If I Was Your Grant Writer, I’d Tell You to Stop Only Calling When You Need Money

Grant stewardship is one of those nonprofit terms that sounds way more complicated

than it actually is. At its core, stewardship is simply how you maintain and strengthen your relationship with a funder after they give you a grant. It includes the obvious stuff, like submitting reports on time, but good stewardship goes beyond checking boxes. It’s keeping funders connected to the work they invested in, sharing what their support made possible, and communicating with them when you don’t need something.

Now, here’s where a lot of organizations screw it up: You got the grant! You celebrated, signed the agreement, added the reporting deadline to your calendar, and got to work. Then, somewhere along the way, the funder who gave you the money disappeared from your radar until it was time to submit a report or ask for another grant.

If I was your grant writer, I’d tell you we need to fix that, starting today. In fact, here are three things you should do:

1. Send a no-ask email: Choose one current funder and send them a quick update about something their funding helped make possible recently. If you have a picture to include, even better! Maybe you hit a milestone, launched a new program, or heard something meaningful from a participant. Keep it short and, most importantly, don’t ask for anything. I promise you’re allowed to email a funder without money being involved.

2. Share a story from the work: Your reports need data, but your funders are humans. If you have a participant story, quote, photo, or small moment that shows what their investment looks like in real life, share it with them. It doesn’t need to be packaged into a beautiful impact report to be meaningful, either. Sometimes a two-paragraph email and a great photo do the job just fine!

3. Send an invitation: Have an open house, community event, program graduation, or other opportunity coming up? Invite them! They may not attend, and that’s okay. You’re giving them an opportunity to see and experience the work they helped fund without attaching another ask to the invitation. No sponsorship packet. No “while I have you…” Just an invitation.

In all honesty, a strong grant strategy isn’t just about finding new funders and making educated requests. It’s also about taking care of the relationships you’ve already worked so hard to build.

Will good stewardship guarantee a renewal? Of course not, but it keeps funders connected to your mission, helps them understand the impact of their investment, and gives you the opportunity to build a genuine relationship instead of popping back into their inbox once a year like, Heyyyy, remember us? Can we have another $50,000?

So, if I was your grant writer, I’d give you one very easy assignment today: pick one funder and do at least one thing on this list. Seriously. One email, one story, or one invitation. You can probably knock it out before your next meeting.

Point blank, your stewardship strategy doesn’t need to be fancy. It just needs to exist, because if the only time you talk to your funders is when you need money, that’s not much of a relationship, is it?