What Should Your Win Rate Be?
Win rates – the percentage of applications submitted that are awarded – come up a lot in grant work. It’s a common metric that can be a little misleading if you don’t unpack the concept a bit. Not everyone recommends using a win rate as an organizational metric for grants, but I actually do, as long as organizations are getting helpful information from it. Here’s how to make sure your organization does:
First up, start with the right baseline. What is a ‘good’ win rate? I like to take the value away from this conversation to instead make the baseline for winning grants the average – which ranges from 10% to 30%, depending on the age of the organization, history of grant management, and financial situation. As a rule of thumb, the younger your organization, the newer you are to grants, and the smaller your budget, the closer your average will be to 10%. Conversely, older, more established organizations can use 30% as an average baseline.
To get to the next step in setting a target, we need to look at what impacts a win rate. Yes, the quality of your applications matters, but less than you might think. In many cases, your relationship with a potential funder matters. As described for the baseline, your history and financial situation matters. Other key things that matter – how well your work aligns with a funders, and how well a funder understands that alignment. In addition, your general reputation in your field matters. All those things being equal, a target win rate is fundamentally a decision between quality and quantity.
The larger the number applications you submit, the closer your win rate will be to average or slightly below average, simply because inevitably, the more applications you apply to, the wider your field will be, meaning some applications will be to funders that are less strong fits, or that you have a weaker relationship with. On the flip side, if you focus on submitting a smaller number of applications to funders you align very well with and have strong relationships with, the higher your win rate is likely to be.
To set your target, look at the 10-30% baseline range, and decide if submitting a high volume or more targeted number of applications makes sense for you, and set your win rate metric accordingly. Neither strategy is always the right or wrong one. What makes sense depends on your goals for grants at your organization.
Reasons to submit a high volume of grants can include the need to bring in a specific dollar amount in a short period of time – to fill a gap in funding quickly for instance. Or, if you’re new to grants, sometimes it makes sense to hit all your options and see what happens as a starting point. Reasons to submit a tailored number of grants could be because you are aiming to engage specific funders or specific types of funders, like national foundations, rather than bringing in grants generally. Or simply to maximize staff time.
Once you have a target, monitor it. Look at your win rate over the course of the year (realistically this is only helpful every 3-6 months at most, given the delay between application and award). If you’re not where you want to be, look back at those things that can impact success rate, and see if there are changes you can make. Are you getting feedback on declined applications and adjusting your submissions as needed? Do staff or contractors have enough time and resources to put together complete applications? Are your programs producing impact? Are you maintaining relationships with funders outside of submitting applications?
In addition to monitoring your target, assess whether your target is the right one. Has something shifted organizationally to change the number of applications you can or want to submit? It might be time to look at whether that means you can realistically hit the win rate target you previously set.
Winning or losing grants can be arbitrary and frustrating, which can make the idea of a win rate too tied to the idea of quality – if you’re a good organization with good staff and good programs you should have a super high win rate right? But pulling apart what goes into the metric shows that it’s a little more complicated that that, if only because a ‘good’ win rate is a lot lower than you might guess! Working from a realistic average as your baseline, and with your goal for grants in mind will help really track whether your grant program is where you want it to be, and if not, where it might help to make a change.
