Have you considered highly targeted value based cold emailing?
The HN community may be weary of sending / receiving unsolicited email but if you provide massive value upfront and only contact prospects who would get 2x+ ROI from your product/services, you will not be seen as spam and will convert a good % of the prospects.
I've run a lot of these type of campaigns and the key is to:
A) Only target prospects who have a real need for your product/service and have the budget for it
In your case, I would go on different grant websites and add their grant recipients to your prospect list. This way, you only target organizations who actively use grants.
B) Do a bit of work for them to provide upfront value in your cold email
In your case, research a list of grants they're eligible for (you can share the same list to nonprofits in the same space) and provide unique insights about these grant givers are looking for based on your experience. Your value upfront + value ideas will open the conversation and naturally lead to prospects asking about about how you can help them.
I'm an executive at a nonprofit and I delete all unsolicited email unopened. I just don't have time for it. I don't know how typical I am (small organization and it's part time for everyone involved)
The HN community may be weary of sending / receiving unsolicited email but if you provide massive value upfront and only contact prospects who would get 2x+ ROI from your product/services, you will not be seen as spam and will convert a good % of the prospects.
I've run a lot of these type of campaigns and the key is to:
A) Only target prospects who have a real need for your product/service and have the budget for it
In your case, I would go on different grant websites and add their grant recipients to your prospect list. This way, you only target organizations who actively use grants.
B) Do a bit of work for them to provide upfront value in your cold email
In your case, research a list of grants they're eligible for (you can share the same list to nonprofits in the same space) and provide unique insights about these grant givers are looking for based on your experience. Your value upfront + value ideas will open the conversation and naturally lead to prospects asking about about how you can help them.
You can get an idea of what the initial email could look like here: http://www.artofemails.com/sales-freelancer#writer