Executive & Development Directors
If one or two funders changed direction next quarter, would you already know which funders could realistically replace them?
Most leaders cannot. And more applications to more funders, is producing more denials, not more confidence. The Grant Funding Viability Assessment gives you the answer instead: whether grants can realistically fund your mission, and the first funders to verify, each already backing organizations like yours.
Start the Assessment →$79 one-time. Your EIN and one line about your org is all it takes. In your hands in 48 hours.
In your hands in 48 hours, or a full refund.
$79 and five minutes now, or the next 200 staff hours spent researching, writing, and defending funders that were never a real fit. One of those buys you the answer before the hours go in.
"We had names. We did not have a pipeline. That one was on us. That was two years ago. We're still recovering."
Executive Director, $1.6M youth services nonprofit, San AntonioWhat arrives in 48 hours (sample, details changed)
Your position: Pressured but Well-Supported. The call: build against it.
With the pipeline math sized to your revenue and the first funders to verify, each shown with a real grant it made to an organization like yours.
For nonprofits with $150K to $10M in revenue.
Before you build a grant calendar, one question deserves an hour of focused thought: what role can grants actually carry in your budget? Not someday, in this cycle. The Assessment answers it with evidence, not assumption, before staff time is committed, not after.
The reframe
A funder list tells you funders exist. It cannot tell you whether the math works.
Any database can hand you names. What no list can show: whether funders at your size actually give at sizes that matter, how many of them have backed organizations like yours more than once, how many wins, applications, and warm relationships a meaningful grant role would take, and whether your runway covers the time it takes to build that. A list is a pile of possibilities. The Assessment is the analysis that turns it into a decision, and it says plainly what the record supports, including when the answer is no.
The expensive mistake
The cost is not a rejected application. It is the program you cut when a funder steps back and nothing is ready behind them.
The visible mistake is the wasted cycle: six weeks building a grant calendar around funders who were never a real fit. That costs staff time. The expensive mistake arrives later: a major funder changes direction, the renewal that was in the budget does not come, and there is no pipeline behind it. Now the cost is the mission: programs trimmed, staffing decided under pressure, and a year spent replacing money instead of delivering.
Your funding, funder by funder (illustrative)
Today: a few funders carry the budget
One changes direction
The pipeline that fills the gap
The Assessment sizes that pipeline for your organization, before you need it.
And the market is less forgiving than it was: 69% of nonprofits reported funding cuts in 2025, while 87% of foundation leaders report rising demand for the grants they give.
The clock makes it worse. A new institutional funder relationship takes about six months to develop before an application makes sense; a current funder changing priorities may give you one quarter's notice. So the arithmetic is simple: a funder relationship you do not start this quarter cannot rescue next year's budget.
The Assessment shows whether a credible next path to funding exists at your size, at what award sizes, and which named funders to start warming first, while the time to build it is still yours.
Sources: Center for Effective Philanthropy, A Sector in Crisis (2026) and State of Nonprofits 2026.
What you get
The first funders to verify, and whether the plan behind them holds.
Every $79 Assessment ends with a named shortlist: the first 3 to 5 funders to verify, each supported by a real grant it made to an organization like yours. Not a keyword match: the funders most worth staff time first, with the public record behind each one. Around that shortlist, the Assessment gives your board a decision it can actually weigh: your funding scored 0 to 100, the pipeline your goal would take, your real runway in months, and one clear call, build against it, narrow it, or hold. In your hands in 48 hours. Here is what that looks like, in real cases with identifying details changed.
Sample Assessment / details changed
Your Funding Viability Index
One public-record number for how the funding behind your mission looks today, a plain-English read of what it means, and the first moves it points to.
Your position: Pressured but Well-Supported. The call: build against it.
When Sharke's read of the evidence supports a credible grant-funded path, the Assessment says build against it, and hands you the call, the math, and the named funders to start with:
And when the evidence cannot support the number as stated, the Assessment says so plainly, with the resize that fixes it, before the calendar is committed:
The real deliverable, with one organization's identifying details changed. This is what lands in your inbox in 48 hours.
From a beta participant
"Our largest renewal did not come through. We had names in Salesforce and no one we could actually call to fill the gap. We trimmed a program to make the year work. That was eighteen months ago. I still feel like I disappointed the community. I was part of the beta with Sharke and this time I got named funders already backing organizations like ours… and a straight answer on whether the numbers worked at our size before we built another calendar. That is what I wish I had eighteen months ago."
Executive Director, $2.1M human services nonprofit, Dallas, TXThe decision you receive
Build against it, narrow the path first, or do not plan around this yet.
Build against it
Sharke's read supports a credible grant-funded path, and the Assessment names the move: press the advantage. Build the pipeline against the named funders deliberately, not under pressure, and work toward multi-year commitments while the position is strong. Live verification of the first 3 to 5 funders turns the shortlist into a pursuit path.
Narrow the path first
Grants can play a role, but not the one assumed: the market at your size is too thin, or real award sizes are too small, to carry the number as stated. The Assessment shows which constraint is binding and the resize that fixes it: a smaller grant role, a longer timeline, or a path to funding that blends the largest foundations with the federal and state programs your field's foundations cannot match.
Do not plan around this yet
The evidence does not support grants playing a significant role yet, and the Assessment says so plainly, with what to protect first: extend the unrestricted runway, stabilize the near-term clock, and reshape the funding plan before staff time is committed. You keep the public-record starting point to build from when the position is stronger.
Every call arrives with a named read of your position, Resilient, Thin-Reserve, Pressured but Well-Supported, and the sequenced first moves it points to. And more Assessments come back "narrow" or "not yet" than teams expect. That answer is the protective one: it is the moment leadership avoids building a funding plan around a path the evidence does not support, with months still left to choose.
