We are delighted to assist you with scheduling your desired training! To initiate the process, please reach out directly to our Marketing & Training Product Owner. They will be responsible for coordinating all aspects of the training schedule.

You can contact the Product Owner by email at megan@dhleonardconsulting.com.

When you contact them, please be prepared to discuss and finalize the following essential details:

1. Date and Time: Discuss available slots and secure a specific date and time that works best for your team or audience.
2. Topic: Clearly define the specific subject matter or skill set the training will cover. You can review our training catalog here.

Starting this conversation with our Product Owner is the first step in ensuring a successful and timely training session.

Our firm is committed to fostering enduring, impactful relationships with our clients, moving beyond transactional engagements to become a true extension of your team.

Standard Grant Writing Support Engagements

• Average Contract Duration: Our typical grant writing support contract spans a 12-month period. This duration is strategically chosen to align with the cyclical nature of major funding opportunities and to allow us adequate time to fully understand your organization’s mission, programs, and funding needs, thus maximizing the probability of securing significant grant funding.
• Multi-Year Relationships: We pride ourselves on the high retention rate of our clients, with the majority choosing to engage in multi-year relationships with our team. This sustained partnership allows us to develop sophisticated, long-term funding strategies, proactively manage grant calendars, and continuously refine compelling narratives that resonate with a diverse range of funders.

We encourage you to share your specific requirements with us. If your organization has an existing Request for Proposal (RFP) or a clearly defined scope of work that you would like our team to review and consider, please be sure to reach out to initiate a discussion. We are ready to evaluate how our expertise can best align with your immediate and long-term funding goals.

We appreciate your interest in working with DH Leonard Consulting!

We take a selective and strategic approach to responding to RFPs and RFQs, engaging only when there is a strong alignment between your needs and our core expertise, successful track record, and service offerings. This ensures we dedicate our highest quality of service to projects where we are confident we can deliver exceptional value.

To submit a document for consideration, please forward it and any supporting information directly to:

Marketing & Training Product Owner

Megan Martin

Email: megan@dhleonardconsulting.com

Our leadership team will promptly review the submission to assess our team’s alignment with your criteria. 

While our firm primarily partners with nonprofit organizations, we occasionally work with for-profit businesses. In these instances, our focus remains on impactful, community-centered outcomes, such as catalyzing economic development, building new enterprises, and generating jobs.

Crucially, this for-profit work is a small fraction of our overall portfolio. The vast majority of our time and resources are consistently devoted to supporting and strengthening nonprofit organizations to maximize their positive influence and sustainable impact.

Yes, every self-hosted (in-house) webinar is recorded to ensure that participants who may have missed the live session or wish to revisit the information have full access to the content afterward. After the live session concludes (approximately up to 24 business hours), you will receive a follow-up email. This email will contain a link to the complete, high-quality recording of the webinar, and a downloadable PDF of all associated handouts, presentation slides, and any other relevant supplementary materials distributed by the presenter during the session. We aim to deliver these materials within 24 hours of the webinar’s completion to maximize your convenience and learning experience.

Given that the majority of contracts are custom annual scopes of work, our pricing reflects a custom solution aligned with your grant-seeking strategy and funding needs. A detailed consultation with our Grant Strategy Team Product Owner is required to offer a scope of work that includes pricing.

Our service model is designed for comprehensive, long-term support, with most engagements structured as annual agreements. We do not accommodate single, isolated grant requests. The annual contract commits to supporting an agreed-upon, strategic portion of your organization’s overall grant-seeking activities throughout the fiscal year, ensuring a sustained funding effort.

Agile in Nonprofits is a product of DH Leonard Consulting that is focused on helping nonprofits understand and adopt the Agile framework as a way to create even greater impact in a shorter period of time, or even if in the same period of time, in a more sustainable way.

