Don't Let Grants Stress You Out
I didn’t know what a Retrospective was — capital R, Agile term, dedicated event — until I was nearly nine years into running this business. But when I finally learned what a Retrospective actually was, what struck me wasn’t how new it felt, but rather, how familiar it felt. I had already been building something like it into my own workflow, alone, for years: pausing…
Building a business is ALL about relationships. You thought I was going to say grant seeking is all about relationships, didn’t you? Well, that is true too, but that’s another post (ICYMI: Word of the Year) for another time you want a best practices post. In my 21st year of owning and operating DH Leonard Consulting, I can say with certainty and…
My Grandma Horey used to call me the “I can do it girl” as I used to reply with “I can do it!” to her as a toddler whenever she asked if I needed help. So I guess it was ingrained in me from a very young age that I wanted to do it myself without any help. A fine spirit for a toddler looking…
Streamlining Your Grant Development Pipeline Nonprofit grant professionals need a curated suite of specialized tools to efficiently manage competing deadlines, complex application requirements, and data collection. While our team works tirelessly to build out comprehensive capacity-building toolkits, executing everyday development activities requires an organized framework. Therefore, we have gathered a list of our favorite, industry-tested nonprofit tools and resources for grant-seeking professionals. Please…
I type this blog having just returned from an unplugged week away with my spouse and my friends. I can hear what you’re thinking… “Unplugged, really?!?” That is what the younger version of myself would have thought if I read a similar statement from a fellow small business owner. Years ago, I would have skeptically asked, “But what about______? And what…
Nonprofits build a sustainable culture of grants by aligning organizational priorities, visualizing staff capacity on a shared grant calendar, and fostering team-wide storytelling. Many organizations treat grant seeking as an isolated, transactional task. However, shifting to a collaborative culture secures more funding and simultaneously protects your team from burnout. This post delivers an actionable approach to transform how your team approaches grant strategy, tracks…
The phrase “we have always done it this way” is like nails scraping on a chalkboard for me, whether we are talking about a grant process, a program design, or, well … anything. And that specific phrase is not the only one that bothers me. I’ve heard that mindset brought up in seemingly countless other ways, and for some wordplay fun, I grouped other common…
I’m not very kind to my wireless/Bluetooth keyboards. In fact, I have lost track of how many times I have dropped salad dressing or cracker crumbs on my keyboard. If I look back over our tech orders for our 20+ years in business, it is probably quadruple the number of times I bought a new keyboard, given that the spills were often not catastrophic. …
For many nonprofits, securing a grant is a moment of pure celebration, until the realities of complex compliance and reporting surface. Tracking deliverables, managing restricted funding, and collecting auditable metrics can place a heavy administrative burden on a team, distracting dedicated professionals from their primary community mission. Fortunately, supportive frameworks from the Agile methodology offer a clear path forward. By adapting a collaborative Scrum…
“When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated.” – Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection I have high standards and expectations. They absolutely apply to myself and also to those that I work with, whether in a paid or volunteer capacity. (Also, of note, they apply to those in my personal life, whether my spouse, children, extended…