Heather Cassell, Author at Writing to Make a Difference

If you read my most recent blog article, 8 Essentials You Need To Set Up Your Nonprofit for Grant Success, you are already aware of the many fundamental informational components you will need to gather for a successful grant proposal. But what if your nonprofit organization is not quite fully prepared with all 8 of these items?

This is a great time to start thinking about how you can get all your “ducks” in a row. No doubt this will take some work with your organization’s leaders and staff all working together.

Gathering the eight information essentials is just the first step. Once you have them ready, you’ll then start to pursue specific grant application opportunities. To develop those grant proposals, you will need a team of folks — at different points in the process.

How to Lead Your Grant Writing and Management Team

If you are leading the grant team, you will play a significant role.Your job is to rally the troops while staying calm, cool, and collect. You will make sure that everyone is together, going in the same direction. You lead by example and inspire others to go with you.

So … what does that look like?

1. Setting the Tone

Start out by setting a collaborative tone. It’s all about teamwork and joint ownership. You want to show that you expect everyone to ‘play well together,’ to achieve a common goal.

You will convene an initial meeting (or several one-on-one conversations) with the key players and sometimes the supporting actors — to discuss project plans and go over specifics of the grant proposal and information on the funder.

Often, you will be the only glue that binds these different “troops” together during the grant process. I have found that many times, the people I am working with are very thankful to have me take the lead. They would prefer to be a grant team member and not have the responsibility of leadership.

Everyone is an Expert

Everyone likes to be treated as an expert, so each team member will have a specialty. Sometimes that’s obvious from their job title. But if it’s not, I encourage you to confirm that people will play specific roles. Remember that a single person may take on more than one role; on the other hand, more than one person can share any given role.

Grant Team Roles

Let’s take a quick look at the different team members’ roles:

Community Needs Assessor

To get started, you’ll need a Community Needs Assessor to help establish why the program or project is so crucial in the first place. That critical piece should embrace as much community involvement as possible – after all, who would be better positioned to know the issues?

Program Specialist

You’ll also need a Program Specialist to outline the vision, objectives, and implementation of the prioritized program or project to be funded. That person will be very involved in creating and reviewing proposal drafts for content accuracy.

Researcher

While that is being done, you’ll need a Researcher to find appropriate funding opportunities for the proposed program and keep track of requirements and deadlines for those applications.

Relationship Cultivator

You’ll also need a ‘Schmoozer’ or Relationship Cultivator to initiate and maintain relationships with those funders.

Evaluator

Once the program or project is funded, you’ll need to have an Evaluator to monitor the implementation and effectiveness of the program, according to the grant proposal. When it’s time to report your progress to grantmakers, that person will provide information about the project’s status and outcomes.

Administrative Staff

Throughout the process, you’re likely to need some Administrative Staff. That often includes people in human resources, accounting, legal, technical, clerical, and other specialties.

One Other Critical Team Member: Strategic Supporter

There is actually one more role on your team that is critical, and it needs to be filled by the Executive Director and/or key Board Member. That is, the role of Strategic Supporter of your grant-seeking work. This person will provide the resources and inspiration to facilitate grant success. Without their strong support and vision, your grant team will lack direction, priorities, and motivation.

Grant writing and management team — A grant writing and management team review a grant proposal. (Photo: Courtesy of Canva)

Where to Find Your Grant Team Members

Whew! That sounds like a lot of people. And it might be, depending on your organization’s size. Remember that while most team roles will be played by staff members, you may also look to board members, outside experts, or volunteers to help out. Sometimes all they need is a little support to improve their skills and confidence in this area.

You may find that some folks at your nonprofit are a little reluctant to help in grant-seeking efforts. But everyone in the nonprofit sector should know that at some point, they are very likely to be part of fundraising. It’s just the nature of the beast.

Even if someone hates the idea, you can try to make it more pleasant for them. See if you can demonstrate how much stronger your grant proposal will be with their input. After all, no one else has their expertise!

Then try to make it easy for them to help you out.

For example, consider drafting your proposal with blank spaces for them to fill in with the information that only they know. It’s much simpler to fill in the blanks than to start from scratch.

Some people would prefer that you interview them for a few minutes, and then have YOU fit their words into the format a funder is looking for. This is a good option to offer them.

I have seen both approaches work well.

Just remember to give them time to schedule the work on their calendar. That means you have to plan ahead – well in advance of the proposal deadline.

Another idea is to collaborate with a peer organization to see if together you can get to a place of readiness for grant success. Or perhaps a more developed organization is interested in doing a project that you can contribute to; in that case, you would serve as a member of THEIR team and simply contribute as a “service provider”.

If You Must be a Grant Team of One

If you find yourself traveling alone on your grant-seeking journey, wearing many different hats, don’t despair. You will just have to expect that grant success may take a bit longer to achieve, given your constraints. Remember the many resources out there to help you along, including grant training and coaching, and working with consultants from time to time.

