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Sparking Follow-Up: Non-Profit Academy Grant Writing and Research Workshop

by Andrea Winey

Thank you to Maristeve Bradley, President of Marketing & Strategic Business Solutions for writing this post. The Non-Profit Initiative meets monthly at the Chamber office, and has workshops throughout the year. Learn More

Remaining NPI events 2015: 4th Annual Non-Profit Initiative Legislative Reception, November 12th at River Creek Club, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Sparking Follow-Up: Non-Profit Academy Grant Writing and Research Workshop 

Many of us learned quite a bit from the Grant Writing and Grant Research Workshop, led by Amy Owen, Executive Director, Community Foundation for Loudoun and Northern Fauquier Counties.

Have you ever been motivated after attending an excellent workshop?

Then the next day, work and life takes over again!  And what happens…….NOTHING!  You don’t ever get a chance to follow up on all your learned and all your good intentions!

To help spark that follow up, here are a few next steps I want to share.  These are the actions I want to take to actually do that grant research and write that grant proposal:

  • Background, we’ve just written a grant proposal using the Washington Regional Area Grantmakers (WRAG) format. That means completing the research, as well as writing and submitting the grant.  Many hours of work! Now we want to leverage that effort to identify other grant opportunities to support a regional website, such as Connect Northern Virginia. 
  • Step one is to learn more about the Foundation Center as a research resource.  This will help us find the right fit for organizations interested in supporting a collaborative effort such as Connect Northern Virginia.  
  • Step two is to research other organizations interested in supporting a mission such as ours.
  • Once several organizations are identified, we will customize the current grant for each organization and submit the request.  One key learning from the Grant Writing and Research Workshop was to find a smart person to critique the request who does not know our organization – fresh eyes!

Just writing this story helps us map out next steps and actually follow up on this excellent workshop.

To learn more about the Non-Profit Academy and the Non-Profit Initiative through the Chamber, click here.