What funders read, and what nonprofits miss.
Short essays on the practice of grant writing: what funders actually read, what nonprofits routinely miss, and what the work looks like when it is done well.
Tipping.
A development director called me thrilled. A private foundation had offered a single grant larger than a third of last year's revenue. She wanted help with the agreement. I asked her what her public support percentage was on Schedule A last year. There was a long pause.
Read the essayThe rate changed. Your budget did not.
On October 1, 2024, the de minimis indirect cost rate went from ten percent to fifteen. Almost two years later I am still opening budget templates that say ten, and watching organizations hand back money nobody asked them to return.
Read the essayThe 2026 funding shift.
If you lead a nonprofit, run a development team, or write grants for a living, you have almost certainly felt it by now. The applications take longer. The competition is sharper.
Read the essayThe quiet things a program officer reads first.
There is a sequence most grant writers assume. The program officer opens the proposal. She reads the cover letter, then the executive summary, then the narrative, then the budget, then the appendices.
Read the essayWhy I decline a proposal before I write a bad one.
I said yes to almost everything in my first years of practice. A nonprofit would call. We would talk. I would hear the gaps in the program, I would hear the hesitation in the executive director's voice when she described her outcomes.
Read the essayA note every month. Nothing else.