By adopting Agile principles, nonprofits can achieve:

1. Accelerated Impact: Deliver tangible outcomes and value faster through iterative development, shortening the time from need identification to solution implementation.
2. Increased Sustainability: Maintain high productivity without burnout by breaking complex projects into manageable cycles (sprints).
3. Enhanced Adaptability: Quickly pivot strategies and projects in response to changing funding or community demographics, thanks to flexibility and continuous feedback loops.
4. Greater Efficiency and Value: Reduce waste and better allocate scarce resources through continuous collaboration, transparent communication, and regular reflection.

In essence, Agile in Nonprofits equips organizations with a systematic approach to create greater, more sustainable impact in a shorter period of time.

It is an approach that breaks the grant-writing process into “bite-size iterations.” This benefits you by allowing our team to work more quickly and efficiently, produce regular drafts for your input, communicate openly, and adapt quickly to the changing grant landscape.

Instead of wondering how your proposal will fare against the review process, you can increase the competitiveness of your application by having your application go through a mock grant review prior to finalizing the application for submission. This process is a proven way to increase your competitiveness in state and federal grant applications.

As part of the mock grant review process, you can expect our team to complete the following activities as appropriate to your organization’s needs:

• Convene the team to review your completed grant application, prior to formal submission, following the scoring rubric of the grantmaker.
• Provide content edits and scoring feedback specific to the scoring rubric of the grantmaker.
• Provide a summary of edits and comments based on the scoring rubric of the grantmaker.
• Provide a second review of the completed grant application, if requested, prior to submission.
• If a member of our team was also the lead writer for the application being mock reviewed, the team assembled for the process will not include the lead grant consultant or supportive junior grant consultant who wrote or edited the application.

Our team uses a collaborative process in a client-centered environment. While we handle the writing, research, and strategy, you will provide timely, regular input throughout the iterations, ensuring that the drafts meet your needs.

A grant writer is a professional who researches, writes, compiles, and submits funding proposals on behalf of organizations—most commonly nonprofits—to secure grants from foundations, corporations, and government agencies. Beyond writing, an experienced grant writer serves as a strategic partner: They help identify the right funding opportunities, build relationships with grantmakers, craft compelling narratives that align your mission with a funder’s priorities, and manage reporting requirements after funding is awarded. At DH Leonard Consulting, our grant writers function as a true extension of your team—deeply learning your organization’s programs, voice, and goals to maximize your long-term funding success.

Grant-writing fees vary widely depending on the scope of work, the experience of the consultant, and the complexity of your funding needs. At DH Leonard Consulting, our engagements are structured as custom annual scopes of work rather than one-off proposals—because sustainable funding success requires a strategic, year-round effort, not a single application. Pricing is determined after a consultation with our Grant Strategy Team to fully understand your organization’s goals, grant calendar, and capacity. We do not offer per-proposal pricing, because this model is widely considered misaligned with ethical grant-writing standards. To start the conversation, contact us here.

Nonprofits find grants through a combination of database research, relationship-building with funders, peer networks, and staying current on funding trends in your sector. Common starting points include foundation databases, government grant portals like Grants.gov, and community foundation websites. However, the most effective grant research goes beyond a keyword search—it involves understanding a funder’s priorities, giving history, and alignment with your specific programs. We offer a full suite of Grant Research Resources to help your organization build a strong prospect list.

We provide Grant Research services for you, consisting of strategic searches for foundation and government opportunities to find the best fit for your mission and help drafting your grant calendar.

Grant readiness refers to how well-positioned your organization is to successfully apply for, receive, and manage grant funding. A grant-ready organization is characterized by clearly defined programs with measurable outcomes, strong financial systems, a compelling case for support, and the internal capacity to fulfill reporting requirements. Funders increasingly evaluate organizational health alongside project merit—so even a well-written proposal can fall short if your nonprofit isn’t ready. DH Leonard Consulting offers the GRASP Tool (Grant Readiness Assessment), the 30-Day Grant Readiness Challenge, and a whole suite of resources to help organizations of all sizes build the base they need before pursuing funding.

