Can You Get Me A Grant?

Every time I tell someone what I do, they ask the same question.

“Can you get me a grant?”

My response usually depends on how much sleep I got the night before. 

If my cats kept me up all night because they’re convinced I need to be paying attention to them at all times, the answer is “no,” accompanied by an exasperated eye roll. 

If by some miracle I feel well rested (read: it’s well into the afternoon by now), the answer is… “no.”

While it’s often said in jest, it shows how little most people know about the fundraising profession.

Many organizations hire grant writers believing they're paying for words. 

The proposal is simply the output. The real value lies in the thinking that comes before it. By the time a proposal reaches a funder, dozens of conversations, difficult questions, and leadership decisions have already shaped what's on the page.

Too often, organizations begin with the funding opportunity and work backward. When funding becomes the starting point, organizations risk shaping programs around what's fundable rather than what's needed. The process should move in the opposite direction. Communities identify the need. Leadership determines how the organization is uniquely positioned to respond, how success will be measured, and how that work will be sustained. Only then should funding become part of the conversation.

Before a proposal is ever written, the real work has already begun. Someone has asked whether this opportunity is worth pursuing in the first place. Is the program ready? Can we deliver what we're promising? Is the timing right? Is the funder right? Are we pursuing this opportunity because it advances our mission, or simply because it exists?

Those are the same questions grant applications ask us to answer: Is there a well-defined need? Why us? Why now?

The grant application doesn't create those questions. It simply forces us to answer them.

Too often, organizations don't ask them until funding is on the line.

Asking someone to invest in your work carries a responsibility.

Leadership's first responsibility isn't organizational growth. It's the mission and the people the mission exists to serve. Sometimes honoring that responsibility means saying not yet.

That means sometimes the most valuable thing a grant writer can say is, not yet.

If the answer is that another organization is better positioned to create the impact we're hoping for, that's not a failure. It's a reminder that the mission has to come before the organization. 

It takes humility to recognize when another organization is better positioned to lead. 

It takes even more courage for leadership to act on that realization. Being mission-driven isn't about doing everything. It's about understanding where you're uniquely positioned to contribute, collaborating when others can do it better, and staying focused on the work that only your organization can do.

Not yet isn't a rejection of the mission. It's an investment in it. It gives organizations permission to pause intentionally. To evaluate what's working. To strengthen what isn't before asking someone else to invest.

Leadership isn't accountable only to the people writing the checks. It's accountable to everyone who has invested in the mission. 

Staff invest their time, expertise, and energy. 

Communities invest their trust. 

Participants invest their willingness to engage. 

A funder's investment matters, but it's only one of many. Good leadership honors all of them.

It can be difficult to say not yet. Budgets are tight. Leadership wants to grow. The need in the community is real, and there's a genuine desire to respond. Those pressures are understandable.

But communities deserve more than good intentions. They deserve organizations that are prepared to show up in the ways they said they would.

Sometimes the most responsible decision isn't to submit the proposal. It's to strengthen the organization first.

That may mean refining a program, strengthening outcomes, or making whatever changes are necessary to ensure the organization is ready to deliver on its promises.

So can I get you a grant? 

Maybe.

But that's probably the wrong question, because grants aren't something a grant writer secures by being a good writer alone. Organizations become worthy of asking for investment by doing the work first.

The best answer isn't always the one that leads to more funding. It's the one that best serves the mission.

The better question is whether leadership has done the work necessary to ask others to invest in an organization that's ready to honor that trust.