Most funders want to know two things: did the organization do what they promised in the grant application and did they meet their listed goals and objectives. Evaluations are a key component of grant funded programs, and we're sharing tips on writing the evaluation section of a proposal and carrying through with your work during the management phase. In addition, we're celebrating Fundraising HayDay's 100th episode!

How To: Evaluation

What do you do if the perfect grant application comes along, but you don't have the bandwidth to tackle it all on your own? Consider finding a partner or some extra sets of hands to help you get the job done. Even if you are a grant consultant of one, a fellow solo-preneur may be the perfect solution. Check out how cohost Kimberly tackled and won her largest grant award of her career ($25M) thanks to collaborating with a fellow grant professional who had the right client, right grant, but not the time to do it all alone.

Partnering on Large Scale Proposals

While there are hundreds of thousands of grant opportunities in the United States, not every funder or application fits the mission and need of your organization. Rather than wasting time chasing after dollars you will never win, consider a targeted approach to your grant seeking. We'll tell you how.

Stop Chasing the Money

We switched up this year's top ten favorite things list by asking each member of the Grant Pro Book Club (of which we're members) for their favorite productivity tool. We're sharing a wide variety of tech of other means used by grant pros, each with 10+ years of experience in the field. It's a great way to plan for success in 2023 and beyond.

The Top Ten Productivity Tools Used by Our #GrantProBookClub

Working in the nonprofit sector means we focus on wealth and charitable donations, while juggling sustainability, investments, and the future. Today we are talking to fundraising expert Cherian Koshy about planned giving, stock transfers, decolonizing non-profit strategic planning, and so much more. He knows the artful balance of doing the work today while planning for the future needs of your community.  

Strategic Grants & Fundraising for the Win: Play the Long Game

Productivity tools are always helpful, but sometimes it feels like the product is running you instead of you running the product. Today we are talking about the things that distract us from getting the work done and ways in which you can enhance your productivity by focusing on the work. 

Get More Productive By Doing Less

You have a brilliant idea, but how do you bring it to market? Today we are talking to Gauri Manglik, CEO & Co-Founder of Instrumentl, a tool for nonprofits to get matched with the right funders while tracking and managing their grants. She shares how Instrumentl was first imagined, developed, and launched - it is a great learning experience for anyone wondering what tips and tricks an entrepreneur would share about their product beginnings, launch, and continued success.

Entrepreneurship and You

We spend many episodes dreaming of the way we WISH funders would operate - and today we are flipping the script. Learn about funders who are doing things right, earning praise from grant professionals far and wide. Plus, learn how you can lift up those funders who deserve all our praise and recognition. It's a great way to set an example for the hundreds of thousands of others who should step up their game. 

Grant Makers Gone Right

Your Fundraising HayDay cohosts are big believers that reading is a vital component to quality writing skills. We share what reading does for your vocabulary, sentence structure, and so much more. Whether you love paperback books, audio books, newspapers, magazines, grant proposals, letters, or any reading medium, the written word is a powerful thing that impacts our own writing.

Readers Make Better Writers

If you work in the nonprofit profession, you will interact with your organization's board of directors. They are instrumental in your fundraising efforts, but that does not mean they are seasoned fundraisers and grant seekers themselves. So how do you best interact with your board towards building a flourishing collaboration? The Board Pro, Christal M. Cherry, joins us with some incredible advice, insights, and positive framework for doing just that.

Working with Your Board of Directors

Whether you develop grant proposals or work with donors, we are all storytellers. And it's vital that we share the same messages about our organization, the community we serve, and the work we do. T. Clay Buck knows a thing or two about the power of messaging, and he shares insights on how we can all work together to get the job done.

Storytelling: The Power of One

Dana Schuler Drummond has a long and storied career in the field of grants and fundraising. She writes grant proposals; she teaches nonprofit courses at a local college; and she developed a grant management software tool when her post-it system failed her. No two people have the same career trajectory, but Dana has a story that will resonate with us all.

Career Paths for Grant and Fundraising Professionals

Dear funders, we appreciate when you offer a grant workshop. It is ALWAYS helpful to learn more about an upcoming application process and have the opportunity to ask questions of you. But not all funder-led workshops are created equal. Join us as we talk about the aspects of these workshops that drive every grant professional to bang their head against the wall, and hear our dream world about the perfect workshop experience. 

How NOT to Lead a Grant Workshop

These days, grant professionals and fundraisers are often asked to tag team on capital campaigns. When raising a significant amount of money in a set time frame for a new building, large technology upgrade, an endowment, a fleet of new vehicles, or any other large-scaled project, it is typically all hands-on deck. We're offering a step-by-step process, highlighting how grants can and should play a role in the process.

Capital Campaign Tips

You have probably been there before. You already have a full-time job as a teacher, firefighter, major gifts manager, city clerk, accountant, volunteer coordinator, or "fill-in-the-blank job" here. One day your boss comes in and adds grant research and writing to your other duties as assigned. You don't even know where to begin, much less how to submit a completed grant proposal. Trust us when we say, you are not the only individual in this position. We're talking with Joy Day, the Mayor of Jonesboro, Georgia, a part-time elected official who took it upon herself to seek grants to improve the quality of life in her city. Her advice: let your desire for getting a project funded exceed your fear of the grant process.

Other Duties as Assigned: Writing Grants When It’s Not in Your Title

As grant and fundraising professionals, we work with colleagues, boards, partners, other nonprofit agencies, funders, donors, and many other stakeholders. Our job is so much more than bringing in funding. If we are serious about building diversity, equity, and inclusion, we need to build better relationships with all our community stakeholders - making the funding world a better place for every recipient. Don't know how to start? We have a few tips. 

Building More Inclusive Relationships with Stakeholders

It's the dreaded question most funders ask: how are you going to sustain this program when the grant is over? If we are being brutally honest, the answer is probably to write another grant. But we want to be funded, so a more comprehensive and multi-faceted answer is required. Learn all about the benefits of collaboration, fundraising, and more to create the best sustainability answer possible.

How To: Sustainability

The work is piling up - grant deadlines, conference presentations, a new capital campaign, the next fundraising gala, and other duties as assigned. You feel like you're a jack of all trades, but a master of none. How do you get to the place where you feel good enough and are okay with that? Join our conversation with Jess Pettitt, author of Good Enough Now, as she shares how to "do the best we can with what we have some of the time."

Good Enough Now

You know the drill. A funder asks a series of questions, then gives you anywhere from 100 to 1,000 CHARACTERS to answer each question. When you have a million things to share, but a very limited space to do so, how do you fit it all in? Today we're talking writing tight.

Writing Tight for Character Counts

Sure, we all speak English, but are we talking about the same thing? Fundraising is not an exclusively American thing, so we are talking to our friend across the pond. David Burgess, and his firm Apollo Fundraising, provides consultancy, training, and support to arts and cultural organizations. Turns out, we have more in common than we think - and more to learn from one another in getting the job done well.

Fundraising HayDay

Fundraising HayDay

Get Started

Download the App