You can use our GRASP Tool, a 10-minute grant-readiness assessment questionnaire that provides a specific measurement of your organization’s readiness. We also offer a Grant Readiness E-Book for further guidance. Our team is happy to also coach you through grant readiness to help you prepare.

Foundation grants are awarded by private, family, or corporate foundations and typically fund a wide range of nonprofit programs, projects, and operating needs. They tend to have more flexible guidelines, shorter application processes, and relationship-driven review processes. Government grants—at the federal, state, or local level—are publicly funded, highly regulated, and often involve more complex applications, stricter compliance requirements, and detailed reporting obligations. Government grants generally offer larger award amounts but require significant organizational capacity to manage. Many nonprofits pursue a mix of both as part of a diversified funding strategy. Our team has deep expertise in both areas.

The timeline for writing a grant proposal depends on its complexity, the funder’s requirements, and the amount of foundational content your organization already has in place. A straightforward letter of inquiry to a small foundation might take a few days, while a detailed federal grant application can take several weeks or even months of preparation. As a general rule, we prefer (and recommend) to begin working on any proposal at least four to six weeks before the deadline, and for federal grants, three to six months is not uncommon or unreasonable. Working with an experienced grant-writing firm like DH Leonard Consulting helps ensure that your organization never scrambles at the last minute, because we proactively manage your grant calendar as part of our annual engagement.

A grant success rate is the percentage of submitted proposals that result in a funded award. Industry-wide, a success rate of 30–50% is generally considered strong for an established nonprofit with a solid track record and a strong, well-researched list of potential funders. New organizations or those applying to highly competitive funders might see lower rates initially. Understand that grant-writing success is influenced by many factors beyond the quality of the writing, including organizational credibility, alignment with funder priorities, program design, and relationship history with the funder. At DH Leonard Consulting, we focus on strategic research and long-term funder relationships to maximize your win rate over time, not just volume of submissions. Take a look at our Grant Research resources.

No. Our professional code of ethics (Grant Professionals Association), as well as that of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, does not permit us to accept payment on a commission or percentage basis.

Here is a link to the code of ethics FAQs for your reference:

https://www.grantprofessionals.org/ethicsfaqs#Compensation

Yes—and for many small nonprofits, partnering with a professional grant-writing firm is one of the most cost-effective investments they can make. Small organizations often lack the internal capacity to research funders, write compelling proposals, and manage the grant cycle simultaneously. Outsourcing to an experienced firm allows your team to focus on program delivery while a dedicated consultant manages your funding strategy. Our team at DH Leonard Consulting works with nonprofits at various stages of development. If you’re unsure whether your organization is ready to work with a grant writer, our GRASP Tool can help you assess your current readiness and identify gaps to address before pursuing funding.

Although requirements vary by funder, most grant proposals include the following core components: an executive summary or cover letter, an organizational overview, a clear statement of the need or problem, a description of the proposed project or program, measurable goals and outcomes, an evaluation plan, a project timeline, a detailed budget and budget narrative, and information about your organization’s leadership and qualifications. Federal grant applications often require additional documentation such as logic models, letters of support, and audit financials. Strong proposals go beyond checking boxes; they tell a coherent, compelling story that connects your community’s need to the funder’s priorities. Explore our Grant Writing Resources for guidance on crafting each section effectively.

A logic model is a visual framework that maps the relationship between your program’s resources (inputs), activities, outputs, and intended outcomes. It helps funders quickly understand how your program works and why it will be effective. Many government funders require a logic model as part of the application, and even when it’s optional, including one can strengthen your proposal by demonstrating clear program design and evaluation thinking. Beyond grant writing, logic models are valuable planning tools that help nonprofits clarify their theory of change and communicate impact to stakeholders. If your organization doesn’t yet have a logic model for your key programs, developing one is an important step toward grant readiness. Take advantage of our free Logic Model Guide here.

