Five Things I’d Look At in a 2027 Impact 100 Application

The 2027 United Way of Greater Kansas City Impact 100 cycle is open, which means some very capable nonprofit people are currently trying to do their actual jobs while also producing a grant application that somehow explains an entire organization in a finite number of boxes. This is familiar territory. And before anyone spends another hour debating whether strengthen is a better verb than enhance, I would look at something more fundamental: Does the application actually make sense to someone who does not already know the organization? That sounds obvious. It is not. United Way’s Impact 100 process looks at high-performing human-service nonprofits and considers things like demonstrated outcomes, financial responsibility, organizational need, funding health, and the overall composition of the portfolio. Applications for the 2027 cycle are open through October 16. So if I were reviewing an application before submission, these are the places I would start.

1. What does the reader need to know that you have forgotten they don’t know?

This is one of the occupational hazards of nonprofit work.

You know the history. You know why the program exists. You know what happened in 2022 that changed everything. You know which partnership matters and why. You know what the acronym means. Your reader may know none of that. A strong application does not require the reader to reconstruct the organization from clues.Can someone understand, fairly quickly: What is happening? Who is affected? Why does it matter? What is your organization doing about it? I like giving a section to someone reasonably intelligent who has no involvement with the organization and asking them to explain back to me what they think it says. Sometimes that is reassuring. Sometimes it is an excellent way to discover that three paragraphs have conveyed almost nothing.

Both outcomes are useful.

2. Are you showing what changed, or mostly what you did?

Nonprofits are often quite good at counting activity.

People served. Meals distributed. Classes held. Counseling sessions completed. Families enrolled.

Those numbers matter.

But they are not automatically evidence of impact.

The next question is: then what?

What changed for the people involved? What did you learn? What evidence do you have that the intervention is doing what you believe it is doing?

This does not require turning every organization into a research institute.

It does require being honest and precise about what the evidence can support.

If you have excellent outcome data, use it. If you have meaningful qualitative evidence, say what it shows. If you are still building better measurement systems, say that too.

I would much rather read a careful, credible claim than an impressive sentence that collapses under one follow-up question.

3. Do the numbers tell the same story as the narrative?

This is one of the first places I look. The program description says demand is soaring. Does anything else in the application reflect that? The narrative describes an established, stable operation. Do the financials look established and stable? A revenue source disappeared.

Has the organization explained what happened and what leadership is doing about it. Budgets are not the boring appendix to the “real” story. They are part of the story.

And when the numbers and the prose seem to be describing two different organizations, readers notice.

4. Have you actually shown why the organization is strong?

This is another place where familiarity works against us.

Inside an organization, everyone may know that the executive director is excellent, the board is engaged, the staff is unusually experienced, or a particular partnership took years to build. None of that is automatically visible to an outside reader. You do not need to turn the application into an awards banquet. But the reader should have enough evidence to understand why this organization is capable of delivering on what it proposes. That might come through staff expertise. Governance. Partnerships. Financial stewardship. Community trust. Program history. Evaluation. Adaptability. The exact evidence will vary. The underlying question does not: Why should someone believe you can do what you say you can do?

That is not self-promotion. It is part of making the case.

5. What are you still having to explain out loud?

This may be my favorite test. Give the application to someone outside the writing team and ask: What are you still wondering about? Then do not answer immediately.

Write the question down. If you find yourself saying, “Oh, well, the reason for that is…” there is a decent chance the application needs to do a little more work. Not every conceivable question belongs in the final draft. Grant applications already suffer from enough sentences trying to carry three ideas and a strategic plan on their backs. But if a smart outside reader repeatedly misses something important, that is useful information. Often the most valuable review is not someone rewriting your sentences for you. It is someone showing you where the reader loses the thread.

And use United Way for United Way questions

One important distinction: If the question is about eligibility, requirements, deadlines, the application portal, or the Impact 100 process itself, ask United Way. They are offering virtual office hours during the application period, including September 22, October 1, and October 14. That is exactly what those sessions are for. (United Way of Greater Kansas City)

My questions here are different. They are about whether the application is making the strongest, clearest, most coherent case the organization can make once it understands the process.

One thing I have learned about applications

There is a point at which everyone inside an organization has read the draft too many times.

You no longer see what is actually on the page. You see what you meant to put there.

You supply context automatically. You know what the numbers mean. You remember the meeting where the strategy was decided. You understand the significance of a sentence because you lived the story behind it. The reviewer gets the page. That is why an outside read can be so valuable. Not because another person necessarily writes prettier sentences.

Because another person can tell you what the application is actually communicating before you send it. And that is usually where the interesting work begins.

Working on an Impact 100 application?

Through Peck Advisory Group, I’m making a limited number of independent strategy and application-review engagements available during this year’s cycle. Some organizations may simply need an hour to talk through positioning before they get too far into the draft. Others may want a substantive outside review of the application, outcomes, organizational story, and financial narrative before submission. I’ve put together a straightforward fixed-fee guide for both. If you’d like a copy, send me a LinkedIn message or email me at kristinpeck@peckadvisorygroup.com.

Kristin Peck, MSW Peck Advisory Group www.peckadvisorygroup.com

Peck Advisory Group is an independent consultancy and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or involved in the United Way of Greater Kansas City Impact 100 selection process. Consulting services do not guarantee funding or selection.