Course curriculum

In today’s competitive funding environment, successful grant seeking requires more than strong writing—it demands a clear strategy. Many nonprofit organizations operate in a reactive mode, chasing funding opportunities as they arise, which often leads to inefficiencies, staff burnout, and low success rates. This course is designed to help nonprofit professionals shift from reactive grant seeking to a proactive, strategic approach. Participants will learn how to identify and prioritize the right funding opportunities by aligning their organization’s mission, programs, and capacity with funder priorities. Through a combination of practical frameworks, real-world examples, and guided exercises, this training provides a step-by-step process for building a sustainable grant pipeline. Participants will explore how to conduct effective prospect research, navigate the overwhelming landscape of funding sources, and apply structured evaluation criteria to determine which opportunities are worth pursuing. By the end of the course, participants will have the tools and confidence to make informed decisions about grant opportunities, improve their efficiency, and increase their likelihood of securing funding.

    1. Introduction

    1. Grant Prospecting in 60n Minutes

    1. STRATEGIC GRANT SEEKING QUIZ

    1. Help us Improve...

About this course

  • $75.00
  • 4 lessons

Course Objectives:

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

  • Differentiate between reactive and proactive grant seeking approaches, explain the importance of integrating grants into an overall organizational strategy, and identify the risks of pursuing misaligned funding opportunities

  • Define prospect research and its role in successful grant seeking, identify key sources of information for researching funders (e.g., databases, 990s, websites), and analyze funder priorities and giving patterns to assess alignment

  • Distinguish between different types of funding sources (federal, state, private, corporate), navigate common grant research tools and platforms effectively, and apply search strategies to filter and identify relevant funding opportunities

  • Apply a structured framework to evaluate grant opportunities based on alignment, eligibility, capacity, and return on investment, assess organizational readiness to pursue and manage grant funding, and make strategic decisions about which opportunities to pursue and which to decline

  • Develop a basic system for tracking grant prospects and opportunities, identify key steps for building a sustainable grant pipeline, and create an initial action plan for improving grant strategy within their organization

Instructor(s)

Allison Boyd

Founder and Principal Writer

Allison Boyd, Founder and Principal Writer for Boyd Grants, has almost twenty years of experience in grant writing and project management. As an active member of the Grant Professionals Association, she is one of only 24 Grants Professionals Certified in Texas. Allison has the skills and background in all sides of development, from co-chairing successful fundraising campaigns to proposal development and implementation. This robust history creates the ability to present applications that are thorough, concise, and most importantly, conscious to the cause at hand.

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