DH Leonard Consulting has been serving nonprofits since 2006 with a team-based model that goes far beyond what a solo grant writer can offer. Rather than assigning a single consultant to your account, we bring a full team of experienced professionals who collaborate on strategy, writing, and review, providing built-in quality control and continuity. We are also deeply committed to the nonprofit sector beyond client work: We host the annual, no-cost #LearnGrants Online Summit, offer extensive free grant-writing resources, and have pioneered the application of Agile principles to nonprofit work through our Agile in Nonprofits initiative. Our high client retention rate and multi-year relationships reflect a genuine commitment to long-term partnership, rather than transactional engagements. Learn more about our services here.

No ethical grant-writing firm can or should guarantee grant funding, and any consultant who makes that promise is a red flag. Grant decisions are made by funders based on their own priorities, available resources, and the competitive field of applicants, all of which are outside a consultant’s control. What a great grant-writing partner guarantees is a rigorous, strategic, and professional approach that maximizes your competitiveness: thorough prospect funder research, compelling, well-crafted proposals, strong alignment between your programs and the funder’s priorities, and proactive relationship management. At DH Leonard Consulting, we are committed to transparency about the realities of the grant landscape while working tirelessly to put your organization in the strongest possible position to succeed.

Our team works with a broad range of nonprofit organizations across sectors, including human services, health and wellness, arts and culture, education, housing and community development, environmental conservation, and more. We partner with organizations of varying sizes. Our team’s diverse experience across sectors means we understand the unique language, priorities, and funder landscapes relevant to your mission area. We also occasionally work with for-profit businesses whose work creates meaningful community impact, such as economic development and job-creation initiatives. Contact us to discuss whether we’re the right fit for your organization.

Yes, training nonprofit professionals is a core part of our mission at DH Leonard Consulting. We offer a robust catalog of live and recorded webinars, workshops, and multi-session trainings covering all phases of the grant life cycle, from research and readiness to writing, funder relationships, and reporting. We also offer custom private trainings tailored to your organization’s specific needs and skill gaps, ideal for teams looking to build internal grant capacity. Our Grant Writing Basics program is a popular starting point for newer grant professionals, and our annual #LearnGrants Online Summit brings together sector leaders for an immersive multi-day learning experience. View the full training calendar to find upcoming sessions.

To develop a scope of work and begin our partnership, we typically need to understand key information about your organization: your mission, core programs, and the populations you serve; your current and historical grant funders; your annual operating budget and financial health; any existing grant deadlines or pending opportunities; your internal capacity for grant-related activities; and your funding goals for the coming year. If you have an existing grant calendar, prospect list, or previously funded proposals, those are also incredibly helpful. The more context you can share up front, the better we can tailor a strategy that fits your organization’s unique needs and timeline. Reach out to our team to schedule an initial consultation.

When a nonprofit receives a grant, the funder typically requires one or more reports documenting the use of the grant funds, the activities carried out, and the outcomes achieved. These grant reports are a critical part of maintaining funder relationships and demonstrating accountability—and failing to submit them on time or with sufficient detail can jeopardize future funding from that source. Reporting requirements vary widely: some funders request a brief narrative and financial summary, while others require detailed data, photographs, stories of impact, or in-person presentations. Explore our Grant Reporting Resources for additional guidance.

The #LearnGrants Online Summit is an annual, multi-speaker, virtual event hosted by DH Leonard Consulting, designed to provide nonprofit professionals with high-quality, accessible grant education from leading practitioners in the field. The summit features sessions on every aspect of the grant life cycle, from building grant readiness and researching funders to writing competitive proposals and stewarding grantmaker relationships. It draws speakers and attendees from across the country and is designed to be practical, relevant, and immediately applicable to your work. Whether you’re new to grant writing or a seasoned development professional looking to sharpen your skills, #LearnGrants offers valuable learning in a flexible, online format. Visit the #LearnGrants Summit page to learn about the upcoming event and explore past summit recordings.