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Nonprofits Invited to Connect to New Funding Resource

A new channel has recently become available for nonprofits to streamline their search for foundation funding. Developed by the firm Foundation Source, which provides support services for nearly 1,000 private foundations, the network is known as Foundation Source Access.

Instead of writing and submitting a variety of proposals separately to numerous foundations, nonprofits can create their own profiles and fundraising project pages where they can incorporate a variety of media, including text, photos, videos, documents, web links and up-to-the-minute news. A built in community of private foundations can then search the project directory by cause, nonprofit category, geography, and project size and then give to a nonprofit in a simple, single application.

The average nonprofit spends 20 - 25% of its budget on fundraising, according to Andrew Bangser, President of Foundation Source. The ability to post its information on a site such asAccess can save considerable time and money for the nonprofit, in addition to helping it reach the attention of an often overlooked or inaccessible pool of funders, he explained:

Foundation Source Access encourages nonprofits searching for new funding sources to look beyond the largest institutional foundations and extend their reach to the largely untapped market of small and medium-sized foundations run by individuals and families. There are over 80,000 private and family foundations which collectively donate an impressive $40 billion a year to charitable organizations, with many giving to new grantees each year.

In planning the Foundation Source Access network, explained Michele Demers Gluck, Director at Foundation Source and supervisor of the Access product, they sought to provide their client foundations with an effective way to focus in on nonprofits that would be a close match to both their interests and their resources.

The online giving marketplace has grown rapidly, and private foundations increasingly look for new ways to find smart investments that match their interests.

Its designers also see Access as an innovative philanthropy information network, allowing nonprofit and foundation peers to share lessons learned and strategic insights. Increasingly, foundations seek peer inputs on nonprofits they've found especially effective. What's more, donors are often eager to see their own support multiplied by sharing information on worthwhile causes with other potential supporters.

Over 600 nonprofits are currently signed up for Access, and any US charitable 501 (c) 3 organization can now create a profile highlighting its projects to potential donors. Starting in the summer of 2011, nonprofits will be charged a small fee to showcase their funding ideas directly to Foundation Source clients. Nonprofits can visit access.foundationsource.com and click on Register to create their own profiles, which will then be available for the network's funders to review. onPhilanthropy previewed a demonstration of Access, where nonprofits focused on projects ranging from education to clean water to disaster relief in Haiti have posted their information to make it readily available to the member foundations. Nonprofits will also be able to update information on projects in real time, simplifying reporting and providing an opportunity to let donors - current and potential - know about their progress.

 

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