The Ultimate Guide to Finding Foundations That Take LOIs & Unsolicited Requests 

Finding foundations that accept LOIs isn’t always easy.

Not all foundations explicitly state that they accept Letters of Inquiry. Some take unsolicited inquiries through a simple web form or email. Some don’t share much information on their sites at all, while others only fund organizations they invite to apply. 

So what’s the difference between the four? 

Short answer: To find foundations that accept LOIs, examine their websites, application guidelines, use a grant research database, look into their past giving history using Form 990-PF data, study previous grantees, and directly inquire about application process. 

You shouldn’t focus on the foundations with an explicit “Submit an LOI” form on their site. 

In this guide, we will walk you through how to find foundations that accept LOIs, how to figure out which ones may be open to unsolicited outreach, and how to decide whether to contact a funder or not. 

What is LOI in Grant Funding? 

An LOI, or a Letter of Inquiry, is a brief document an applicant sends to a prospective funder as an introductory message before submitting a full grant proposal. 

• It gives the foundation a short overview of: 
• Your nonprofit and its mission 
• The community or population it serves 
• The project or program you want to fund 
• The funding amount you are requesting 
• Why the proposed initiative aligns with the foundation’s goals and mission 

The Council on Foundations defines the Letter of Inquiry as a short letter describing an organization’s activities and funding needs to determine the interest in further development of a partnership. 

The idea behind an LOI is simple – instead of spending days preparing a grant proposal for a funder who doesn’t care about your project, introduce the opportunity first. 

Important: An LOI in foundation fundraising generally means a Letter of Inquiry. A Letter of Intent is technically a different kind of document, so make sure to follow the terminology used by the individual funder. 

If you are ready to draft an LOI, check out our complete guide on how to write an LOI for grant funding. 

Do All Foundations Accept LOIs? 

No, they don’t. 

Important note: 

Absence of published application guidelines does not necessarily mean the foundation accepts unsolicited LOIs. 

It means you need to research this funder further. It’s critical to know that distinction because most nonprofits tend to make one of the two mistakes: 

They assume every funder is open to hear from them or they completely ignore those foundations that do not publish the application guidelines. 

How to Find Foundations That Accept LOIs 

There are several ways to identify foundations that are open to Letters of Inquiry or other types of initial nonprofit outreach. 

1. Check the Foundation’s Website 

First, look at the obvious place – the foundation’s website. 

Here you should look for web pages like: 

• Apply for Funding 
• Grant Guidelines 
• How to Apply 
• Funding Opportunities 
• Grants 
• For Grantseekers 
• Eligibility 
• Application Process 

Look for phrases like: 

“Submit a Letter of Inquiry” 

“Letter of Inquiry required” 

“Initial inquiry” 

“Preliminary proposal” 

“Unsolicited requests accepted” 

“Organizations may contact us” 

“Applications accepted year-round” 

These phrases mean that the funder is open to new relationships. 

But don’t stop here. You should find out whether the foundation has the following restrictions on its applications: 

• Geographic location 
• Program area 
• Nonprofit status 
• Organization size 
• Population served 
• Grant amount 
• Type of funding 

The fact that the foundation accepts LOIs doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good funding opportunity for you. 

Fit comes first. 

Application Status	What it means	Should you send an LOI?
LOIs explicitly accepted	The foundation requires an LOI or a preliminary proposal before funding	Yes, follow the funder’s instructions
Unsolicited requests accepted	The foundation allows nonprofits to reach out without an invitation to apply	Usually yes, if LOI is an accepted format
Open application process	Applications are accepted periodically or through the foundation portal	Follow the process specified
Application process unclear	No guidelines and application instructions available publicly	Research and contact the foundation
Invitation only	The foundation invites organizations to apply	Do not send an unsolicited LOI
Not accepting applications	The foundation closed the applications	No, do not apply

2. Use a Grant Database or Foundation Research Tool 

Checking each individual website for every foundation will likely become incredibly time-consuming for you. 

This is where grant research databases and grant search engines for nonprofits come in handy. 

A good research tool should let you find potential foundations and evaluate: 

• Giving history 
• Previous grantees 
• Geographic patterns 
• Typical grant amount 
• Funding interests 
• Directors or trustees 
• Contact information 
• Application process when available 

Grant Advance has grant search engines for nonprofits to help you search historical grants, analyze foundation giving patterns and find foundations that fund organizations with a similar mission. 

