Reveal

A couple weeks ago, I saw an RFP looking for a grant writer to apply for 30 RFPs a month.

Thirty. A month.

I don't know what business they were in, but those responses were completely written by AI with zero donor or client specificity and they weren't getting funded.

This is the opposite of REVEAL. The second step in the ARCH model. The key to REVEAL is alignment.

Alignment between your organization, the donor or funder, and what they're trying to accomplish with their support.

I use systematic tools to clarify alignment possibilities: foundation spreadsheets with a simple three tier alignment, qualification scorecards to identify fit, and AI tools to extract meaning from disparate grants.

My philosophy: It's better to submit 2 high-quality, well-aligned grants than 5 mediocre ones.

Let me show you a simple example.

Let's say you run a peer-led health navigation program for homeless people.

Your differentiator, identified under ANALYZE, is that your services are delivered by people with lived experience, and your data shows 3x higher engagement than traditional clinical models.

You see RFPs from two foundations:

Foundation A. Requests outreach services to homeless populations. The foundation has typically funded facility-based services, with past grantees including FQHCs, hospital systems, and academic medical centers. Language in their RFP: ' clinical interventions.' Average grant: $500K.

Foundation B. Funds community-based organizations using innovative engagement models. Past grantees: Peer-led programs, grassroots organizations. Language: 'community-driven solutions, centering lived experience.' Average grant: $200K.

Which should you pursue?

Foundation B is obvious, right?

But the grant from Foundation A is more money and the peer navigation program leads to improved clinical outcomes! (I know some growth officers who think this way...)

Which, sure. And also, you're not being responsive to what Foundation A actually funds. They fund FQHCs and hospitals. Their language is about clinical interventions. Their past grantees are clinical providers. You're a community-based organization with a peer-led model. That's not alignment.

You could spend weeks crafting a proposal showing how peer navigation improves clinical outcomes. You could cite research. You could build a compelling logic model. And you'd still lose. Because Foundation A doesn't fund organizations like yours.

REVEAL isn't just 'find funders who fund health.' It's about three things.

Research what donors actually fund.

Don't just read their website's program descriptions.

Look at their 990s (for private foundations).

Check their grants databases (for public funders).

See who they've funded in the past 2-3 years. What types of organizations? (Budget size, geography, structure)

What approaches? (Clinical? Community-based? Policy advocacy?)

What's the average grant size? If they say they fund 'health equity' but every grantee is a hospital system with a $50M budget, and you're a $2M community org, that's not alignment.

An Austrian who died 75 years ago knew a lot about foundation research

Understand their priorities, not just their program areas.

One of my favorite quotes is from Joseph Schumpter, “The budget is the skeleton of the state, stripped of all misleading ideologies”.

Or more simply, as Joe Biden put it, “Show me your budget and I’ll tell you what you value.”

Invest time where you're positioned to win.

This is the hardest part of REVEAL. It means saying NO to low probability opportunities and investing more in high probability ones.

Most nonprofits do the opposite: they chase everything and win little.

Before writing any proposal (or even an LOI), I ask three questions:

Does this funder's actual grant history show they fund organizations like us? (Organizations with our structure, approach, budget size, and philosophy.)

Does their language match our language? (If they emphasize clinical care and we emphasize peer support, that's a mismatch.)

Can we make a unique, credible case for why WE should win this? (Our differentiators.)

If you can't answer yes to all three, don't apply. Save your time for opportunities where you're genuinely positioned to win.

ANALYZE is about knowing yourself. REVEAL is about knowing your donors.