Diversifying Your Funding Portfolio

Yesterday, our Vice Chancellor for Research, Dr. Tom Flaig, gave our "state of the research" talk and in it showed how researchers at our Anschutz Medical Campus were largely funded by federal sources. It's great to see how successful our researcher are at agencies like the NIH, but it's still a good idea to diversify your funding sources. This can allow you new opportunities to find funding for projects you have brewing that aren't a good fit for the usual suspects.

Private foundations can be a good funding source to consider. However, the first challenge researchers face in considering private foundations, especially if you're used to going after R01s at NIH, is setting your sights quite a bit lower in terms of dollar amount.

Besides smaller funds, private foundation generally have the following attributes:

• They are unique and differentiated from one another in terms of mission, approach, cause, etc.
• They do not want to fund projects that are fund-able by federal or other public sources
• They want to fund projects that are innovative or even risky
• They want to fund projects that will further their specific cause
• They are sometimes a good place to find seed funding (when they see themselves as partners with government or institutional funders)

Susan M. Fitzpatrick and M. Bren Dolezalick expand on these attributes in their book chapter: Diversifying Your Portfolio: The Role of Private Funders in Writing Successful Grant Proposals: From the Top Down and Bottom Up.

In his book, The "How To" Grant Manual, David G. Bauer differentiates private foundations into four basic types:

National General Purpose: These organizations fund projects across the nation and are looking for research that will have an impact on a broad scale.  An example would be the Rockefeller Foundation.

Special Purpose: These define the scope of research they will fund much more narrowly and generally focus on one target area. An example would be the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (focused on American Health Care).

Community: These foundations focus on issues or areas of focus that are important to a particular region or community.  An example would be The Denver Foundation.

Family: These foundations are often created as memorials by a family and the projects they fund must be in line with the family's goals and ideologies.

Clearly, you want to understand the type of foundation that will be a good fit for your research based on the foundation's goals and your own.  But, private funding can serve as a good source for supplementary funding or initial funding as a seed grant.

For CU faculty, oftentimes you need to work with the Office of Advancement or through the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research when pursuing private foundation grants so that the university communications are coordinated and consistent, so be sure to check on the appropriate processes when pursuing a private foundation grant.

Resources:
Diversifying Your Portfolio: The Role of Private Funders
What is a private foundation?