Grow Your Grants Resource Library

Have you recently taken on grant writing responsibilities, but without having much experience in the grants realm?

This is a common situation. If you’re a busy executive director, a development director that wears many hats, an entry-level grant writer, or even a program staff member thrust into a grant writing role, you might never have had much formal grant writing training or experience.

And, if you are like most health and human services nonprofits, your organization is too overworked and understaffed to have a focused, strategic grants game plan.

If this sounds like you and your organization, you need Grow Your Grants. This self-directed online program will help you overcome your obstacles to successful grant writing and build your overall capacity around all the phases of the grants lifecycle. Through our proven system, you will learn to:

  • identify well-aligned grant prospects,
  • cultivate relationships with funders,
  • efficiently write compelling grant submissions, and
  • maintain your grants program through stewardship, reporting, and renewals.


 

Wondering if Grow Your Grants is Right for You?

This program is for you if you are employed by a nonprofit and are:

  • An executive director without formal grant training
  • Staff at a start-up or small nonprofit with little-to-no grants history
  • An entry-level grant writer at any size nonprofit without much experience
  • A development staff member wearing many hats
  • Program staff of any experience level thrust into grant writing roles
  • Highly motivated to get grants and willing to apply the lessons

This program is not for you if you:

  • Work in a for-profit company or early stage nonprofit without 501c3 status
  • Are outside the US or primarily seeking grants from outside the US
  • Are a board member, volunteer, or staff person without grant-related responsibilities
  • Are a consultant or freelance grant writer
  • Are not self-directed or motivated to put in the work to win grants

“Thank you very much for all of your exceptional writing, Rachel! As a result of your tremendous job on this application, we were chosen for a major grant award that will allow us to take our work addressing the opioid crisis to the next level.”

- Michelle Y. Blakely, PhD, FACHE, COO, Norwegian American Hospital

Your Instructor


Rachel Sacks, MPH
Rachel Sacks, MPH

For nearly 15 years, I’ve been writing successful grants for health and human nonprofits.

From my very first full-time job, working in an entry-level role on community health education, I’ve had the opportunity to apply my writing skills to grants. I learned on the job how grants get assembled, composed, and ultimately what leads to them being compelling, funded applications.

Many times, these were even applications to fund my own job, so the pressure was on!

Over the years and throughout several jobs, I’ve written many grants of all types: small requests to family foundations; applications to corporate giving arms; renewals to health conversation foundations; and multi-million dollar submissions to state and federal agencies.

It was only really when I began writing grants on behalf other nonprofits as a consultant that I began to systematize all the tricks of the trade I had learned over the years from mentors, colleagues, and my own experiences.

Today, our team at Leading Healthy Futures uses the same principles and techniques we teach here in Grow Your Grants in our own grant writing. Since 2018, over 84% of the grants written by our team were awarded, amounting to more than $23 million in awarded dollars to our nonprofit clients. Of brand new grants – not renewals – written, 81% were funded.

So Grow Your Grants isn’t just an online course. It’s a proven system that we know can work, and that you can apply in your nonprofit too.


“You were a pivotal part of helping us get our grants program off the ground and giving us the tools we need to be successful.”

- Colleen Maguire, Director, Child Life Disaster Relief

What You'll Learn, Step By Step

This program covers all five phases of the grants lifecycle over five modules. In each module, here is what you can expect to learn:

Module 1: Overview of Grants and Fundraising

  • Where grants fit in within the overall fundraising ecosystem
  • What are all the phases of the grants lifecycle
  • How to design an effective program that is conducive to grantseeking
  • What distinguishes LOIs, full grant applications, and two tier submissions
  • What you can realistically expect to get out of your grants program

Module 2: Identifying Well-Aligned Prospects

  • Why identifying grant prospects is important
  • How to get your initial list of funders
  • How to narrow/refine your prospect list
  • How to research your prospect list via websites and 990s

Module 3: Cultivating Funder Relationships

  • Why cultivating funder relationships is so valuable
  • How to schedule and prepare for a funder call
  • How to hold a funder call

Module 4: Preparing Compelling Submissions

  • What are the six steps to preparing grant submissions
  • How to develop your core narrative document
  • What are the major sections of a grant application
  • How to keep your attachments organized

