Setting up your project correctly on Instrumentl is one of the most important things you can do to ensure you discover the best grants & funders for your organization. Having a strong project will allow you to:
Easily surface good-fit funders and opportunities
Weed out irrelevant matches
Prospect quickly and efficiently
Create a new project or edit an existing project
To create a new project, select + Project at the top left of your screen.
To edit an existing project, click the three dots next to the project name and select Edit.
Project Overview
On the first page, you'll choose the Project Name, Keywords, Project Lead, and Project Type.
Project Name
This is the name you want to give to your project and is exclusively for your own organizational purposes. For example, if you are searching for grants for a specific educational program at your organization, you may want to call your project 'Educational program' or 'Educational program grants'.
Select Keywords
Add relevant keywords to help us surface the best-fit grants and funders for your org's fundraising goals.
Describe your project in detail and then select Generate keyword suggestions.
You can also select + Add keywords manually if you'd like to adjust generated keywords or skip the description and browse categories instead.
ℹ️ For more guidance choosing keywords, read How to select the best field of work keywords for your project
Project Lead
Select the person on your team who will be primarily in charge of prospecting or tracking grants within this project.
❗The location(s) where your organization/client is registered according to your Organization/Client Profile is considered the Location of Residency, and it will affect which grants and funders will be your Matches. You can adjust this under Account > Organization Profile/Client Profiles.
Note: When it comes to receiving email notifications about this project (upcoming deadlines, funder updates & new matches ), everyone on the team receives notifications by default. You can adjust your notification settings so that only the Project Lead receives these emails.
Project Type
Matches & Tracking: If you'd like new Opportunity and Funder Matches plus our tracking features, choose Matches & Tracking. Next, select Save and Continue.
Tracking: If you'd only like to track grants and funders and do not want to generate Matches, select Tracking then Save and Exit.
Matches Setup
If you selected Matches &Tracking, you'll proceed to the 2nd and last page for project setup. This covers: Applicant Type, Faith-Based Grants, Location of Project, Fields of work, Grant size, Funding Use, and Funder types.
Applicant Type
Select from this list the type of organization you are. Since Instrumentl is designed for 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations, be sure to select an organizational applicant type from the first portion of the list before potentially selecting an applicant type from the "individuals" portion at the bottom of the list.
For instance, if you'd like to see grants for individual artists or working professionals, select Nonprofit → Working Professional → Artist.
Note: If you're a specific type of nonprofit, like a Museum, select the more specific option only if it is available. For example, if you're Museum, select only Museum/Library/Zoo (do not select Nonprofit as well). This will ensure you won't see grants that specifically exclude your specific applicant type (funders who give grants to nonprofits, but not museums, e.g.).
Faith-Based Grants
If you are a faith-based organization, select 'Yes' to the question 'Would you like to see grants specifically for faith-based organizations?' Otherwise, leave this as 'No'.
If you are a faith-based organization and selected 'Yes' to the question above, you'll see another series of questions appear.
Indicating that your organization is a House of Worship will ensure you don't see grants that specifically exclude houses of worship from applying, which will optimize your results and save you time.
For the drop down that says 'What kind of grants would you like to see?', select 1 of 3 options:
Grants for faith-based and secular programs: Select this option if you provide two kinds of programming/services: a) faith-based programs for your faith community and b) programs for the broader community that are not directly/explicitly related to your faith (e.g., a food distribution service for the homeless that doesn't involve any faith-based education)
Grants for faith-based programs only: Select this option if your programming is primarily targeted at your faith community or involves evangelizing or faith education or any kind. This will ensure you don't see grants from funders who specifically exclude these kinds of activities from their funding and will improve your results.
Grants for secular programs only: Select this option if your programming/services are specifically for the broader community and are not faith-based in their nature.
Finally, select all applicable Religious affiliations.
Location of Project
In this field, select the specific location(s) where your organization's programs & services take place. Note that this can be different from where your organization is physically based or registered (i.e., Location of Residency).
Important things to note:
There is no limit to the number of locations entered (keep in mind that more locations generally = more Matches to look through since this broadens the geographic range).
As much as possible, select county-specific locations (even if it's time-consuming, it will be worth it to get the most optimal Matches). Selecting a specific county does not prevent you from seeing funders who give grants to nonprofits anywhere in your state or even anywhere in the US (you'll still see those grants). Only select your entire state if you truly work in every single county - grants for specific counties inside your state will not be considered in this instance.
If your work is national in scope and you do not want to see any location-specific grants, select the option 'My project is national in scope'. If you work nationally but would still like to see grants for specific locations (such as funders interested in the city or county where your organization is based), select 'My project takes place in specific states or counties in the U.S.' and then add the locations you are specifically interested in. You will still see opportunities that are national in scope in addition to opportunities specific to those locations.
You also have the option of selecting international locations exclusively or in addition to US-based locations:
Miscellaneous
For Art-Oriented Organizations
If you selected any art-oriented keywords, you'll see another field appear in your project form:
For Environment or Animal-Oriented Organizations
If you selected any environment- or animal-related keywords, you'll see additional fields appear which allow you to select specific plants, animals and/or ecosystems as needed. Only fill out these fields if you truly only work on one or more specific plant or animal species, or in a particular ecosystem (forests or marine environments).
Grant Size
If you only want to see grants above or below a particular $ amount in your Matches, you can add a minimum and/or maximum grant size here. Keep in mind that you can later sort your grants by 'Amount', so it may be wise to keep this range broad so you aren't missing out on potentially promising opportunities.
Funding Use
Under 'What will you use the funds for?', select all the funding uses that are relevant to your organization or project:
Tips:
Select as many options as may be relevant to capture a broad range of grants. You can always filter your matches by funding use later.
If you're looking for general operating/unrestricted funds, we suggest selecting 'General Operating Expenses' as well as 'Project/Program' and/or 'Education/Outreach' (if you're an education organization). Funders often want to provide restricted funding first (i.e., funding that will be used to run a specific program or for a specific purpose), but once they've awarded you a few years in a row and built a relationship with your organization, they may be open to providing unrestricted funding.
If you're looking for capital project funding, select both 'Capital Project' and 'Project/Program'. Funders who broadly fund projects/programs may be open to funding capital projects (they may just not explicitly mention it in their grant description). When reviewing your Matches, be sure to read the Ineligibility section of the grant pages to see if the funder specifically excludes capital project funding. If not, check the past grantee list in their 990 to see if they've funded capital projects in the past. If you can't get a clear picture from their 990 or website, you can always contact the funder directly to inquire.
Funder Type
The final section asks you to select the types of funder(s) you'd like to be matched with.
Keep in mind that you can later sort your Matches by 'Funder type', so it may be wise to either keep this range broad so you aren't missing out on potentially promising opportunities, or narrow if you'd like to pare down your matches pool.
Congrats! You've just created a strong project that will automatically generate relevant Matches and continually surface new Matches! You can always adjust your project setup at any time to update your matches accordingly.
Now that you've created the perfect project, you can import your historical grants from before Instrumentl to your Project Tracker. See how here.
Contact Us 
Reach out to our friendly Support team if you have any questions about creating projects. Message us via the chat bubble when you're logged in, or email us at hello@instrumentl.com.