The Four Questions That Decide Whether Anyone Will Fund You

Lee Domaszowec
5 days ago
6 min read

You can have a great idea and still never get funded. These four questions decide who will actually say yes, before you waste time asking the wrong people.

If funding feels harder than it should, it’s usually not your mission. It’s who you’re talking to.

Most funding failures have nothing to do with the quality of your work and everything to do with who you put your work in front of.

I’ve seen this pattern play out across nonprofits, early-stage businesses, and first-time founders for years. What I see most often isn’t bad ideas or weak missions.

It’s good people spending an enormous amount of time chasing money that was never going to come.

You can have the best business case of all time.You can write a beautiful grant.You can pitch perfectly.

And if you put it in front of the wrong people, they will not fund you.

Volunteers organizing donated goods together, illustrating nonprofit operations, community engagement, and effective resource management.

At PhoenixFire, when we look for funding, whether it’s for nonprofits, businesses, or early-stage initiatives, we always come back to the same four things:

Geography.

Capacity.

Propensity.

Affinity.

If one of these is off, finding funding can be nearly impossible.

Close-up of a map being referenced, symbolizing strategic planning, geographic outreach, and data-informed decision-making.

Geography

Geography is the easiest and it should always come first, but it’s also the one I see people overlook when they want to chase big dollars.

Are your funders where you are?Are they where you work?Are they where you’re trying to have impact?

In-person conversations convert better, every time. If you can’t reasonably meet someone in person or through a shared local connection, they’re rarely your best first funder.

Coffee beats a zoom, zoom beats a phone call, a phone call beats a DM, and a DM beats a cold email.

A local introduction beats a national application.

A short drive beats a flight you can’t afford.

If you have other jobs, other responsibilities, or you just don’t have enough time, it makes no sense to start by chasing people who are far away and have no connection to you.

For example, a client we work with is based in West Virginia. Their earliest funders were going to be in WV. The local community foundation, trusts, local banks, credit unions, businesses. People they might literally run into when they go out to their favorite Italian restaurant.

Then they received a grant from a national organization. Then another, and another. But there was a point where they hadn’t gotten support from further away. If they had based their entire success on funding sources from across the country, they wouldn’t exist today.

So, start close. Gain momentum and credibility first. Then expand the scope of your search.

Hands placing coins into a donation jar, representing grassroots fundraising, donor engagement, and sustainable financial support.

Capacity

Capacity determines gift size, and sometimes, if there will be a gift at all.

Does your funder have discretionary money? Is it their job to give it? How much can they give?

A lot of people love ideas. That doesn’t mean they can fund them. That’s okay. There are other ways they can help. But from a funding perspective, capacity matters.

Smart nonprofits and entrepreneurs find out if their funders have the money they need, and if they are able to give it. At PhoenixFire, we have access to a database that provides us with a wealth of prospecting information, including capacity. If your organization doesn’t have a resource like that, you can still estimate capacity by looking at public documents that provide you with some information.

When you know a funder’s capacity, you’re able to make a targeted ask at an amount that’s reasonable.

Without that research and a knowledge of their capacity, you risk asking too big and getting an outright “No way,” or you risk asking too low and missing out on a larger investment.

Early on, I generally like to start with smaller gifts, grants, or investments. Not because big gifts don’t matter, but because momentum matters. Once you have the social proof of a few smaller funders, it’s easier to make that larger ask.

That said, sometimes someone believes deeply and writes a $25,000 or $50,000 check. I’ve seen that happen.

American Access Institute started with one lead donor who said, “If you can get this off the ground, I’ll give you $25,000.” That changed everything for them.

Both paths exist. You just need to know which one you’re actually pursuing.

Two individuals engaged in conversation outdoors, reflecting relationship building, stakeholder communication, and community-centered leadership.

Propensity

Propensity means: does a funder actually give to organizations like yours?

Bank of America and Deutsche Bank have money. The Gates and Bezos foundations have money. McKenzie Scott gives away an enormous amount of money.

That doesn’t mean they fund brand-new organizations or early-stage founders.

This is where a lot of people waste time. If someone has never funded an organization at your stage, don’t expect them to suddenly start with you.

I’ve found that the largest financial institutions are rarely the best partners for startups or early-stage nonprofits. In contrast, local banks and credit unions behave very differently. They’re much more likely to sit down, have a conversation, and have programs designed to put money into the community.

Capacity without propensity goes nowhere.

A lot of people make the mistake of spending a ton of time chasing a big deal and missing the small wins. The right strategy is a mix. You get some quick, easier wins while you build relationships with larger funders over time.

Two professionals laughing and talking at a social gathering, highlighting authentic networking, partnership development, and relationship-driven growth.

Affinity

Affinity is simply this… Does the funder really like the type of work you’re doing?

Animal welfare funders are often different from international humanitarian funders. Education funders are different from social justice funders. There is overlap, but typically an individual donor supports 6 different causes and 4 are all within one category. Most trusts and foundations are the same. They have causes they like more than others, or even exclusively.

Sure, there are funders who would fund both an animal shelter in West Virginia and an international child nutrition program. There just aren’t many.

You want to be talking to people who lean in when they hear your mission, not people who politely nod. Cultivate relationships with organizations and people who have a strong affinity for your cause, and often, they can connect you with people who have a higher capacity and propensity to give.

Diverse team collaborating over documents at a shared table, representing strategic alignment, project planning, and organizational systems development.

When all four line up

When geography, capacity, propensity, and affinity line up, you’re finally in the right conversation.

At PhoenixFire, we score prospects with these four categories. A four is strong. A one is weak. We rank them and prioritize outreach.

Most of the real work, probably 80% of it, happens before we ever write a grant or sit in a meeting.

You can write the best proposal of your life and still fail if you put it in front of the wrong people.

That’s why so many smart, capable leaders burn out. They confuse rejection with failure, when it’s really just misalignment.

Confident professional smiling at the camera, representing approachable leadership, trust-building, and human-centered organizational work.

One thing people don’t like to talk about

Who you are matters.

Sometimes you’re the right person to have the conversation. Sometimes you’re not.

Sometimes you can say the right thing to the right person at the right time, but you’re the wrong person to say it.

That’s not a political statement and it’s not really about you. That’s just human nature.

People build rapport over things that often have nothing to do with your mission. Kids. Pets. Where you’re from. Shared interests.

I’ve built relationships talking about AI, blockchain, or growing up in Brooklyn that had nothing to do with the work we were funding, but everything to do with trust. There are other times I very purposefully take myself out of a conversation where someone else is better suited to have it.

Your ability to build connections to people is one of the strongest tools you have.

Know your strengths. Know your limitations. Remember that you can bring in someone else to have a conversation with a potential funder when they’re better suited to the moment.

What I personally would do next

If you’re early-stage, do this:

Write down everyone you think might fund you. Score them honestly on geography, capacity, propensity, and affinity. Use a 1 - 4 rating system. Focus first on the strongest mathematical matches.Get a couple of wins to build momentum before chasing big names.

The hardest grant or gift to get is the first one, by far. The second is a little easier. The third is a lot easier. Small wins create credibility. The first win makes bigger conversations possible.

Literally tell the next person “These people believe in us. They believe in this mission and our plan to make it happen. You might not know us yet but you know them. Give us a chance.”

If funding feels harder than it should right now it usually means you’re just talking to the wrong people, or in the wrong order.

And that’s a solvable problem.

If you want help applying this framework to your own organization, that’s exactly what we work through inside the PhoenixFire SPARK Community.

You can join us for more conversations about topics like this by applying here: www.phoenixfiresc.com/spark