Module 5: Stewardship, Reporting, and Renewals

  • Why stewardship and reporting are important
  • What to do when your grant is declined
  • What to do when your grant is awarded
 

Frequently Asked Questions


What types of nonprofits will you talk about?
Most course examples fall under the broad umbrella of health and human services. If you work on issues of health, mental health, violence, housing, food, workforce, or other social services, our examples will likely resonate. Nonprofits in areas such as education, the arts, and religion won’t find themselves as well represented in the examples. While you may still get value from the course, it may not be quite as close a fit for your work.
What long will it take to get through the course?
Since the course is completely self-directed, you can pick a pace that makes sense for you! Each of the five modules should take just 1-2 hours to complete. We recommend a few different pacing options: five weeks (or a module a week), one week (or a module a day), or one weekend (5-10 hours over two days).
How long will I get to keep the course materials?
No matter how you move through the course, you’ll always have access to the lessons, workbooks, resource library, and more. Come back and review content anytime you need a refresher.
What if I am not a strong writer?
Strong writers will of course find the writing part of grant seeking a bit easier. Yet, even those who may not be natural writers can learn to win grant awards with our approach. Much of the grants lifecycle - identifying prospects, relationship-building with funders - has little to do with writing. You can certainly learn to win grant awards even with average writing. If you remain concerned about your writing during module 4, you can consider having a contracted grant writer draft some of your core materials so that you have a strong repository of content from which to pull and edit (we also provide these services!). Learning our system remains valuable even if you choose to bring in extra help.
How is this course different than other grant writing courses I may have taken?
One feature of this course is that it focuses on the whole grants lifecycle, not only the writing phase. You’ll also learn about identifying grant prospects, cultivating relationships with funders, and keeping on top of reporting and stewardship activities.
How large are the grants I could submit or be awarded?
Grant size varies widely depending on many factors, with bigger nonprofits tending to get bigger awards. Some small nonprofits have used our process to win $10,000 or $20,000 grants after only 1-2 submissions! But you can apply this system to any size grant that is appropriate for your organization. Our team has written multi-million dollar grants using these same principles.
What results have you seen from following this process?
While we cannot make any guarantees, if you have a fundable program and follow our system, you are likely to see results over time. Past clients have won their very first grant award ($20,000) after a single grant submission; pivoted their ask and won a $10,000 grant two weeks after submitting it; avoided costly mistakes; built ongoing relationships with funders; and been awarded their biggest grants to date!
Will I have a positive return on investment (ROI)?
While we cannot make any guarantees, most nonprofits using this system make back their investment many times over. You will likely not apply for many grants smaller than $2,500, so you will make back your investment in just your first winning submission.
What is the cost of NOT investing in this course?
We’ve seen countless ways that not having a grants game plan actually costs nonprofits much MORE money in the end than investing in this course. Consider the costs of developing programs that have no realistic way of being funded; wasting time writing grants for which you are ineligible or have no real shot of winning; applying haphazardly and at the last minute for any opportunity that comes your way; trying to develop all your own checklists, email templates, and outlines from scratch, or being declined funding due to costly and easily avoidable mistakes in your submissions.
 

What Do You Get With Grow Your Grants?

  • COURSE: Five modules that dive into each phase of the grants lifecycle, with video lessons (Valued at $999)
  • WORKBOOKS: Workbooks for each module that guide you through key activities and exercises (Valued at $250)
  • BONUS TOOLKIT: Handouts, checklists, funder email and phone call templates, and more so you feel confident and organized (Valued at $199)
  • BONUS RESOURCE LIBRARY: FAQs, reading lists, and much more (Valued at $199)
  • MONTHLY OFFICE HOURS: Come ask all your questions live! (Valued at $199)

Total Value = $1,897

Your Price = $695


Special Limited Time Offer

As a special thank you, our earliest enrollees (fall 2020) will also receive a personal one-on-one implementation session at the end of the program (valued at $175), to help them take the next steps in growing their grants.

 

Get started now!



Risk-Free Guarantee: To make this a completely risk-free decision for your nonprofit, if after 10 days you haven't gotten any value from the course whatsoever, simply return your completed Module 1 & Module 2 workbooks for a full refund.