March 2026

🥊March Matchups — Make Your Grants Portfolio Work Harder

March is where the year gets real.
Q1 momentum is building, deadlines are starting to stack, and the question becomes: Are you choosing the right opportunities—or just the next ones?

This month’s theme is March Matchups—because grant success isn’t only about writing well. It’s about picking battles you can actually win and punching above your weight. When your proposals go to funders that truly match your mission, capacity, and outcomes, your team spends less time scrambling…and more time getting funded.

In this issue, we’ll focus on two simple shifts that raise your odds:

1. choosing opportunities with strong fit and ROI (not luck), and
2. using funder “signal data” like success rates and typical award size to build a smarter, more resilient portfolio.

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Luck Is Not a Funding Strategy: How Nonprofits Actually Win Grants

“I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder* I work, the more I have of it.” — Thomas Jefferson (*bonus points for working smarter—not harder;).

Every March, we start hearing it:

“Wow, they’re so lucky — they keep winning grants.”

“They must know someone.”

“Right place, right time.”

But after working with dozens of organizations and hundreds of proposals, here’s the truth, while networking, timeliness, and luck can be factors:

Consistently funded nonprofits aren’t luckier. They’re more repeatable.

✍️ Grant Writing Tips:

Matchups That Make Sense: Use the Funder Match Checklist (So ROI Isn’t Left Completely to Chance)

Most grant teams don’t need more opportunities—they need better ones. If your calendar is driven by what’s open (or what’s urgent), it’s easy to end up with “busy” proposals that don’t pay off.

That’s why we created the Funder Match Worksheet: a quick tool to help you evaluate whether an opportunity is truly worth your time—based on fit, readiness, capacity, effort-to-award payoff, and relationship potential.

👉 Download and Use the Funder Match Worksheet!

Click HERE

Because your best grants year won’t come from luck—it’ll come from better matchups.

How to use the checklist tool this month:

-Pick 3 opportunities you’re considering right now.

-Run each through the checklist in ~10 minutes.

-Keep the “green flags,” be selective with the “yellows,” and confidently swipe left on the “reds.”

Grant Opportunities

Science of Science: Discovery, Communication and Impact (SoS:DCI)

Award Amount: Unspecified

Deadline: Rolling

Description: Supports research focused on advancing knowledge and theory on the social science of scientific discovery; theories, models and data improving our understanding of scientific communication; and how science advances evidence-based policymaking and public value.

Grants for Arts Projects

Award Amount: $10,000 - $100,000 ($30,000 to $150,000 for Local Arts Agencies subgranting projects)

Deadline: July 9, 2026 (Part 1), July 21, 2026 (Part 2)

Description: Enables Americans throughout the nation to experience the arts, foster and celebrate America’s artistic heritage and cultural legacy, and benefit from arts education at all stages of life; also supports arts and health programs, including creative arts therapies, that advance the well-being of people and communities.

(FORECASTED) Providers Clinical Support System - Universities

Award Amount: (TBD)

Estimated Post Date: March 16, 2026 (Deadline: TBD)

Description: Support States and Tribes in implementing suicide prevention and early intervention strategies for youth, up to the age of 24 years, in schools, educational institutions, juvenile justice systems, substance use and mental health programs, foster care systems, pediatric health programs, and other child- and youth-serving organizations.

(FORECASTED) Rural Health Network Advancement Program

Award Amount: Up to $500,000

Estimated Post Date: April 23, 2026

Estimated Deadline: June 23, 2026

Description: Bridges support to offset small scale structural barriers that make it difficult for rural providers to compete in an increasingly consolidated health care system landscape and is designed to help bring economic efficiencies to small independent rural entities.

The Standard’s Corporate Giving Program

Award Amount: $500-$25,000 (The average gift is $10,000.)

Deadline: Rolling (Decisions occur year-round.)

Description: Supports general operating, programming, capital, event sponsorship, exhibitions, and performance/production for organizations that align with one of our four focus areas: Healthy Communities, Disability and Empowerment, Cultural Development or Education and Advancement.

The FairWays Foundation Grant

Award Amount: $1,000-$25,000

Estimated Post Date: March 16, 2026

Estimated Deadline: May 15, 2026

Description: 2026 grant window opens soon with an anticipated deadline of April 30, 2026

Description: Funds projects that focus on golf course or other properties managed for turf & ornamentals that improve or change maintenance practices to reduce water use or increase water quality, change maintenance practices to benefit native ecosystems, or focus on informing the community about the problems, efforts, and future of water use and availability.

Strengthening Community Colleges Training Grants

Award Amount: $6,500,000 - $10,800,000

Deadline: May 20, 2026

Description: 2026 grant window opens soon with an anticipated deadline of April 30, 2026

Description: Round 6 of the Strengthening Community Colleges (SCC or SCC6) grants will fund community colleges, with a singular focus on building program and system capacity for implementing and scaling access to short-term training opportunities through Workforce Pell Grants—i.e., promoting industry-driven strategies, worker mobility, and integration with the larger state workforce system (e.g., Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) partners) for statewide impact

🎉 Grant Win Alert! 🎉

Purpose: Advance the career of a pre-tenure faculty member by developing the PI’s research program investigating the effects of native environment and external stressors on diatom light harvesting.

Success Total: $249,917

Carinci Consulting Role: Reviewer

Lessons Learned:

Lessons Learned: Success Rates Aren’t Gambling Odds—They’re Strategy

Grant success rates aren’t just interesting stats—they’re a signal. When you understand where funding is most competitive (and where it’s surprisingly attainable), you can design a grant portfolio that respects your staff time, increases your odds, and strengthens long-term impact.

What we’re seeing: Many nonprofits default to federal and well-known private foundations because those opportunities feel familiar and widely available. But that same familiarity often means heavier competition. Meanwhile, funders like state and local agencies and professional associations/societies can sometimes offer stronger odds—or better “effort-to-award” payoff—especially for organizations aligned with their specific missions and communities.

Here are a few high-leverage takeaways to apply as you plan the rest of 2026:

1. Diversify your funder mix to reduce risk. A healthier pipeline usually includes a blend: federal + foundations + state/local + corporate + associations. Diversity isn’t just stability—it’s often higher cumulative win probability.

2. Match your effort to the award size (and typical grant size). A proposal that takes 60 hours to write should compete for funding that meaningfully advances your mission and covers full costs—not just “nice to have” dollars.

3. Tailor to funder priorities and funder patterns. Look at what they consistently fund, what they tend to award (range and type), and how your program fits their history—not just their headline priorities.

4. Use systems and tools to track opportunities and outcomes. The organizations that improve year over year are the ones that track: what they applied to, how long it took, what they won, what they lost, and why.

5. Remember: data has limits—alignment still wins. Success-rate information is directional, not destiny. Your best odds come from the overlap of fit + readiness + capacity + a strong story.