How a Grant Consultant Can Amplify the Impact of Your Fundraising Team
Many different staff positions fulfill fundraising duties. Depending on the size of the nonprofit organization, just one person may handle all fundraising tasks, while in other organizations the fundraising team may be comprised of a dozen individuals each with a unique focus.
In a large fundraising team, leadership and strategy may be assigned to the Director of Development or a Major Gifts Officer, while donor relationships and stewardship may be assigned to a planned giving officer. Events may require an events coordinator. Some organizations additionally have a social media manager, volunteer coordinator, or data analyst. Each of these individuals serves a unique role on the fundraising and development team.
Alex Dunn, CFRE, is a grant consultant who founded the company Millionaire Grant Lady and Associates to help busy nonprofits save time and money while maximizing their grant funding. She has worked in nonprofit offices as part of large teams, and she has worked as a team of one.
Want to learn more about how Alex can support your fundraising team? Schedule your complementary strategy call to learn more today.
When talking with prospective clients, we are often asked what is a grant consultant and how can a grant consultant support a fundraising team? These are great questions, with simple answers.
- What is a grant consultant?
- How can a grant consultant support your fundraising team?
- How to select the right consultant for your organization
- Does your organization need grant writing support? Let’s talk!
What is a grant consultant?
A grant consultant works with nonprofits to:
- Develop a grant strategy
- Research foundations and grant opportunities
- Format budgets and attachments in the form foundations prefer
- Prepare proposals
- Submit grants
- Complete reports on grant funding
- Cultivate foundations
- Have a strong online presence
A grant consultant can work with a nonprofit on just one project—such as a foundation search—or on a much larger scope of work such as developing a fundraising calendar, applying to foundations, reporting on funding received, and cultivating foundation donors.
What does a grant consultant cost?
The average cost of hiring a full-time grant writer can be upwards of $90,000 including salary and benefits.
Many smaller nonprofits often cannot afford this price tag. What’s more is most small nonprofits don’t have enough grant work to warrant hiring a full-time grant writer. A grant consultant often costs just a fraction of this large price tag. As a result, hiring a grant consultant with a track record of success can be a much more affordable option that can meet the immediate needs of the nonprofit. Read our article here to learn more.
Large nonprofits with large fundraising teams may have the budget to hire a full-time grant writer; however, the process to hire a grant writer often takes more than 6 months from start to finish. After the grant writer is hired, the new hire still must be on-boarded and trained. When you know your fundraising team needs help, you often need that help to start today (or yesterday as we often hear!)
Unlike a new grant writer that takes time to hire and train, Alex and her team are ready to step in to support your fundraising team today. Our streamlined on-boarding process takes less than 2 hours of your valuable time, and then we get to work for you. Alex has won more than $100 million in grant funding for her clients, and she uses this expertise to guide her work with each nonprofit client.
How can a grant consultant support your fundraising team?
If you are thinking about adding another member to your fundraising team, begin by assessing your current team’s strengths and weaknesses:
What areas of expertise does your team currently have?
Maybe your team is great at maintaining strong foundation relationships. Maybe your team does a great job planning events. But maybe your team does not have any federal grant experience. In this case, you would want to select a grant consultant that could bring this skill to the table.
Alex began her career in federal grants, and each year we win millions of dollars in federal funding for the nonprofits we serve. The average federal grant can take more than 100 hours to prepare. We take up to 80% of that work off of you and provide you with strong grant narratives that position your nonprofit to be competitive and successful.
How close to capacity is your team?
Sometimes fundraising can feel a little “I Love Lucy” where the chocolates keep coming down the conveyor belt and Lucy is at capacity but the chocolates keep coming faster and faster and faster.
If this is where your team is and you are planning for a program expansion, you may need an additional team member to help you begin fundraising for that expansion. Of if you are losing a key source of funding and trying to replace that funding, you may need an extra team member to research and apply to the potential new sources of funding.
When you are considering an extra team member, be sure to review their qualifications and experience. You want to bring in a partner who will take work off of the team, not someone who needs constant oversight and check-ins. We recently talked to someone who had hired a grant writer, but they were still spending 20 hours per month or more on grants. Bringing in a new team member should take work off your plate—not add to it.
What gaps in knowledge or experience exist within your team?
If your team has been working in the same space for a while, they are likely well entrenched in your nonprofit and have a deep understanding of the community you serve. In this case, it can be helpful to bring in an additional team member to bring a fresh perspective.
We often talk with nonprofits who benefit from seeing their work with fresh eyes. Alex has worked with over 100 nonprofits across the United States of every shape and size doing every kind of work. She brings this expertise to each new nonprofit we partner with. This expertise and fresh eyes help us prepare narratives and grant applications that highlight your unique selling points and position you for success.
While each fundraising team will bring unique strengths and challenges to the table, all teams have one thing in common—they often need some extra help to ensure the work is done with accuracy and efficiency.
How to Select the Right Consultant for Your Organization
When we talk to nonprofits who are trying to grow their grant funding, we frequently hear that people who don’t know much about grant writing have been tasked with the job. Maybe a helpful board member has decided to tackle some applications, or maybe an intern wants to get into grant writing.
While we definitely understand the all-hands-on-deck mentality of nonprofits, this doesn’t necessarily yield the best results.
When hiring a grant consultant, or when filling your grant writing role, consider:
- Experience in the role—a support person should have experience that complements the experience of the team.
- Time savings—a support person should be able to utilize available materials to get up to speed quickly on the organization’s work and goals. Their work should save you time, not add to your work load.
- Positive ROI—Money spent on fundraising and grant writing should be viewed as an investment. The money you put into it should be multiplied. While no grant writer can guarantee a positive return on investment, an experienced grant writer with a proven record of success is more likely to yield a positive ROI.
At Millionaire Grant Lady and Associates, grant writing is not one thing that we do, it is THE thing that we do. Alex has been working in grants for more than 15 years. This expertise positions us to support you effectively while saving your team valuable time they need to do other tasks.
We know that nonprofits don’t just need a grant writer—they need a smart investment that pays off. 93% of our clients who have previously received grants see a positive return on investment when working with us. And for two-thirds of our clients, that ROI is at least 8x.
Even new organizations have seen major success. One first-year nonprofit we worked with secured $400,000 in private grants within six months and then landed a $1 million local government grant.
This track record speaks for itself. How much more funding could your organization secure with the right team supporting you?
Does your organization need grant writing support? Let’s talk!
An effective grant consultant can support a fundraising team in tasks large and small across any stage of the grant application process. Common tasks we complete for larger fundraising teams are:
- Funder research and fundraising calendars
- Federal grant narratives
- State grant narratives
- Strengthening existing writing through adding storytelling and data
- Developing templates to use for grant applications
- Reporting on grant outcomes
- Funder cultivation
- Grants for targeted program expansions
- Capital campaigns
- Capacity building initiatives
- Interim support when a grant writer takes a leave of absence or leaves their role
The team at Millionaire Grant Lady and Associates can help expand your capacity while increasing your grant funding and saving you time and money. Because we have so many team members each with a different expertise, we ensure that our support meets your organization’s specific needs. We are ready to start work for you when you are ready!
Contact us today to explore how a partnership with us can elevate your nonprofit’s fundraising work.
