Group Grant Writing Training

Jessica Smith

City Planners often have thankless jobs - at the permit counter, our customers are often frustrated. With long-range planning documents, our stakeholders are disappointed we’re not talking about the here and now. And as make-shift grant writers for our communities’ needs, we often feel that our lack of specialized training leaves us spinning our wheels for weeks before we finally submit the application, cross our fingers, and hope for the best.

As the Alaska American Planning Association Conference Chair, I was looking for opportunities to give our membership valuable skills that would help give them a win. I approached Learn Grant Writing to teach a group workshop of small and large municipal planners, with hopes of providing them with an actionable grant writing education. The conference committee had never done anything like this before and didn’t know how it would be received.

Turns out, it was a key highlight of the conference! Out of 150 attendees, We had over 40 professionals participate. We did not track grant wins from each participant, but have conversationally heard of over $400 million being won between just three of the attendees.

The reason we most enjoyed working with Meredith Noble and the team at Learn Grant Writing was the fantastic energy and professionalism they brought to the workshop.

I am proud that the Learn grant writing workshop gave these planners a win in the midst of their busy days and added fire to the reason we all become city planners in the first place - to help our communities.

Leanna Heffner

We hired Meredith and her team to run a special 6-week grant course to specifically support staff with Indigenous-led organizations focused on environmental issues in the North, specifically because we had worked with the team previously and knew how effective, strategic, and super fun they are to work with! Organizing the grant course behind the scenes was a seamless process due to the super organized approach of the Learn Grant Writing team, and their amiable and caring personalities made the project an enjoyable experience. The course was a big success, with ~40 professionals across Alaska and Northwest Canada who participated. We conducted a participant exit survey, and the feedback we received demonstrated how valuable this course was in improving their grant seeking and grant writing skills:

• “It was the best course I’ve taken in a long time. Thank you so much ladies!”
• “I very much enjoyed the structure in the course, and thought all the information was very helpful.”
• “I really appreciated all the support and humanness brought into the training. It was such a safe and respectful place to learn.”
• “I feel like I can look at grants in a much more strategic manner now.”
• “During this course I’ve applied for 3 grants and was successful with 2 so far!”

We would certainly recommend Meredith and her team to others in a heartbeat, and would happily work with them again. All around a fantastic experience!

Darcie Casey

I started at CCB Counseling in Bloomington in 2022 with over a decade of event and hospitality experience but zero grant writing knowledge. I knew I wanted to work for their mission, so I applied for a scholarship to attend the Learn Grant Writing cohort through the Indiana Youth Institute.

The cohort was led by the amazing Rose Hedberg. I was most looking forward to learning a new skill that could help fund projects to improve mental health in our community and meeting other grant writers in this new industry I’d stumbled upon. I really enjoyed getting to meet real-life funders, seeing other cohorts’ work, and receiving personal feedback from Rose. I sent her a narrative and she recorded a video with pointers that helped us secure funding for a group therapy initiative helping parents living with children with ADHD connect. I appreciated Rose’s knowledgeable and thorough feedback. She celebrated wins with us as if they were her own, which I appreciated.

Since the cohort, I have applied for six grants in the past 6 months and have been awarded $60,190 in funding for our agency. I am most proud of the funding we received for a grant that I wrote to partner with a local elementary school to serve children experiencing poverty, food scarcity, and generational trauma with onsite therapy sessions during their school day.

Thanks to the help from LGW I was able to use my new skillset to weave a compelling and powerful narrative, back it up with meaningful data, and keep our team on track to report, meet deadlines, and receive monthly reimbursement checks.

I would highly recommend learning from the LGW team, watching their videos, and staying connected to their company. Their YouTube channel is incredible, and the access that you get to their videos is so helpful to come back to when you are writing real-time grants.

Anastasia L Oguntade

Hey! I’m Anastasia and I work with the Indiana Breastfeeding Coalition. I was part of the cohort in 2022 sponsored by Indiana Youth Institute (IYI).

I was most looking forward to learning about how to become a better grant writer and develop a business mindset to scale this newfound skill that I had developed. During the training, I really enjoyed developing the funding strategy and discovering many different funders and learning about who wanted to fund the causes I was interested in writing about.

What I most appreciated about the cohort was our facilitator Rose, I also appreciated the effort that IYI put into the program.

Since the cohort, my proudest accomplishment has been writing my first successful grant, which was funded for more than $50,000, giving me the confidence to write for another organization, which was successfully funded for more than $120,000. I was confident in the skill set I had developed, I felt very supported by Rose even after the cohort, and I knew I would deliver positive results, so now I allowed myself to be unapologetic with my price and landed a two-year guaranteed gig for the very same organization!

If your organization is thinking about holding a cohort, I would say DO IT! And take advantage of any additional benefits that LGW provides to enhance the experience. I appreciate having year-round access to Kajabi. I wish I could have had access to more materials, the resource group, or even the current Kajabi content for a longer period of time, but I am grateful for the experience because what I learned has taken me further than I could have imagined.

LGW has had an unimaginable impact on my life. I wasn’t sure how far grant writing could take me or even if it could replace my income, but I’m here to tell you that it can and has for me! I’ve worked as a peer reviewer, which has allowed me to hone my skills. I’ve written five grants and am working on my sixth. All but one were successful. I am grateful for this opportunity, and I am convinced that it has changed the trajectory of my and my family’s lives.

Jenna Anderson

A group of us here in Indiana as youth serving organizations were given the opportunity to apply to be part of that cohort sponsored by the Indiana Youth Institute. We went through a pretty significant, intensive grant writing course. Getting started in my role as the Early Childhood Coalition coordinator for Noble County, this training was very important. We rely a lot on grant writing and grant funds to support the work that we’re doing. In addition, part of our role is helping providers, childcare providers, preschool programs, receive grants as well, because our childcare providers can’t charge enough to parents to actually cover the cost of care. So our network relies on grants and other sources of funding to close the gap.

Because of what I have learned, not only am I able to work to raise funds to support my own organization, but I am also able to support our childcare providers in helping them with grant writing, giving them tips. We share the information on what our childcare providers can do now to prepare for any grant that comes their way.

One of those things that I learned and that I wanted to share with people was how to write a grant narrative. How to be organized with a folder of everything that you need for grant writing. Have that narrative that you can just tweak for the specific grants that come up.

I appreciate all of the education that was provided to me and the resources I gained. It has been such a valuable experience, especially getting started in this new role as the Early Childhood Coalition coordinator.

Thank you to Learn Grant Writing and the Indiana Youth Institute for providing this cohort as a resource for the child serving organizations in Indiana.