We’re nearly one year into this pandemic, and many nonprofits are either just now finding their footing with new program designs, new funding sources, or other major accommodations to the new needs and restrictions we’re facing. . . OR they’re still trying to figure out where to go from here.

No matter your situation, if your nonprofit has been negatively impacted by COVID-19, there is funding available for you. 

Many grantmakers are announcing their second, third, or even fourth round of COVID funding right now. So listen up!

Step 1: Determine How Your Nonprofit has been Impacted

Nearly every nonprofit has been negatively impacted by the pandemic. Even if some areas of your work grew, others suffered. Maybe you received more grants in 2020 because there were so many new grant opportunities for your work, but you had a major decrease in individual donations because your donor base was dealing with unemployment, illness, etc.

What you need to do is calculate and document how you were impacted. Compare your 2020 revenue and expenses to your 2019 revenue and expenses. Look at every line item. What changed and why? Beyond the finances, there are many negative impacts that may or may not have shown up in your bank account.

Here’s a comprehensive list of possible COVID impacts on your nonprofit (from a grant I’m working on for a 1-on-1 coaching client):

  • COVID put your nonprofit at risk of permanent closure
  • COVID put your nonprofit at high risk of loss of paid staff
  • COVID put your nonprofit at high risk of loss of venue/workspace 
  • COVID forced your nonprofit to implement remote work or programming
  • COVID forced your nonprofit to address volunteer capacity restrictions
  • COVID forced your nonprofit to develop new, increased, or adapted programs/services
  • COVID caused a significant shortfall in projected earned revenue
  • COVID caused a significant shortfall in projected revenue from grants or sponsorships
  • COVID caused a significant shortfall in projected revenue from individual donations

(Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, Mid-South COVID-19 Regional Response Fund: Phase 3 Application)

You might find yourself saying yes, yes, yes to those criteria/potential COVID-19 impacts. You might also be wondering what would count as being “at high risk of loss of paid staff.” Well, if you don’t have the funding or can’t count on funding to pay your staff for the next year, you’re at risk. 

If your revenue went down by 20% or more last year and you don’t have any major donors or grants confirmed to make up for that loss this year, you’re at risk of loss of paid staff, potentially even of permanent closure. If you’ve had to completely revamp or even just make some minor adjustments that cost money because of COVID, you have been financially impacted.

Go through every bullet point above and write down how your nonprofit has been impacted, changes you’ve had to make, and risks you’ve assumed. Many of these points may be interconnected, but don’t let that throw you. Just write a response for each relevant bullet point. You can later weave them together into a single paragraph explaining the impact.

How to Search for COVID-19 Emergency/Relief Grants

Once you know how COVID impacted your nonprofit, it will be much easier to search through the hundreds of grants.

First, you’ll narrow your search by geography. Most grants are for specific states, cities, regional areas, or counties. There are also national grants, so do one search for your geographic area and then one for all national grants available.

Then you’ll simply go through the lists linked below (because there aren’t so many that you need to narrow by multiple search terms). 

If you find a funder that is awarding grants;

  1. To nonprofits in your area;
  2. For the area of interest you work in, e.g. education, environmental advocacy, health; and
  3. For the COVID impacts you identified, e.g. adapted programming, loss of revenue from donations, or loss of facilities

Then record that grantmaker’s info on your grant prospect spreadsheet. If it’s not a good fit, keep searching; you will find something.

Where to Search for COVID-19 Emergency/Relief Grants

Here is a list of websites that provide free lists or databases of COVID-19 relief grants. I recommend you explore these pages thoroughly now and them bookmark and come back to each page to check for new opportunities every 2-4 weeks.

  1. Instrumentl
  2. GrantStation
  3. Candid
  4. WBENC (for women-owned businesses)
  5. Your state or local nonprofit association’s website (just Google it!)

How to Apply

As with all grants, my first piece of advice is to reach out to the grantmaker to see if it’s a good fit. If they give you the greenlight, make sure you answer all of the questions and provide all of the materials required. Make a compelling, concise, and convincing argument with every part of your application. (Here’s how we can teach you to do that.)

Now, my advice gets a bit more specific here. In a COVID-19 relief grant application, you definitely need to do the following:

  1. Be honest. Give the real numbers and anecdotes about how your work has been impacted. Don’t overstate it, but also don’t make it look like you’ll be just fine if you don’t get the funding. Funders understand that most nonprofits are in a crisis right now, so that won’t deter them from funding you as it might under normal circumstances. Remember, this is EMERGENCY grant funding. Explain why this is an emergency for your nonprofit.
  2. This pandemic has caused untold suffering. Some have suffered more than others, either because they actually lost their lives, or lost family, jobs, long-term health, school or daycare access, and the list goes on. 

Be sure that the language you use to describe the impacts on your nonprofit and/or your nonprofit’s beneficiaries reflects the level of suffering they’ve endured. No, it’s not all the same. As much as I lament not being able to put my son in daycare, I’m still alive, healthy, and financially secure. 

So I would describe my pandemic suffering as heartbreaking, devastating, or ruinous? No. I would describe it in appropriate terms like draining, wearying, or tiring. Also, a little sad because my son doesn’t get the social interaction of daycare. But you get my point. 

If like millions of women (and some men),  I had to quit my job and take care of my son full-time, then I would say it is a major financial, career, and mental health setback, maybe even financially ruinous for our family. I would say that for hundreds of thousands of women, it might actually be the death knell for their career and set women, as a whole, back a hundred years on the job market. (Whew, there are so many articles on that one.)

I hope this article was helpful to you. Please join the conversation over on our Facebook group.

If you’re looking for even more guidance on how to apply for grants, we’ve got you covered inside Grant Writing Made Easy, our comprehensive grant writing course.