Did you read today’s challenge and say, “Grant team? What grant team? It’s just me!”
Then your task for Day 5 of the Grant Readiness Challenge is to engage your colleagues in a discussion about forming a formal OR information grant team. Set a meeting for next week or the following with your supervisor/colleagues to get the discussion started.
What does a successful grant team look like? The composition and titles around the table or on the phone have to be specific to the organization’s culture. Successful teams can be informal or formally structured. The titles are not an important part of the grant team composition. What is key is to have a diverse set of roles and skill sets represented within a grant team.
The team should have representation of the following roles within an organization:
- Grant Professional
- Leadership
- Finance
- Programs
- Evaluation/Data
- IT
- Marketing
On the other hand, if you nodded when you read today’s challenge and thought, “yes, whether they call themselves that or not, I do have a grant team.” Your task for day 5 of the challenge is to look at how to further engage your grant team.
Which of the tasks below are you currently engaging your grant team in? If you aren’t currently engaging them on all four, pick one as part of the challenge and make a plan today for how to add this role to the group’s work.
- Engaging in the process to create and implement a grant calendar. (Download a copy of our grant calendar action guide here)
- Engaging in dialogue with the lead grant professional/writer to go through the pre-planning process when considering a large application, often for government grants, in advance of a formal application opening.
- Assist the lead grant professional/writer gather information related to program design, evaluation and budget (to name just a few!) during the application design phase.
- Review and edit the application components to ensure that what has been written is aligned with what the organization can implement if funding is awarded.
Don’t forget to share your journey on the 30 Day Grant Readiness Challenge by using the hashtag #grantreadiness on your posts and updates on social media.
Did you miss the launch of the 30 Day Grant Readiness Challenge? It isn’t too late for you to start! You can sign up at any point and it will start you back on Day 1!
