28 Mar

Posted at 22:35h in Competency Eight, Courses, Funder Relations, Funding, GPCI Competencies, Grant Funding Basics, Grant Writing, How-To, Julie Assel, GPC, Uncategorized

    Relationships with Grant Funders Session 2 of the Grant Funding Basics Series Beyond the Writing: How to cultivate and maintain meaningful relationships with grant funders Many agencies make the mistake of not treating grant funders as they do their major individual and/or corporate donors. This is understandable, especially with...

23 Feb

Posted at 10:34h in Competency Eight, Competency One, Courses, Federal Grants, Funding, GPCI Competencies, Grant Writing, How-To, Julie Assel, GPC, Research, Uncategorized

      SAMHSA - Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration Session 1 of the Federal Agency Series Enroll Now     In this session, we will educate the participants in the core mission, principles, and strategic priorities the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration works by, their budget, and what...

21 Feb

Posted at 09:31h in Competency Eight, Courses, Federal Grants, Funding, GPCI Competencies, Grant Writing, How-To, Julie Assel, GPC, Research, Uncategorized

  Relationships with Program Officers and Legislators Session 3 of the Federal Grant Development Series Many development professionals are uncomfortable with federal grants because they don’t feel there are relationships to cultivate like there are with foundation grants. While each federal department is different, there are relationships that...

13 Jan

Posted at 19:16h in Case Statements, Competency Eight, Competency Nine, Competency Three, Kellie Brunguard, Strategy, Writing
Case statements are a vital component of a nonprofit fundraising strategy. They are living documents that describe the essential elements of an organization or specific program. These comprehensive descriptions cover topics most funders request – organization history, goals and outcomes, sustainability plan, organizational structure, etc. The purpose is not to create a generic grant to send out to every funder you know but to serve as a starting point for tailoring information to a specific request. A case statement helps information remain consistent among multiple proposals and establishes a master document for updating annual information, statistics, and outcomes. These documents can also be tailored for individual donor prospects, bring a new partner up to speed, or inform new staff on the organization. Creating a comprehensive case statement requires an investment of time. The good news is that annual maintenance is much easier once it is complete. Here are some helpful tips to keep your case statement fresh in the coming year:

11 Dec

Posted at 19:29h in Competency Eight, Competency Five, Competency Seven, Funder Relations, Grant Calendar, Grants Management, Inspiration, Kellie Brunguard, Professional Development, Strategy
This time of year starts to get a little strange between projects wrapping up for the year, the time change I still have not adjusted to, and differing work schedules for holiday plans and using up vacation time. While some like to bank their paid time off to have a full holiday break (which is fully respectable), I like to use this quieter time to work on projects that get pushed to the side during busy seasons. Here are some ways I like to use downtime to my advantage.

28 Aug

Posted at 14:31h in Competency Eight, Courses, Funder Relations, Funding, GPCI Competencies, Grant Writing, Grants 301, How-To, Julie Alsup, Julie Alsup, Relationships, Uncategorized

    Grant 301: Relationships: It is a Two-Way Street Session 1 of the Grants 301 Series Sometimes it seems easier to avoid conflict and focus on the future.  This session will teach you how to appropriately engage with funders to overcome past missteps and/or prepare for the most...

21 Jan

Posted at 11:16h in Competency Eight, Competency Five, Competency Four, Competency One, Courses, Federal Grants, GPCI Competencies, Grant Training Series, Grant Writing, How-To, Julie Assel, Uncategorized

  The first session of our half-day, interactive Federal Grants series, designed to support nonprofit professionals before and during their first federal grant. Buy Now     You'll learn:  How to examine major trends in federal funding and how to find appropriate grant opportunities for your organization as an awardee...

10 Nov

Posted at 14:25h in Capital Campaigns, Competency Eight, Competency Five, Competency One, Competency Seven, Competency Two, Course Industries, Courses, Education, GPCI Competencies, Grant Training Series, Higher Education, IHE Series, Whitney Gray

  IHE Grant Series: Grants and Capital Campaigns at IHEs Session 5 of the IHE Starting an Office of Sponsored Research Series It is typical for colleges and universities to use multi-year comprehensive capital campaigns as major fundraising initiatives. Grants for bricks and mortar projects, program development, and capacity-building...

09 Aug

Posted at 13:10h in Competency Eight, Competency Five, Competency Four, Competency Nine, Grant Reporting, Grants Management, Julie Alsup, GPC, Writing
You want me to write about what? How can I write about progress when the right data wasn’t collected to measure progress? Grant professionals are frequently faced with the reality of gaps in data in pre-award, and post-award. We are asked to respond to sections which require a discussion of national, regional, and local data to justify need; as well as sections requesting data-supported rationale for the proposed intervention, and finally a proposed series of measurable objectives indicated by an improvement over baseline. Sometimes there is something to work with. Oftentimes we are asked to work magic!

06 Jun

Posted at 20:39h in Competency Eight, Competency Seven, Julie Assel, GPC, Professional Development, Professionalism, Relationships
I am a grant professional for whom the written word is a more comfortable form of communication than face-to-face communication. Once I understood the concepts and intent of grant proposal writing, I fell in love with it. The majority of my time is spent alone in my office writing or in one-on-one conversations with program, financial, and executive leadership staff. Given that my learning style is also visual text, reading RFPs, gathering the information needed, and conducting the research is all easy for me to understand. Recently though, I have needed to be involved in meetings with program officers. These are not my favorite activity. Oh, I love hearing all the things funders have to say about their organization that help me better understand their mission. I also love to hear all the things about the program that my organizations say to the funder that I have not heard before in quite the same way. (Haven’t we all been here?) If my only task was to listen, these meetings would be easy, but these were conversations in which I was the lead for a significant portion of the conversation.