No. 1 · Core engagement
The Funding Foundation
You run real programs with real results, but grants have always been opportunistic: a board member hears about something, someone stays late to write it, and nobody can say what happens next year. This engagement builds the machinery once, properly, and hands it to you.
What's included
- Funder prospect research: a vetted pipeline matched to your programs, not a keyword dump
- A master narrative: your case for support written once, well, and built to adapt across applications
- A twelve-month grant calendar with deadlines, requirements, and award timelines
- An evaluation framework: outcomes, indicators, and a measurement plan funders find credible
- Tracking systems set up in your tools, with training for your team
- The handoff: everything documented, everything yours
The process
- Weeks 1 · discovery, program deep-dive, document gathering
- Weeks 2-3 · research, narrative development, framework design
- Weeks 3–4 · systems build, review rounds, training
- Bonus week · handoff session and written roadmap
Perfect if
- Your organization has at least one program with a year or more of results behind it
- Nobody on staff owns grants, or the person who does is drowning
- You want capacity, not a permanent consultant
- Someone on your team can give this a few hours a week during the engagement
Not a fit if
- You need money this quarter; foundations move slowly, and honesty requires saying so
- You want someone to run the whole development function indefinitely
- Your programs are still ideas rather than activities with participants
No. 2 · Core engagement
Fractional Grants Manager
You already apply for grants. What's missing is someone who owns the whole function: deciding what's worth pursuing, keeping the pipeline moving, catching the compliance details, and turning reporting from a scramble into an asset. A full-time grants professional costs more than the function returns at your size. A fraction of one doesn't.
What's included, pre-award
- Pipeline strategy and go/no-go decisions, so effort goes where funding actually is
- Proposal development for up to 18 submissions each cycle
- Funder research refreshed quarterly, matched to your strategic plan
- Calendar ownership and deadline control
What's included, post-award
- Interim and final report drafting, on the funder's schedule rather than the night before
- Compliance tracking across award requirements and restricted funds
- Funder correspondence and stewardship, so relationships outlast individual grants
- Renewal and reapplication management
- Systems maintained in your tools; a standing monthly strategy session, in writing or on a call
Perfect if
- You submit, or should submit, several proposals a year
- You hold active awards whose reporting deadlines keep surprising you
- Leadership wants grants treated as a managed revenue line, not a lottery
- You value a partner who will tell you when an opportunity is not worth chasing
Not a fit if
- You want commission-based writing; funder ethics rule it out, and so do we
- You need daily on-call availability; this is a structured, asynchronous engagement
- The foundation has not been laid and there is nothing yet to manage
Investment$3,000 / month
Commitment6-month minimum
Availability2 retainer clients at a time
Book a conversation
Add any of these to a core engagement, or write to us about composing something custom.
Red-Team Proposal Review
Your draft, read the way a reviewer will actually read it: scored against the rubric, stress-tested for logic, budget verified line by line. A written report and a marked-up draft before you submit, while there is still time to fix what a reviewer would punish.
$1,000 per proposal · 3-day turnaround
Year-End Campaign Design
The full architecture of your year-end or GivingTuesday campaign: segmentation, gift chart, appeal sequence, channel calendar, stewardship flow, and a post-campaign analysis that tells you what actually worked. Your team fronts it; we design it and stay on call while it runs.
$3,000, seasonal · September–October
Evaluation framework
Outcomes, indicators, and a measurement plan added to any proposal or program, designed by someone who will not be embarrassed if a funder reads it closely.
from $2,000
Reporting & learning systems
Award reporting templates and a learning cycle your team runs after we leave.
from $1,800
Grant calendar refresh
Your pipeline re-researched and re-prioritized for the year ahead.
from $1,200
Appeal & case materials
Case statements, appeal letters, and donor reports written in your organization's voice rather than the sector's.
from $950
Fixed scope, fixed price
The number in the agreement is the number on the invoice.
Honest go/no-go advice
We will tell you when an opportunity isn't worth your time, even when writing it would pay us.
Everything is yours
Research, narratives, systems, and training transfer at handoff. No hostage files.
No commissions, ever
We are never paid a percentage of awards. Funder ethics prohibit it, and so do we.