What a grant funder sees when they look you up

A program officer reviews your grant application at the end of her day. Before she decides whether to schedule a call, she opens a new tab and searches your organization’s name. What she finds in the next 60 seconds shapes the conversation - or ends it before it starts.

This is the audit she’s running. Not the one most consultants do (fonts, color palette, “is your messaging on-brand”). The one a funder actually checks when they’re deciding whether to trust you with money.

What’s inside

Seventeen items across five categories. Each one is a specific, fixable infrastructure check - not a marketing project.

1. First impression. What they see in the first ten seconds. HTTPS, above-the-fold clarity, signs of active maintenance, broken links.
2. Financial transparency. What they find on Candid. Profile completeness, the current 990, the annual report, the Seal of Transparency.
3. People and contact signals. Who’s behind the org. Leadership visibility, domain-based email (not Gmail), a physical address or service area in the footer.
4. Donation path. Can they give, and does it work? Button visibility, mobile load time on the donation page.
5. Signs someone is actually maintaining the site. The category most audits skip. Old URL slugs, stale staff pages, last year’s campaigns still firing, social links that go to dead accounts.

Who it’s for

Nonprofit executive directors at small organizations - roughly a staff of one to five, a digital budget of roughly zero, and a board that doesn’t always see the gaps between the grant application and what the funder finds when they go looking.

Written to be useful whether you’ve been running digital yourself for a decade or inherited the passwords last week.

What to do with the gaps

Any item you can’t check off is a specific, fixable infrastructure problem - not a marketing project. The frame for bringing them to your board is: “These are gaps affecting our credibility with funders and donors. Here’s what each one would take to address.” That’s a different conversation than “we need a new website.”

Sources

Built from Candid’s funder research data, the Stanford Web Credibility Project (BJ Fogg), Independent Sector’s Trust in Civil Society 2025, and direct experience auditing and rebuilding digital infrastructure for small nonprofits.