Create Your Infrastructure
There is a simple truth when it comes to grantseeking: If you do not build a good foundation for your grantseeking, ultimately it will not be sustainable. Why is that? Because people come and people go, leadership changes, and the very nature of how you do your work changes.
Having solid policies and procedures in place is important to building reliable grants income through grantseeking. In addition, understanding your organization’s capacity to write and submit proposals and manage grants is key to handling everyone’s expectations. This may involve establishing a grantseeking team made up of staff, or a combination of staff and volunteers. This section walks you through these steps towards building a strong grants program.
Many grant professionals, development directors, and executive directors tend to only write a grant proposal once a source has been identified, or because they submit a request to a particular funder every year. Seeking grant support is not really considered a program, per se, but rather a task they undertake now and then. And, for some organizations that is probably just fine.
However, if you are...
