Who This Page Is For
You give grants, or you are about to, and you have not yet decided how grantees will come to you. You might run a family fund, a foundation, or a donor-advised fund with a few staff or none. The choice sets how much work you carry, who gets considered, and who never hears about you. This page compares an open call, a direct invitation and a nomination process, then helps you pick one for your next round.
The Short Answer
Choose by what you are short of. If you are short of reach, use an open call or nominations. If you are short of staff time, use invitations or nominations. An open call gives the widest access and takes the most work, and it can favor organizations that are already established. An invitation keeps the workload small and lets you build a relationship, but it risks implicit bias, because you can only invite who you know. Nominations borrow other people's networks to find groups you would otherwise miss, at the price of trusting the nominators. Many funders mix two methods, and nothing stops you from using a different one next year.
How They Differ
The real difference is how a candidate first reaches you: you announce an opportunity, you go and ask, or somebody else points the way.
| Open call | Direct invitation | Nomination | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who finds the candidate | The applicant, after a public announcement | You | A third party you trust |
| Workload for you | Highest, because you screen everyone who applies | Lowest, because you pick a short list | Moderate, because you vet the people named |
| Fairness and bias risk | Open to all, though established groups often have the edge | Highest risk of implicit bias | Depends on who you ask to nominate |
| Reach | Widest | Narrowest, bounded by your own circle | Wider than invitations |
| Speed to funding | Slowest | Fast | Fast |
The speed row needs care. Streamlined grant processes can get funds to grantees in under a month, so any of the three can be quick if you keep the paperwork small. What slows an open call is the volume you must read, not the method itself.
In an open call you announce, and any organization that meets your criteria can apply. In a direct invitation you identify organizations you know or have researched and ask them to apply. In a nomination, an expert or partner suggests a group that may be a good fit and is not yet on your radar. That last route is a practical way to find organizations that implicit bias would otherwise keep hidden from you.
How to Decide
Work through these four questions in order. Stop when one gives you a clear answer.
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Do you need to reach beyond your usual circle? If yes, lean toward an open call or nominations. If your circle already holds everyone you want to fund, an invitation is enough. Funders are advised to look past their usual circles precisely because the groups outside them are the ones that get overlooked.
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Can your team handle a large number of applications? If not, choose invitations or nominations, which limit the numbers from the start. If you want an open call anyway, put a short letter of intent first. It tells you whether funding is likely before you ask anyone for a full proposal, which spares your staff and the applicants a great deal of writing.
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How much do you want to ask of applicants? Whatever the method, you can lighten the load. Accept proposals and reports that were written for other funders. Ask only for what you need and cannot find elsewhere. Invite a proposal the group has already prepared in place of a new form.
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How will you check who they are? Public records can tell you a prospective grantee's purpose, programs, leadership and financial standing. In an open call, do that check at the screening stage. In an invitation, do it before you write to the group. Nominations fall in between: check the group, and also ask yourself why the nominator thinks it fits. Small or informal groups may leave little in public records, so for them a short conversation can do the job that a records search does for others.
A rule of thumb: the more you want to hear from people you have never met, the more of the work you take on yourself. Open calls push that work onto you and onto the applicants. Nominations and invitations move it into your own research, which you can plan and cap.
Then look at your criteria. Revisit them to be sure they do not favor established or well-funded organizations, because a method that reaches new groups does no good if the criteria turn them away at the end.
Worked Example
This is an illustration, not a real case. A small funder wants to support early-stage community groups in one region. Its team is two people. An open call would bring in a stack of applications they cannot read well, and they suspect it would favor the groups with a professional grant writer, which is the opposite of what they want.
They decide on two routes. The first is nomination. They ask a few partners who work closely with grassroots groups to name organizations doing good work that no funder seems to have noticed. Those names come with context, so the funder can vet a short list instead of screening a crowd.
The second route is invitation, for a few groups the team has already researched through public records. Here they drop the formal application. Where a group has already written a proposal for someone else, they ask for that. And they put time into learning about the work in person: visiting offices, attending sessions the groups lead, and holding phone or video calls. A conversation shows what the group does and how it thinks, and it costs the group an hour, not a week of writing. The funder still asks for a short written update from time to time, but it no longer relies on reports alone.
Notice what the team gave up. They will never see every group in the region, and they accept that. What they gained is a process two people can run well, with time left over to be useful to the groups they pick.
The result is a funder that reaches beyond its own network without opening a flood it cannot manage. If the team later gets more help, it could add a letter-of-intent stage and an open call for a second round.
Common Mistakes
- Relying only on an open call. It feels the fairest, yet it can bring a heavy workload and tilt toward organizations that can afford professional grant help. Pair it with nominations to reach smaller groups.
- Ignoring implicit bias. If you only invite groups you already know, you miss the ones you do not. Ask a varied set of people for nominations, and revisit your criteria.
- Over-requesting information. Asking for data you can read in public records adds work for the applicant and for you. Ask only for what you need and cannot find.
- Insisting on a bespoke form. A new document for every grant discourages small groups. Accepting proposals written for other funders reduces the burden.
Before You Decide
Run through these before you announce anything. Each box you cannot tick is a place where the method you chose may not do what you hoped.
- I have revisited my criteria and they do not favor established or well-funded organizations.
- I have named people outside my usual circle who could nominate groups.
- I have decided whether I will accept proposals and reports written for other funders.
- I know how I will check a group's purpose, leadership and finances in public records.
- If I run an open call, I have planned a short letter of intent to screen before full proposals.