The bottom line: Make sure your nonprofit organization has the people-power to succeed in the grant world. Grant seeking is a team sport.

Ask Your Grant Writing Question

1. Each Funder Is Unique and Should Be Treated as Such

If you’ve read the first blog post in this series, you already know that each funder has a particular set of funding criteria and specific goals that they are trying to achieve with their philanthropy. They also have certain values or ideas that guide them in making their funding choices. Your grant proposal should demonstrate that your organization and the funder are both on the same page.

As you research potential grantmakers, be sure to read (and reread) their published funding guidelines, priorities, and requests for proposals (RFPs). Find out who they have funded before and if and how your organization could fit strategically into their funding portfolio.

For best results, I recommend also interacting with the funder before you submit your grant proposal (as discussed extensively in the Grant Writing and Management course series). A dialogue of any sort will help you “read between the lines” of the funder information you find online.

2. Familiarize Yourself with a General “Bottom Line”

Before you start your research process, you should know what virtually all funders are looking for. Try putting yourself in their shoes for a moment.

Funders are seeking a strong return on their investment, in terms of the social impact their dollars will help facilitate. Your grant proposal should convince them that your work is worth investing in — because it is both inspiring and structurally sound. Here is a handy checklist of what that looks like.

Organizations

Funders are most interested in an organization that has the following characteristics.

Is well positioned to address the community need, either alone or with others in the field
Grantmakers are looking for assurance that they can trust your organization to competently help solve the community problem you are addressing. You need to show that you can lead this work because you have strong internal capacity or can play a unique role in collaboration with others in your field. They also need to know that you are a reliable and respected presence in your field.

Has sustainable community support
Funders want to support organizations that have a variety of strong investors. They want to see that you have other grantmakers on board, as well as individual donors, volunteers, or contributions of goods or services. They are looking for financial sustainability.

Is a learning and growing organization
You may think that you need to have all the answers for how to turn grant money into nothing but stellar results. (Actually, maybe you do hold the magic bullet the funder has been looking for. If so, by all means go for it!)

But you don’t actually have to be 100 percent successful 100 percent of the time to be of great value to grantmakers. While they want to see their grantees succeed, they also know that sometimes what we learn from “mistakes” can be even more valuable. Grantmakers rely on nonprofits to show them what works and what doesn’t work. They especially like to fund organizations that are actively addressing their weaknesses and finding new and better pathways to success.

Uses transparent and accountable internal processes and procedures
This is true about your entire organization, including finances, administration, human resources, and other “back office” work. Your internal operations are very important to funders and should not be overlooked. Your integrity is on the line here!

Programs and Projects

Funders are most interested in a program or project that has the following characteristics.

Focuses on a pressing community need of concern to the funder
First, the affected community has to express its need in clear terms. That need will be related to its specific realities and issues. If you can show that the need simply can’t wait to be addressed, and the funder agrees, you’re on to something.

Aligns with your mission and is a high priority for you
You should only propose work that is centered on your strengths or core competencies. That is, stay aligned with your mission and make sure that you only pursue grants to support priority programs, projects, or operations at your organization.

Has a specific, realistic plan for implementing a new or proven solution
Funders need to know that your proposed work has a good chance of successfully delivering results — within the grant period (usually one year). So they need to see a solid work plan with a well-aligned budget that leads to accomplishing your goals in a timely manner. While your work doesn’t necessarily have to break new ground, you do need to show that it will build on past success or serve an otherwise unserved or underserved community. If you can feature some unique aspects, all the better!

Is likely to have a clear, measurable impact
The funder has to be convinced that your plan shows promise in effectively addressing the community need in the short term and is also part of a long-term strategy. Your method of regularly evaluating your success should use both numbers and narrative, aiming to show an appropriate level of impact. Of course, once you get the feedback you need, funders want to know that you will use that information to continuously improve.

Involves the beneficiaries in planning or implementation
Funders know that the people who could benefit the most from your program are the experts on their own community issues. Community members also know what works and doesn’t work for them. The most successful programs were not designed by an outsider, but grew organically out of the communities they are supposedly helping.

Is planned to be replicable or will produce data to share with others
As you know, nonprofit resources are always scarce. Funders want to support successful programs that can fairly easily and inexpensively be adapted and replicated in other communities. Sharing successful models leverages their grant dollars and helps spread good ideas: two things funders love.

So I recommend trying on your intended funder’s hat whenever you are writing a grant proposal. You may even want to do a mock review of your grant proposal draft to help you see it from the funder’s point of view — something we do in the Grant Writing and Management course series. Once you know what funders are looking for, you are geared up to travel along the road to grant writing success!

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Author Archives: Heather Cassell

How To Create a Stellar Grant Writing and Management Team