have our family foundation. These are usually created by a single individual or family that are governed in at least in part by the donor or the donor's family, descendants, or close associates. So these family foundations, they keep it in the family. The foundation generally supports the donor's personal charitable interest. And that's one thing that they look at is people, as we talked about, they give money for their particular reasons, whether it's the government, Cities, the foundations, the corporations, they already have in mind what they want to use their money for, so it's for their personal charitable interest. So family foundations make up the largest proportion of grantmakers. Then you have your corporations, which are created by for-profit companies. So most of your big for-profit corporations, your banks, your insurance companies, your stores, they receive their funds from their parent companies but are separate legal entities, so they have a private bit for-profit business and a nonprofit business. And so like the banks and the restaurants and stores, they set up their nonprofit— their money to give to nonprofits, okay? So the for-profit company has their own private foundations that they give money to nonprofits. So this is a little bit of what the charitable giving looked like in 2021. The foundations gave about $90 billion, bequests was $28 billion, $21 billion went to corporations, and individuals gave $326 billion. So can you imagine, $326 billion from individuals? So individuals give a lot of money. Corporations gave $21 billion, bequests and foundations and so on and so forth. So there's a lot of money given out there, okay? But if you notice something that I didn't mention with all this over $400+ billion, what I didn't mention was the government, the federal government, your cities, your counties, and your states. They give a lot of money. Now these are just estimates, I just guessed on these because no one really knows because it depends on your state, your county, and your city, how much money they're gonna give, and how much they have to give, and how big your city and your county is, and then the federal government. These are just numbers I just came up with, so these are not actual numbers, but I just wanted to show this to you in a pie graph. The federal government gives the most, then the states, then the counties, and then the cities, generally, depending on where you are. And this money, you can't even begin to count, so it's an abundance of funding out there for our definite causes. And what are some of the places people like to give money for? People give money to religion, 27%. So we're talking about individuals. They like education, second, human services. They give money to other grantmaking foundations so their money can come back into the community. Arts and culture, human rights, environment, global health, and there's also animals. They give money to so many different causes. So people do care. So when you're doing your fundraising or you're asking, see how you align with what people are giving. So generally, people put out some information about a— for funding, they generally have a response to a request for proposal, which is an RFP, or you have a request for application, which is an RFA, or notice of funding availability, NOFA, NOFA. And this is generally where you will find it with your federal government, your states, your cities. Sometimes you may find your corporations and foundations putting it out, but not as much as the government, the government entities were putting it out. So you want to look for RFA, RFP, NOFA, and then also you can go directly to the funder's website.
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