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| Re: NPO Work - time to give up?
Posted by Linda Procopio  on 12/18/2007, 8:39 pm, in reply to "Re: NPO Work - time to give up?"
VIP Poster|
Please don't give up! I read all of the posts and there is much good advice for you already. I just want to reassure you that the growing pains you are experiencing are pretty common to everyone trying to break into this field. You were just unlucky to have volunteered at a nonprofit who was not organizationally mature enough to be a good candidate for grant funding. That is a mistake I doubt you will make again! The only way to break into this business is to write proposals for an organization who is WORTHY of a grant award and a strong competitor for grant dollars. That means if you volunteer your time again, it needs to be for an organization that has financial sustainability; that has a method of evaluating their programs; that does meaningful work that is well-documented; and that has a solid base of grassroots community support. You need to be successful at obtaining grant money, because then your happy 'client' will refer you to all of their friends in the nonprofit community, and your consulting business will be off and running. With EACH potential new client, you have to honestly assess whether they are organizationally poised to be competitive for grant dollars, and you have to WALK AWAY from those that are not. A grantwriter that succeeds for ALL of their clients in obtaining grant awards will always be in great demand, and the referrals just snowball as you grow your client base year after year. If you want to strictly write grant proposals, the only way you can succeed for ALL of your clients is to ONLY work for those that are worthy of your time and efforts and poised to succeed at a grant proposal campaign. Every time you agree to work for a losing cause, you damage your reputation as a consistent winner. That's a hard lesson to learn, but vital in building a financially successful grantwriting consultancy.
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