Moves Management Built Right into the GrantSnag.com Pipeline (Part 1)
What Is Moves Management?
In fundraising, relationships are everything. Major donors are not simply sources of financial support—they are partners in your mission. Building those partnerships requires intention, strategy, and consistency.
That is where moves management comes in. Moves management is a structured approach to building relationships over time and guiding supporters toward greater engagement. While it is commonly associated with major donor fundraising, the same principles apply to grant funding. Foundations want to know that nonprofits understand their priorities, respect their processes, and can demonstrate impact.
At its core, moves management is about tracking every meaningful interaction a nonprofit has with a donor or prospective funder. In traditional major donor fundraising, this might include face-to-face meetings, phone calls, personalized notes, and stewardship events. For grant seekers, the same principle applies: understanding a funder’s priorities, funding history, and engagement with your organization can dramatically increase the likelihood of securing support—and repeat support in subsequent years.
The Five Stages of Moves Management
The five stages of moves management are:
Identify → Qualify → Cultivate → Solicit → Steward
Identification: Finding the Right Funders
After using the powerful Peer Search feature in Grantsnag.com to identify funding opportunities, the next step is qualification. This is where the Pipeline feature begins to shine.
Qualification: Evaluating the Opportunity
When you change an opportunity’s status to In Progress, you are signaling to your board and leadership that you are actively evaluating whether this funder is a strong fit for your organization.
The Grantsnag dashboard provides several valuable tools to help with qualification. You can review the funder’s Median Grant, Total Assets, Giving Profile, geographic focus, and previous grant recipients. These insights help you determine whether your organization aligns with the funder’s priorities and whether the opportunity is worth pursuing.
Taking the time to review this information is much like getting to know a major donor. Before making an ask, successful fundraisers seek to understand what matters to the donor, what causes they support, and how their values align with the organization’s mission. The same approach applies to foundations.
As you learn more about the funder, you can document your findings directly within the Pipeline. Notes, next steps, and research findings become part of an ongoing record that can be shared with leadership, board members, and future staff.
Qualification naturally leads to cultivation. Once you determine a funder is a strong fit, the next step is establishing a connection and beginning a conversation.
In Part 2, we will explore how Grantsnag.com’s Pipeline helps organizations cultivate relationships with funders, prepare proposals, track submissions, and steward foundations for future funding opportunities.