Setting up your project correctly on Instrumentl is one of the most important things you can do to ensure you're seeing the best opportunities for your organization. 

Here is a step by step guide:

To create a new project, select the 'New Project' link at the top left of your screen.

To edit an existing project, click the three dots next to the project name and select Edit.

On the first page, you'll choose the Project Name, Project Lead, and Project Type.

This is the name you want to give to your project (aka your 'saved search') and is exclusively for your own organizational purposes. E.g. if you are searching for grants for a specific educational program at your organization, you may want to call your project 'Educational program' or 'Educational program grants'.

Select the person on your team who will be primarily in charge of prospecting or tracking grants within this project.

When it comes to receiving email notifications about this project (e.g. upcoming deadlines, funder updates & new grants), you can adjust your settings so that only the project lead receives the notifications (by default everyone on the team receives notifications). Read about adjusting your email notification settings here.

The information the project lead has included as their 'Location of Organization' in their Profile (visit Account >> Profile from your left navigation to view this) will also affect the grants that show up in the matches for this project.

If you'd like new grant recommendations and grant tracking features, choose Matches & Tracking. Then, select Next.

If you'd just like to track grants, select Tracking. Then, select Save & Exit.

You'll only be prompted to fill out this information of you chose Matches & Tracking for Project Type. On this page, you'll select: Applicant Type, Faith-Based Grants, Location of Project, Fields of work, Grant size, and Funding Use.

Select the kind of organization you are from this list. Since Instrumentl is designed for 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations, be sure to select an organizational applicant type from the first portion of the list before potentially selecting an applicant type from the 'individuals' portion at the bottom of the list. For instance, if you'd like to see grants that individual artists or working professionals can apply to, select 'Nonprofit' and 'Artist'. 

Note: If you are a specific type of nonprofit, like a Museum, select the more specific option ONLY if it is available. For instance, if you are Museum, select only Museum/Library/Zoo (do not select Nonprofit as well). This will ensure you won't see grants that specifically exclude your specific applicant type (e.g. funders who give grants to nonprofits but NOT museums). 

If you are a faith-based organization, select 'Yes' to the question Would you like to see grants specifically for faith-based organizations? Otherwise, leave this as 'No'.

If you are a faith-based organization and selected 'Yes' to the question above, you'll see another series of questions appear.
​

If you are a House of Worship (e.g. a church) select the checkbox next to this option. This will ensure you don't see grants that specifically exclude houses of worship from applying and will optimize your results.

For the drop down that says What kind of grants would you like to see? select one of three options:

Finally, select the specific kind of faith you are affiliated with from the list of options provided in the Religious affiliation section.

In this field, select the specific location(s) in which your organization delivers their services or programs. Note that this can be different from where your organization is physically based or registered!

Tips:

Select the Field of Work keywords that are most closely tied to your organization's mission or project/program focus area. 

Each Field of Work keyword represents a common funder focus area. For instance if you select 'Social Isolation' you'll see grants from funders interested in funding nonprofits or programs focused on fighting social isolation in various populations.

You can select up to 10 Field of Work keywords per project. 

Tips:

For Art-Oriented Organizations
​If you select any art-oriented Field of Work keywords, you'll see another field appear in your project form: 

Select 'Yes' if you are a professional art & culture organization, meaning that your organization's principal mission is related to art & culture. Select 'No' if this is not the case.

For Environment or Animal-Oriented Organizations
If you select any environment or animal-related Field of Work keywords, you'll see additional fields appear which allow you to select specific plants, animals and/or ecosystems as necessary. Only fill out these fields if you truly only work on one or more specific plant or animal species, or in a particular ecosystem (e.g. forests or marine environments).

If you only want to see grants above or below a specific size in your matches, you can add a minimum and maximum grant size here. Keep in mind that you can later sort your grants by 'Amount', so it may be wise to keep this range broad so you aren't missing out on potentially promising opportunities.

Under 'What will you use the funds for?', select all the funding uses that are relevant to your organization or program/project.

Tips:

Now that you've created the perfect project, import historical grants you'd previously been working on to your Project Tracker! See how here.