Grant Writing for Small Organizations

Four Sessions: 12:00-1:30pm on Oct. 23, Oct. 30, Nov. 6, Nov. 13. All sessions are live online via Zoom.

Applications are due by October 9, 2024. Acceptance decisions will be made by October 11. Payments are due by October 18. 

Fill out this brief form to Apply!  https://forms.gle/XJdtzL3mwiRX8hnx8

• Registration fee of $85 for up to 3 people from each organization
• Includes one hour individual consultation per organization
• A maximum of 12 organizations, with up to three attendees (could include staff, volunteers, and board) from each organization.

The workshop Get Ready for Grants is a prerequisite to participate in this series. If you have any questions about these requirements or want to bypass the prerequisite, please contact PRC (you will need to submit a brief summary outlining your past experience with grant writing for approval). 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).

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 have structured the course to walk participants through their own grant application. 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 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. Each grant team should leave with a grant application ready to submit.

Session One: Planning, Structure, and Execution
This session is all about the necessary building blocks for adding a grants program into your organization 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: Identify the Funders
This session is about 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 to pursue as homework.

Session Three: Identify the Projects
This session will help grant teams move from broad project ideas to targeting projects to match funders interests and RFPs. We’ll talk through 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: Identify the Narrative
Now that you know which funders you’d like to solicit and the outline of your program ask, this session will pull some of the most common Request for Proposal (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.

By participating in all four sessions and dedicating time as a team to work on your application 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!  https://forms.gle/XJdtzL3mwiRX8hnx8

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.