Legal and Registration Documents
Your non-profit needs a complete set of legal documents before approaching any funder. This includes your certificate of incorporation or registration from the relevant government authority, your tax-exempt determination letter (in the US, the IRS 501(c)(3) letter; in other countries, the equivalent certification from your national tax authority), your articles of incorporation and bylaws, your employer identification number or equivalent tax identification number, and your most recent renewal or annual filing confirmation showing your registration is current. Keep certified copies of all these documents in a secure location — both physical and digital — and make multiple backups. Many organizations have lost days of productivity during critical proposal periods because they couldn't locate basic incorporation documents.
Governance Documents
Funders increasingly scrutinize governance quality as a proxy for organizational trustworthiness. You should have: a current board roster with contact information and terms, board meeting minutes for at least the past two years, a conflict of interest policy signed annually by all board members, a whistleblower policy, a document retention and destruction policy, and a written delegation of authority describing who can approve expenditures at what levels. If you don't have these, don't be embarrassed — many young non-profits don't. But create them now. They take a few days to draft and signal significant organizational maturity to funders and auditors alike.
Financial Systems and Policies
At minimum, your organization needs a dedicated organizational bank account (completely separate from any personal account), a basic accounting system (QuickBooks, Xero, or even a well-structured spreadsheet for very early-stage organizations), a written financial management policy covering cash handling, expense approval, procurement, and bank reconciliation, and a current year budget approved by the board. If you have any existing restricted grants, you must be able to produce grant-specific financial reports showing budget versus actual expenditure. This capacity is non-negotiable for most funders — if you can't demonstrate that you're managing current funds properly, no funder will give you new ones.
Program Documentation
Funders also want to understand your program before committing resources to it. Prepare a one-to-two-page program description for each of your core activities, describing the problem addressed, your theory of change, your activities and approach, your target beneficiaries, and your intended outcomes with indicators. Have at least one or two program data reports or case studies available — even rough internal documents showing results from your work to date. If you're truly pre-implementation, collect letters of support from community leaders, partner organizations, or local government officials who can attest to the problem you're addressing and your community's trust in your organization. These letters won't substitute for track record, but they demonstrate community legitimacy.