If you are developing your list of foundations from scratch, learn about how to find foundations for grants. 

3. Review the Foundation’s Giving History 

This is one of the most valuable – and the most overlooked – pieces of research. 

While a foundation may tell you very little about itself on its website, its giving history tells quite a bit. 

Find the organizations the foundation has funded previously. 

Ask yourself questions like: 

Does it regularly fund nonprofits similar to mine? 

Does it fund organizations in my city, state, province or region? 

Does it make grants to organizations of our size? 

Does it fund new organizations? 

Does it repeatedly fund the same small set of organizations? 

How much money does it give to organizations? 

This doesn’t guarantee the foundation accepts unsolicited LOIs. 

But it helps to answer an important question: 

Is it worth researching further? 

For U.S. private foundations, Form 990-PF is especially helpful as per the IRS guidelines. According to the Internal Revenue Service, private foundations file Form 990-PF to report charitable distributions and activities. You may also search exempt organizations in the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search. 

Our Foundation Profile Pages contain information about giving history, average grant size, directors, contact information and mission alignment. 

4. Look for Private and Family Foundations 

If you only look for large foundations with well-designed websites and public application portals, you limit your options significantly. 

Private and family foundations may be an important source of foundation grants for nonprofits. 

Some of them have detailed websites and formal grant cycles, others – not so much. 

When researching a private family foundation, don’t focus on whether it has a public application form. 

Instead, study: 

• Who do they fund? 
• Where do they give? 
• How often do they make grants? 
• What programs or causes do they fund regularly? 
• Its directors and trustees 
• Typical grant amounts 
• Do they fund many organizations or the same ones repeatedly? 
• Do they have reliable contact information? 

If the foundation’s history matches your nonprofit’s needs and mission, the next move may be to evaluate whether it is open to an introduction. 

This is where a good LOI may come in handy. 

5. Search for Foundations That Accept Unsolicited Proposals or Inquiries 

Not every funder calls it a Letter of Inquiry. 

This is critical for both your research and your Google searches. 

When looking for funders, you should try researching phrases like: 

• Foundations that accept unsolicited proposals 
• Foundations accepting unsolicited grant requests 
• Foundations open to nonprofit inquiries 
• Family foundations accepting applications 
• Private foundations that accept proposals 
• Foundations accepting grant applications 
• Funders open to new nonprofits 
• Foundation grants for nonprofits 
• Grants for nonprofit organizations 
• Local foundations that fund nonprofits 

Sometimes a foundation accepts unsolicited inquiries or proposals without specifically calling them an LOI. 

Focus on the process, not the terminology. 

6. Use Form 990-PF Data to Identify Hidden Foundation Opportunities 

One of the greatest advantages nonprofits have when researching U.S. private foundations is that they don’t need to rely on Google to find potential funders. 

Private foundations generally file Form 990-PF, which reports information on the charitable activities and distributions. The filings of exempt organizations are publicly available. 

This means that even a foundation that has a very limited website and application information still leaves a funding trail. 

When analyzing a foundation’s giving history, pay attention to the following signals: 

Mission alignment: Does the foundation fund organizations like yours? 

Geographic alignment: Does the foundation give where you operate? 

Grant-size alignment: Are its typical grants close to your funding request? 

Recipient patterns: Does it fund many organizations or the same few organizations again and again? 

Recent activity: Is it still active in making grants? 

These signals will help you to identify the foundations worth further research. 

To learn the full process of identifying and qualifying funders for nonprofit grants, read how to qualify foundations for grants before sending an LOI. 

7. Pay Attention to Organizations it Has Funded Before 

Sometimes the most helpful clue isn’t hidden in the application guidelines of the foundation. 

It’s hidden in the grantee list. 

Imagine you are an animal rescue in Ohio and you discover a private foundation that has recently funded: 

• Three animal shelters 
• A veterinary assistance program 
• A wildlife rescue organization 
• Two community-based nonprofits in your county 
• This information tells you a lot about potential alignment. 
• Compare it to a foundation that technically accepts applications but funded nothing related to your cause. 

Which one deserves more of your time? 

Most likely, the first one. 

Application accessibility matters. But funding alignment matters even more. 