You leave with a plan, not a diagnosis. Not "here is what we found," but "here is where we begin": the call, the first moves for the next cycle, and the first 3 to 5 funders to verify. Planning assumptions, not predictions.
See which call your record points to →Where the read comes from
One EIN in. A full funding analysis out: your position, your field, and the funder market at your size.
3.8M+grant award records behind the funder-market read
We start from your EIN and one line on what your org does. The Assessment then builds three reads and runs them against each other: your own multi-year filings; a field cohort of roughly 50 organizations at your size and mission; and the record of who actually funded organizations like yours, at what sizes, how recently, and whether they came back. No single one of those is hard to find. Reading them against each other is the analysis: your runway against your field's, the market's real award sizes against the grant your pipeline needs, funder depth against the pipeline math. That is what turns public records into a decision. Every figure cites the source it came from, so you can check it yourself, and it reaches past the 990s everyone stops at: federal and state award records, and the institutional grant record of who actually funded organizations like yours. Where the public record is too thin to be honest, the Assessment says so, instead of dressing it up.
The pipeline math, from a real Assessment (details changed)
Planning assumptions sized to revenue and the cohort's real award sizes, not a prediction of awards.
I sign off on every Sharke read myself. I have spent my career replacing gut calls with data: how the largest financial institutions set their global IT footprint, when mergers and acquisitions create value instead of destroying it, and which grants are worth winning, at for-profit and nonprofit organizations from NIH, NSF, and USDA to Meta and Google. I have done that work across the private sector and the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Collin Brown / Wharton MBA / Author, "AI You Can Actually Trust" (Amazon Top 50 Business Bestseller) / Selected for NVIDIA Inception 2026Who runs it
Run the Assessment if one or two funders materially affect your ability to staff, plan, or deliver programs.
- → If a major funder changed direction, the mission would be exposed, and you do not have a clear backup path to funding
- → You know you need to diversify, but not which funders are realistic or how deep the market runs
- → Your board has asked for a funding-resilience plan and you do not have a solid answer
- → You have heard funders are shifting priorities and have not tested whether that risk applies to you
- → You want to know, before the budget is locked, what it would take for grants to meaningfully fund your mission
You need to know whether the funding plan underneath the mission is real, before the board, budget, or staffing plan locks in.
You need evidence to tell leadership which funders deserve staff time, which require cultivation, and which to not build the calendar around.
Before you start
The questions buyers ask first, answered straight.
Do I have to gather documents?
No. The Assessment is built from the public record: your own IRS Forms 990, a field cohort of roughly 50 organizations at your size and mission, and the visible institutional grant record. You give us your EIN and one line about what your org does. About five minutes of your time, total.
Is this a grant list?
No, and that is the point. The funders named in your Assessment have actually backed organizations like yours in the public record, each shown with the real grant behind it. The Assessment tells you whether the path to funding is credible, the pipeline it would take, and which funders to verify first, so staff time goes where the evidence is, not to a keyword match.
What if the answer is no?
Then it protected your next two quarters. The Assessment shows you why: the specific gap between the grant sizes your plan needs and what your field's funders actually pay, how deep the visible market runs at your size, and what it would take to close it. More Assessments come back "narrow" or "not yet" than teams expect. That answer is the one that saves staff time and gives your board evidence instead of an assumption. It is worth $79 to know that early.
How current is the information?
The public record runs on filing lag, and it cannot show whether a funder is giving this year. The Assessment is honest about that boundary: every funder arrives marked for verification, and where the public record stops is exactly where live verification, the Verified Pipeline, begins.
What if we have limited filing history?
The Assessment reads strongest when your organization has three or more years of IRS filings behind it. If your record is thinner than that, the Assessment does not pad the gaps: it gives you the read the record supports and says plainly where the record stops. That boundary is part of the answer. It tells leadership how firmly the plan can lean on the public record today, and what has to be built before it can lean harder.
Two Mondays from now
You walk into the next board meeting with a plan, not a hope.
Not "we are working on diversifying." A number your board can weigh, a clear call on the grant plan, and three to five funders already backing organizations like yours, each with the real grant they made. The room stops asking whether the funding is real and starts deciding what to do about it. That is what $79 and five minutes buys you.
Start the Grant Funding Viability Assessment.
Get your Funding Viability Index before budget planning closes. Tell us your organization, and if you know the share of revenue you hope grants can carry, send that too. Your Assessment is in your hands in 48 hours.
Every week the grant number goes untested, the calendar, the staffing plan, and the cultivation work keep forming around it. The budget locks either way. When it does, you will either know what role grants can carry, or you will be committing staff time blind. One of those happens.
Once the calendar is built, reversing course is expensive: development is already in conversations, and the board already knows the number it approved. The answer takes 48 hours. Acting on it takes two quarters. The only thing worth doing slowly is the part you cannot speed up.
A board-ready answer before the cycle is locked in. The $79 founding rate rises to $99 on September 1. Median institutional grant: public grant record (IRS Schedule I), Sharke analysis.
$79, once. In your hands in 48 hours. Less than a rounding error on the grant budget you are about to build, and it tells you whether that budget is real before you commit a quarter of staff time to it.
Delivered within 48 hours of your completed intake, or a full refund. And every Assessment ends in a clear call on your grant plan: build against it, narrow it, or do not plan around it yet. If yours does not, tell us and we will take another look.
What happens after you pay
Start the Assessment below. Secure checkout, $79 once.
Tell us your organization: your EIN and one line about what you do. About five minutes.
Within 48 hours your Assessment arrives: your Index, the call, the pipeline math, and the funder shortlist to verify. Board-ready.
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Before the next grant calendar is built, leadership needs one answer: what role can grants actually carry?
In 48 hours, you will know whether to build against it, narrow it, or not plan around it yet. That changes the next board conversation.