There are lots of activities that can help a nonprofit organization become grant ready, and one of them is their internal roadmap of tasks that define their grants program. The purpose of these practices is to help ensure staff have a documented process that covers the A to Zs of a comprehensive grant program.

During my experience working for and in partnership with nonprofit organizations, one common thread is the perpetuation of a “scarcity mindset.” This mindset is based on the idea that nonprofits exist to help others in need and serve the greater good, therefore, staff and anything they might need to do their jobs (salaries, benefits, training) is often last on the list of funding priorities.

In a previous post, Julie Alsup, GPC looked at competency 2.2 through a budget lens. For this post, I’ll look at an agency’s readiness to seek project funding through an evaluation lens. Evaluation is crucial to project sustainability, a key factor in grant requests. Carefully considering project evaluation can help an agency obtain grant dollars for a project.

Many seasoned grant reviewers will tell you that they start with the budget. I believe this is why a discussion of GPC competency two, assessing an organization’s readiness to obtain funding to implement specific projects, should also begin with a discussion of budget. A deep understanding of the budget is necessary to communicate need to potential funders. The grant writer can help assess and advance readiness in the following ways.

Deciding Between Grant Writing Companies? Don’t Underestimate the Importance of Having GPCs on Staff Hiring a grant writing company to support your organization with its grant applications and management is a cost- and resource-efficient way to improve your funding chances. It also takes the burden of work...