8. Use Your Connections to Find Warm Introductions 

Your board, donors, volunteers and community partners may know more about local foundations than you think. 

Before reaching out to the promising foundation, ask: 

Does anyone on our board know one of its directors? 

Have any of our donors worked with the foundation? 

Does one of our community partners receive funding from it? 

Do we share professional or community connections? 

A warm introduction can help you turn your LOI from an unsolicited letter into a conversation starter. 

Research conducted by the Center for Effective Philanthropy also emphasizes the importance of good communication in strong funder-grantee relationships. 

Read how nonprofits can build relationships with foundations to learn more about this approach. 

9. Reach Out to the Foundation If the Application Process is Unclear 

What if you discovered a highly aligned foundation but couldn’t find out whether it accepts LOIs? 

Don’t guess. 

Send a short email or make a phone call to the foundation. 

You don’t need to immediately pitch the entire organization. 

All you need is to ask the funder whether it’s currently open to receive inquiries from organizations whose work aligns with its giving priorities. 

Example: 

Hello [Name], I’m reaching out from [Organization]. We noticed that your foundation has funded organizations working in [area/cause], which align with our activities. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any current application guidelines and wanted to ask whether you are open to receiving a brief Letter of Inquiry from new organizations. 

This is quite different from sending a five-page grant proposal in the email. 

You ask for permission to continue the conversation. 

How to Tell If a Foundation May Be Worth an LOI 

Here is an LOI opportunity checklist you can use to assess the chances of having success with a particular funder. 

The best rule to remember: 

Do not ask “Does this foundation accept LOIs?” 

Ask: 

“Does this foundation fund organizations like ours, and is there an appropriate way to introduce ourselves?” 

This is a much better foundation research strategy. 

Why It Is Difficult to Identify Foundations That Accept LOIs 

Google can help. 

But Google can only show you what foundations made accessible to the internet. 

That is the problem once you want to conduct a thorough foundation funding strategy for your nonprofit. 

Some private foundations develop sophisticated websites. 

Others barely have any information online. 

That is why the foundation research of top caliber combines multiple resources: 

Application guidelines + giving history + foundation records + past grantees + contact information + relationship research. 

Rather than asking: 

“Which foundations did my google search yield?” 

Ask: 

“Which foundations have proved with their giving that organizations like ours deserve to be considered?” 

That is the much stronger question. 

How Grant Advance Helps Nonprofits Identify Foundations for LOIs 

Grant Advance Solutions helps nonprofits to move beyond simple internet searches and research foundations according to their actual giving activity. 

With Grant Advance, nonprofits can: 

• Search for private foundations relevant to their mission 
• Analyze historical giving patterns 
• See previous grant recipients 
• Compare typical grant amounts 
• Research foundation directors and trustees 
• Have foundation contact information 
• Make customized lists of potential funders 
• Develop professional Letters of Inquiry 

Foundation Profiles provided by Grant Advance contain giving history, grant-size information, directors/trustees, contact details and other data aimed to help nonprofits conduct their foundation research. Grant Advance’s Document Generator can also create Letters of Inquiry and other foundation-funding documents. 

That is how the process becomes: 

Find → Research → Qualify → Contact → Write → Follow Up 

Instead of: 

Search Google → Find a random grant → Spend hours applying → Hope. 

Conclusion: Quality Matters More Than Quantity When Searching for Foundations that Accept LOIs 

If a foundation openly accepts LOIs but never funded anything resembling your work, it might not be your best option. 

A more discreet private foundation with a history of funding similar organizations might require more attention – as long as you figured out it accepts unsolicited outreach. 

So before submitting your next Letter of Inquiry, go beyond the application page. 

Research: 

Whom they fund. 

Where they give. 

How much they give. 

What they consistently care about. 

And how they prefer to be contacted by nonprofits. 

That is how grant research transforms into a grant funding strategy. 

Want to Find More Foundations for Funding Opportunities? 

If you’ve grown tired of finding foundations one website at a time, Grant Advance Solutions can help you identify funders matching the mission, location and funding needs of your nonprofit. 

You’ll be able to research real foundation giving history, explore potential funders and develop a more customized outreach strategy prior to sending your next LOI. 

Book a free consultation with Grant Advance and discover foundations that can be a great match for your organization. 

Frequently Asked Questions About Foundations That Accept LOIs