Grant Writing for Small Organizations

Four Sessions: 12:00-1:30pm on Oct. 15, Oct. 22, Oc. 29, and Nov. 5. All sessions are live online via Zoom.

$85 for up to three participants from your organization

Applications are due by October 8, 2025. Acceptance decisions will be made by October 15.

Fill out this brief form to Apply!  

This is a four-part seminar for small nonprofits looking to use grant funding to support their current operations or launch new projects. Interested CBOs will need to provide basic budgetary information, short summaries of 2-4 possible projects that are appropriate for grant funding, as well as a 2-3 person grants team from their organization (can include staff, board, and/or volunteers). If you have any questions about these requirements please contact PRC. We will accept a maximum of 12 organizations in the cohort (3 participants from each organization).

Our goal is to help small nonprofits communicate better with potential funders, maximizing the efforts of community organizations that are too small to have a development team or grant writer. We’ve offered this series since 2023 and, so far, past participants have won $2.1 million!

We have structured the course to walk participants through their own grant application process. Each session will teach a step in the process, then give suggested homework for grant teams to work through in between sessions. Organizations will get the most out of this series if they are able to spend 2-3 hours working on their grant plan or an application before the next session. Implementing the skills in real time will allow teams to come back to the next session and ask questions as they have them.

Session One: Planning, Structure, and Execution
October 22, 2025 from 12:00 – 1:30 pm via Zoom
This session is all about the necessary building blocks for adding grant writing into your organization’s activities in a sustainable way. We’ll talk about best-practices when it comes to planning, workflow, communication, financials, and submission. We’ll also cover things like next-steps for when your grant is denied as well as setting expectations for grant reporting.

Session Two: Setting a Funding Goal and Finding Funders
October 29, 2025 from 12:00 – 1:30 pm via Zoom
This session is about understanding your financial needs, making a funding plan, searching for grants (methods, resources), vetting funders, processing eligibility requirements, and mapping preliminary grant requests to be pursued. Each group will work on finding an actual RFP (Request for Proposals) to pursue as homework.

Session Three: The Art of Reading an RFP
November 12, 2025 from 12:00 – 1:30 pm via Zoom
This session will help grant teams move from broad project ideas to targeting projects to match funders interests and RFPs. We’ll talk through real application questions, tackle evaluative measures, and learn how to adapt your project to the funder without making unattainable promises or changing your program in a way that falls outside of your mission. Each group will work at outlining their project goals, needs, budget, and outcomes into the RFP’s structure as homework.

Session Four: Bringing it all Together, Plus Budgets
November 19, 2025 from 12:00 – 1:30 pm via Zoom
Now that you know which funders you’d like to solicit and the outline of your program ask, this session will pull more of the most common RFP questions and walk you through a checklist of questions to help generate a strong narrative surrounding the Who/What/Where/Why/How of these proposed projects. We’ll end with a clinic on budget best practices – focusing on both line item budgets and budget narratives.

By participating in all four sessions and dedicating time as a team to work on real applications between sessions, you can leave the class with a competitive grant application. And, most importantly, the tools to write even more!

Fill out this brief form to Apply!  

About the Instructor: Susannah Conner is PRC’s Director of Program Development and specializes in fundraising for nonprofit, cooperative, and faith-based organizations. She holds a Master of Divinity from Duke Divinity School and a B.A. in English Literature from UNC, Chapel Hill, calling upon both schools of thought to explore the convergence of storytelling and spirituality. She has helped organizations build sustainable grants programs, expand fundraising and marketing, and shape new projects – all while telling compelling stories. She is a songwriter and musician and has released five studio albums as part of various musical groups. Her most recent album is a collection of songs written by women in prison over the course of two storytelling-as-healing workshops she taught at the North Carolina Correctional Institute for Women.

Thank you to the Lancaster County Community Foundation for their support of PRC’s Toolkit Series. To see the rest of the workshops in this series, click here.

All sales are non-refundable.