Assemble Your Grantseeking Team

Team Planning

If you are responsible for the grants program for an organization, you may find that you simply do not have the time to submit as many grant requests as your organization wants, needs, and deserves. It can be frustrating, especially when a great opportunity comes along or when you have a special project that would attract grant support. It often takes a village for effective grantseeking, so one way to accomplish this is to build a grants team.

The Recruitment Process

In order to build a grants team that will actually develop winning grant proposals, you need to undertake some targeted recruitment. You are looking for volunteers or staff that have specific knowledge and skills. That means you are going to be selective. Here are some general roles that team members often fill.

  • The Researcher is the one who will find the grant opportunities, either in your local community or on our website in our search sections. This person needs to be someone intimately familiar with your organization and the project that is being funded.
     
  • The Data Analyst is the person who builds your case for support by making connections between facts and figures. This person will collect, sort, and study external data that is directly tied to your statement of need and project description. Internal organizational data is also needed when seeking general operating support and capacity building requests.
     
  • The Writer has the job of taking all of the information from the team and drafting a strong request for support. This person needs to be creative and able to tell a compelling story.
     
  • The Copy Editor is the person who will review the entire proposal before it is submitted, checking both grammar and punctuation.
     
  • The Accountant should be someone good at budgeting, running numbers, and providing those numbers in a variety of ways—visual, written summary, and of course numeric. This person gives budget information to the writer, and also can be involved in managing the grant awards as they are received.
     
  • The Graphic Designer is the person who, once the proposal is written, reviews it and determines where a graphic—chart, table, diagram, photo, etc.—will help strengthen the presentation. These graphics should be used strategically to help the funder “see” parts of the narrative. However, with online applications, it is often not possible to use graphics.
     
  • The Evaluator is someone with the skills to design the evaluation component of grant requests by identifying measurable outcomes, which are often requested these days. This person will feed the evaluation plan to the writer.
     
  • The Proposal Coordinator is a highly organized person who will review all of the grant guidelines and pull together all of the documents you need. Part of this job is to assemble the final package, making sure that everything is included.

These are just examples. Write up a short job description for each role that you expect to have on your team, and use this information as you recruit individuals for the roles. 

These are just examples, and in smaller organizations, one person may fill several of these roles. Write up a short job description for each role that you expect to have on your team and use this information as you recruit individuals for the roles. The team can be made up entirely of volunteers, or you can combine volunteers and staff, or just use staff. You can include board members, but keep in mind that they often have many demands on their time.

Guide the Process

Remember that you are the driver, and you need to keep track of the entire process. It is not a good idea to hand things off and then sit back and wait for the results. Creating a Proposal Writing Schedule can help you keep everything connected and moving forward.

Create a Sustainable Program

Keeping your team energized is very important. This isn’t hard to do, but it’s a critical part of the process.

A key component is reviewing both the individual and team efforts regularly. When you find a volunteer who has put an inordinate amount of time into accomplishing their tasks, give them some down time. You have to both reward and celebrate the small and large accomplishments.

Perhaps the easiest way to maintain team momentum is to keep raising the bar. Once a proposal is submitted, it is easy for the team as a whole to ease off the accelerator, pull back, and catch a collective breath. And that is okay—but only for a short period of time. Identifying new funders, and announcing new deadlines, will keep your team moving full steam ahead.

When a volunteer leaves the team, treat it like you would a paid position at your organization. You want to create a transition plan, find a new volunteer, and let the outgoing person mentor the new recruit (if they can). You will be surprised how important this transition is, not just for you and the work you are trying to get done, but for the person leaving. Nothing makes one feel more appreciated than knowing that they actually leave a hole—a vacancy that has to be filled.