A foundation grant signals that someone outside the organization is impressed with your work and willing to invest in your success. This can improve your credibility with the news media, local businesses, prospective major donors, and other foundations. Your opposition might even take you more seriously. Some grants, specifically challenge grants, are designed to help you raise more money. For example, a foundation may provide a grant on the condition that you match it, dollar for dollar, with donations from your members.
Challenge grants are very helpful in encouraging individual gifts.
I enjoy the detective work that goes into discovering new foundations and figuring out how best to approach them. I hope you will, too. By now, you should have a clear idea of both the problems and opportunities associated with grants. Keep writing your proposals, but find other ways to raise money, too. It is essential that in a fundraising plan there be built-in goals for obtaining funding from several different sources.