Grants CONSULTING SERVICES
An essential piece of your fundraising
Whether you’ve never written a proposal, you’re stretched too thin, or you feel like you are constantly reinventing the wheel with every application, Capacita is here to make grants an effective, systematic process rather than a last-minute scramble.
Seeking and winning grants takes a detail-oriented approach, time, and resources. As a company with strong project management principles, our team is here to walk you through our proven methodologies and systems for seeking and securing grants.
What we can help you with
Support with your grant search from beginning to end and beyond!
✓ Full-service: Capacita will become an extension of your team, supersizing your grants effort by first understanding your culture and mission, and then customizing our support depending on your organization's particular needs.
✓ Grant roadmap and preparation: We will evaluate your current slate of documentation, help you fill any gaps, create a grant preparation kit to get you ready for the grants big leagues, and refresh and strengthen your materials.
✓ Grantmaker research: We will dive deep into our paid databases to create a bespoke prioritized list of grant funder prospects and a dashboard tool that you can use to manage your grants going forward.
✓ Grant applications and reporting: At any point in your grant application timeline, we can jump in as short or long-term team members to project manage your grant applications and subsequent reporting and compliance.
✓ Grant coaching: We offer customized trainings, templates, and tools to build the capacity of your development team, and we offer strategy coaching calls to assist with one-off or particularly complex grants.
“Your work has not only helped us apply and close grants, but you have helped us better communicate the mission and goals of our organization. We are grateful to be working with you.”
— Lindsay Fertig-Johnson, Director of Development at The Festival Center
Our Process
Capacita can set up your organization to win and manage grants from A-Z, beginning with a grant roadmap all the way through applications to managing ongoing reporting requirements after an award. Work with us from beginning to end, or on one piece of your grant strategy.
GRANT ROADMAP AND PREPARATION
Grant seeking takes a detail oriented approach, time and resources. As a company with strong project management principles, Capacita is here to help you prepare and organize a thorough packet of information that will make grant seeking as easy as possible.
-
Our Process:
Walking through the common documents required by funders.
Reviewing and evaluating organizational documents commonly needed for grant proposals and identifying areas of strengths and weaknesses.
Designing a work plan of what documents and language you need created.
Collaborating with your team to gather, create, or enhance all the information and messaging required to ensure you are set up to begin applying to grants.
Grantmaker research
Searching for grant funding can be an exciting way to imagine the possibilities for your organization. But the sheer number of potential grantmakers can also be overwhelming, especially when considering how to determine which ones are a good fit. To help you make sense of the landscape, Capacita utilizes a tested and methodical approach to finding good fit funders for your organization.
-
Our Process:
Gathering organizational funding needs and completing a research and vetting process, categorizing funders by priority.
Utilizing a customized vetting process to give you a clear, categorized list to build your pipeline of potential funders.
Providing you with a dashboard that not only includes research data, but also is a tracking tool that keeps your grant seeking process organized and moving forward.
Walking you through a recommendation of what your next steps should be with your prioritized list of prospects.
APPLICATIONS, OUTREACH, AND REPORTING
We build a strategy to determine which grants to pursue and how best to approach each application. For organizations that already have a grant strategy and need an extra set of hands, Capacita can step in as experts to give your proposals an extra boost or take on your process completely to keep your pipeline moving forward. These services range from review and edits of your proposal drafts to full management and writing of applications. Capacita emphasizes outreach as it is statistically one of the best ways to increase the ability to win grants and we provide all the information necessary for you to build long-lasting relationships with funders.
-
Our Process:
Creating a 12-month strategy aligned with your organization’s funding needs and capacity.
Supporting grantmaker outreach with strategy, email drafts, and meeting talking points.
Utilizing project management tools to ensure grant coordination stays organized and on track.
Managing your grant calendar and ensuring letters of intent (LOI)s and applications are started with enough time to make the strongest ask and submit by the deadline.
Writing drafts, compiling attachments, and providing a full application package prepared for submission.
Tracking and creating reports for awarded grants.
Recommending communications for continued donor engagement and renewals.
Coaching
We are here to be your grant coaches! Capacita provides training and tools to help you sharpen your skills, train new team members, or even get a second opinion on a proposal or funder fit.
-
Our Process:
Coaching sessions can be longer group training sessions or one on one calls to talk through a particular grant issue you have been struggling to solve.
Ongoing training and support of your development staff on grant coordination.
One time workshops on a particular topic for one or multiple organizations.
One time coaching calls to discuss any issue surrounding grant coordination.
Whether you need full-service grant support or need assistance with a piece of your grant search, we’re here to support you.