Grant Writing Made Easy

JULY 4, 2025

Whether you’re a solo grant writer or part of a small, multitasking team, developing a clear process to evaluate grant opportunities can help you write stronger proposals, avoid burnout, and focus on the funding that truly supports your mission. But in practice, this approach can backfire. If something is ambiguous, don’t guess.

Grant

The Grantsmanship Center

JANUARY 9, 2024

Category: Proposal Writing and Grantseeking Before campaign advisors, spin doctors, influencers or ad men, there was the Greek philosopher, Aristotle. As proposal writers, we sometimes get lost in the weeds of data, logic models, detailed methods and other granular stuff. The first of these is ethos.

Proposal

Peak Proposals

JANUARY 1, 2023

Like many of you, we’ve worked on grant proposals that have not come together easily, and the final product feels mediocre at best. Despite their weaknesses, sometimes the proposals still get funded, but that’s the exception, not the rule. However, this is telling the funder that your proposed project fits within their interests.

Proposal

Peak Proposals

JANUARY 1, 2023

January 01, 2023 Like many of you, we’ve worked on grant proposals that have not come together easily, and the final product feels mediocre at best. Despite their weaknesses, sometimes the proposals still get funded, but that’s the exception, not the rule. avoiding jargon). We see this come up frequently. All organizations need money.

Proposal

Blackbaud

JANUARY 22, 2024

Back in the mid-2010s, I served as chair of the selection committee for the Washington, DC region’s biggest award recognizing excellence in nonprofit management. If that funder’s application includes lots of jargon or technical phrases such as, “Tell us about your Theory of Change,” or, “What is your program’s Logic Model?”

Logic Model

Grant Training Center

MAY 30, 2023

These are learned through experience, various proposal submissions, collaborative efforts with colleagues, and focus and determination. Clear and Concise Communication: Are able to communicate their ideas and proposals clearly and concisely. The end result is a well developed and polished proposal.

Grant

Think and Ink Grants

APRIL 4, 2024

Crafting a winning proposal within such a narrow window presents considerable challenges. However, the most triumphant grant proposals are those that have been meticulously developed months or even years ahead of the application deadline. Much of this groundwork can be based on the prior year's request for proposal (RFP).

Federal Grants

Grant Professionals Association

MARCH 15, 2024

Organizational development plays a crucial role in the process of becoming grant-ready by providing the foundation and framework necessary to effectively pursue and manage grant funding. This includes understanding legal requirements, ethical standards, and best practices in grant management.

Grant Readiness

Think and Ink Grants

MAY 4, 2024

Reporting requirements for federal and some government grants require the right people and systems for proper grant management. Some may require developing a logic model, which is even more difficult. You have zero experience winning or managing any grant. We talk more about this and the related consequences here.

Federal Grants

Grant Professionals Association

JULY 10, 2024

Despite our best efforts and knowledge, sometimes sabotage can sneak in to derail progress on a project or proposal. This changed the language in other sections we had spent the previous week working on to align throughout the proposal. The Oxford Dictionary lists some common synonyms for sabotage as to undermine, cripple or impair.

GPC

Assel Grant Services

MARCH 31, 2024

We can’t come in on gameday and put together a proposal without any preparation and expect to win big. Instrumental defines grant readiness as a measurement of your organization’s capacity to research, apply, win, and manage grant applications successfully. Another critical factor – a manageable deadline!

GPC

Blackbaud

DECEMBER 18, 2023

However, in the push towards impact, philanthropy has adopted a laundry list of activities—landscape scans, focus groups, case studies, logic models—to help in figuring out what is important to know to “do good” better. These are often perceived as disconnected from and less important than grant strategy. Fast forward to today….

Grants

Blackbaud

JANUARY 16, 2025

This is part of the rigid hierarchies of many organizations – management sees an issue and assigns a team to work on addressing it. We are really good at creating visual and written expressions of how things should or could work, usually in the forms of our grant proposals, logic models, Gantt charts, and program designs.

Logic Model