It is the afternoon before the deadline. Finance still has the budget numbers. The program director has not yet reviewed the project design. The executive director needs to approve the final version, but is also in back-to-back meetings.

Sound familiar?

For most organizations, grants are the sole focus of one person, if even that. For everyone else, grants barely appear in a job description. Yet the lead grant professional depends on all of them for information, review, and approval.

That is exactly why my team defines a grant team as a group of colleagues who have a shared stake in creating competitive grant applications, and in making sure a funded project can actually be implemented. Whether you work alongside a large team or feel like a grant team of one, that team exists. The people simply may not know it yet.

The real challenge is not the writing. It is helping a group of busy colleagues with competing priorities work well together at a sustainable pace.

That is where my new book, Playbook for Changemakers: Agile Ways of Working That Amplify Impact, comes in. I wrote it to guide nonprofit teams through adopting proven Agile approaches, one play at a time. It offers concrete steps, practical nonprofit examples, and templates and guides any team can start using. For a grant team juggling competing priorities, that is a practical place to start.

The book releases December 1, and preorders are open now.

Preorder at www.playbookforchangemakers.com, then complete the bonus form to claim the Changemaker Resource Vault and a ticket to the live launch workshop on December 1 at 12 pm ET, Why Your Team Has Too Many Priorities (and the Plays That Fix It).

Who on your grant team is stretched the thinnest right now? I would love to hear how you are making it work.