You are drawn to a large public award but do not truly know which one fits you, or whether any of them is realistic. This does the choosing, well before you spend a year of effort.
This work teaches you the three kinds, trust, millage, and appropriation, and how each is really won. It tests honestly whether you are eligible and realistic for each given your relationships and standing. It reads the landscape and the relationships you already have. And it ends with a real decision about which to pursue, or the honest decision to pursue other money instead. Its most valuable outcome may be a clear no, because a well-made no saves an organization from a doomed millage or a hopeless budget request. It is not a solo decision: pursuing a major public award commits the organization strategically and politically, and the board must own the choice. Use this when you do not yet know which public award, if any, is realistic for you. If you already know which to pursue, go to Win the Award. If you have not run the diagnostic, run it first.
Trusts, millages, and appropriations are won in genuinely different ways, and choosing without understanding those differences leads organizations to chase the one they have heard of rather than the one they could win. Learn how each is really won and kept: a trust, an institutional relationship often with a proposal; an appropriation, a line in a government budget won through legislative relationships and lobbying, within legal limits; a millage, a dedicated tax won through a public or governing-body process, governed by strict campaign rules. Note for each what it takes, what it pays, and what it demands after.
Open The Three Kinds of Public Award →Each award type has hard eligibility and realism thresholds, and most organizations clear them for none or one. For each of the three, assess honestly: are you eligible, do you have or can you build the relationships and coalition it needs, do you have the civic or political standing, and can you carry a long pursuit. Set aside the ones you are not realistic for, and record the reason so it is not relitigated on momentum.
The honest answer is not now. Route to the faster and surer engines, individual giving and grants, and to building the civic relationships and standing over time, so that a future pursuit is realistic. Deciding not to pursue is a legitimate outcome of this work, not a failure of it. This is a route, not a stop.
Which award to pursue depends on the specific landscape, the trust that is giving, the budget cycle, the millage window, and on the relationships you can actually draw on. For each realistic type, map the specific opportunities and honestly map the relationships and champions you already have or could build toward each.
Open the Landscape and Relationship Map →A pursuit that begins without a clear, board-owned decision begins on sand, and these pursuits are too costly to drift into. Put the three kinds, the eligibility and realism screen, and the landscape and relationship map in front of the board, and decide: pursue a specific award, do not pursue, or not yet. Where you pursue, name which award and why, and record it. The decision to pursue cannot be delegated to staff.
Open the Pursue-or-Route Decision →One edge sits here and grows in the next guide. The moment your choice points toward an appropriation, which is lobbying, or a millage, which is a ballot campaign, understand that legal limits and rules apply from the start, and plan to bring in a nonprofit attorney before you pursue, because those rules can shape which award is even worth choosing, and getting them wrong can cost your tax-exempt standing. For now, the decision is which to pursue; the winning work carries the legal work in full.
You can explain how each of the three kinds is really won. You have honestly set aside the ones you are not realistic for. And your choice of which to pursue rests on a real map of the opportunity and your relationships, owned by your board, rather than on which award you happened to hear about.
If your decision was to pursue a specific award, the next guide is Win the Award. If no award is realistic now, follow your route to individual giving and grants and the relationship-building work, and come back when you are ready. And if you came in through a crisis and have steadied, the whole-organization check-up is the honest next look.