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These steps clarify the process of LAPA’s process in working with you to strengthen your grants program.

1.      LAPA begins by assembling from you all the necessary documents required to submit most grants—a comprehensive list will be provided.  We require that as many as possible of your past and current existing proposals be e-mailed to us or provided on disc, WORD compatible.

2.      Drawing from LAPA’s 200,000+ private foundation contacts, prospects are generated from our knowledge of your agency and the funder. We explore where the best matches may exist.  (Because we do not wish to be at cross-purposes with your efforts, we ask that you share your list of prospects and current funders with us.)

3.      LAPA then qualifies each of the prospects.  Qualification consists of research on the funders’ current interests (often different from what’s stated), a history of past gifts, and, sometimes, the creation of “shopping letters” that we send to the funder to access their reaction prior to any grant writing. We use shopping letters only for the most significant prospects.

4.      To prepare for a personal conversation with each foundation, we secure and read their Form 990 (tax form) to determine the range of past gifts. We also review the foundation’s board members to see if any personal contact exists with your agency.  The point of the phone call is to assure preexisting interest in your agency’s mission, programs and cause, long before proposal submission.  We also access the best time to submit.

5.      After the phone conversation, we determine if we should apply or not.  If we determine that we should apply, then LAPA works directly with your Development and/or Program staff to draw from existing proposals or create new ones to form a competitive grant proposal and package.  At the exact cost to us, LAPA provides graphic services to improve the presentation of your grant package if that is needed.

6. LAPA assures that the funders’ criteria are followed and that guidelines are met exactly, including the attachment of all supplemental information requested and sending the precise number of copies requested.  This assures that you are not easily rejected just for procedural issues, a common occurrence among non-profit agencies.

7. After the grant is sent, we record it on an Excel Revenue Report and your agency receives a quarterly report of all grant activities for your own internal use.

8. Each week LAPA sends your agency a copy of all grants that were sent that week via a Routing Memo.  We ask you to read the grants carefully and inform us of any inadvertent errors, so that these errors are not repeated in subsequent grants.  Also, we maintain a set of your agency’s foundation files at our office. These files are the property of your agency and are given over to you upon contract termination.

9. Within 12 business days of mailing, LAPA calls (or asks you to call) the foundation to make sure the grant was received.  We ask if they need any other information and when we might expect to hear something.  We ask if they would like to visit your agency, a rare occurrence.  Instead, personal contact, such as attending a conference where the funders are also participants, helps the funders get to know your agency better.

10.  If no word is heard within three months, we call again.  Often our calls are answered because LAPA has on-going relationships with the funders, but many funders do not return calls.  Our policy is that we try calling three times, we send a note, and then leave it at that.

11.  After submission, LAPA sends funders relevant updates, news articles, and invitations to events that might catch their attention and be relevant to their review.  It is your responsibility to provide us with such supplemental information.

12.   Should your agency be funded, you are responsible for the reporting function, not LAPA.  If we have an ongoing retainer contract, we would be glad to review drafts of your reports; in either case we need copies of all reports so that we can continuously work to improve the accuracy of your grants.