Your Grant Writer Shouldn't Have to Beg You for Information

Dear nonprofit fundraisers and grants dabblers,

There is a very specific kind of nonprofit chaos that happens a few days before a grant deadline.

The grant writer needs updated program numbers, so they email Programs. Programs says Finance might have them. Finance has the budget, but it's not the budget the funder wants. The Executive Director needs to approve the narrative but hasn't had time to read it. Someone realizes an attachment is outdated. Another person remembers that the program model changed six months ago, but nobody updated the boilerplate language.

Meanwhile, the grant writer is doing considerably less grant writing than anyone would probably like.

And somehow, when the deadline gets uncomfortably close, we call this a grant-writing problem. It isn't. It's a grants management problem.

I've worked with enough nonprofit organizations to know that we sometimes have a strange understanding of what grant writers actually do. We hire someone because they're skilled at identifying opportunities, understanding funder priorities, developing compelling narratives, and translating complicated programs into cases for investment. Then we make them spend half their time hunting down documents and repeatedly asking colleagues to answer the same questions.

A great grant writer can write a great proposal. A great grants system makes sure they actually have what they need to write it.

A Grant Is More Than the Application

One of the changes we've been working on with a client recently is looking at grants as a complete lifecycle rather than a series of deadlines.

That distinction matters.

When organizations organize their grant programs primarily around due dates, the deadline becomes the thing driving everyone's behavior. A proposal is due Friday, so suddenly everyone springs into action on Wednesday. Then the application gets submitted, everyone celebrates, and the grant largely disappears from organizational consciousness until the next deadline—or, worse, until someone remembers a report is due.

A healthy grant flow starts much earlier and ends much later.

Before anyone begins drafting, someone has already identified and qualified the opportunity. There has been a decision about whether the funder actually aligns with the organization's priorities. Program staff understand what is being proposed. The budget reflects the work described in the narrative. Roles are clear enough that everyone knows when they enter the process and what they're responsible for providing.

After submission, the relationship continues. The opportunity is tracked. Funder communication is documented. If the grant is awarded, requirements and reporting deadlines are captured. Program and financial performance can be monitored against what was promised. Stewardship doesn't disappear simply because the check arrived.

That's grants management. The writing is one piece of it.

Everyone Has a Role. Not Everyone Is the Grant Writer.

This is where organizations can get themselves into trouble in both directions.

On one end, the grant writer is expected to do everything. On the other, creating a "collaborative" process somehow means twelve people are editing the same narrative and nobody knows who has final authority.

Neither is particularly functional.

Good grant flow doesn't mean everybody does everything. It means everybody knows when they're needed.

Program staff hold the expertise about the work itself. They should be able to provide accurate program descriptions, outcomes, needs, stories, and data without being expected to turn those pieces into a funder-ready narrative.

Finance brings the financial picture. Budgets, actuals, organizational financial information, and the details necessary to ensure that what we're promising a funder matches what it will actually cost to deliver.

Executive leadership brings organizational vision, strategic context, key funder relationships, and timely decision-making. An Executive Director shouldn't discover the night before submission that the organization is requesting $100,000 for something they've never discussed.

And the grants professional sits at the intersection of all of it: managing the opportunity, understanding the funder, guiding strategy, coordinating the process, and turning organizational knowledge into a compelling proposal.

That's not bureaucracy.

That's infrastructure.

Good Systems Still Have Crazy Weeks

Of course, even the best grants process isn't going to magically make deadlines spread themselves evenly across the calendar.

Sometimes everything is due at once.

We recently had another client hit exactly that situation. Multiple grant deadlines were landing in the same week, and their team simply needed more capacity to get everything across the finish line.

They didn't need us to stop everything and develop a new grants strategy. They didn't need a 30-page assessment of their process. They definitely didn't need another meeting.

They needed help.

So our team stepped into the process that was already moving, worked alongside their staff, and helped get the work done.

Afterward, the client described Queer For Hire's involvement as "exceptional and fluid to our process."

I loved that word: fluid.

Because I think that's what good fundraising infrastructure—and good consulting—should make possible.

A strong system shouldn't be so rigid that it collapses the moment something unexpected happens. It should make it easier for someone else to step in because the information, responsibilities, and workflow aren't trapped inside one person's head.

Capacity can flex because the underlying process is clear.

Your Grant Writer Is Not an Organizational Scavenger Hunter

There will always be some chasing in grants. Someone will forget an attachment. A program number will change. A funder will ask a question nobody anticipated. That's nonprofit life.

But if every grant requires your grants professional to reconstruct the organization from scratch, that's not normal deadline pressure. It's a sign that the system around them needs attention.

And eventually, that dysfunction costs money.

It costs staff time when people repeatedly recreate information that should already exist. It costs opportunities when teams don't have enough time to submit their strongest work. It creates unnecessary stress around deadlines and makes it harder to plan strategically instead of reactively.

Perhaps most importantly, it limits what your grant professionals can actually contribute. You hired them for their fundraising expertise. Let them use it.

The goal isn't to eliminate urgency from grants. Sometimes the perfect opportunity appears with a short turnaround, three funders inexplicably choose the same deadline, or an unexpected opportunity is simply too good to pass up.

The goal is to build a system strong enough to handle those moments without manufacturing a crisis every time a proposal is due.

So if your grant writer is constantly begging people for program data, budgets, attachments, approvals, and basic organizational information, don't immediately ask them how they can manage deadlines better.

Take a look at the flow around them.

Because sometimes the thing standing between your organization and stronger grant revenue isn't the quality of your grant writing.

It's everything your grant writer has to do before they're finally allowed to write.

Sincerely,

Queers

Queer For Hire provides fundraising support to Queer nonprofits, LGBTQIA+ cultural competency to straight-led organizations and corporations, and individual coaching for Queer professionals.

Learn about our Fundraising Services <here> – we’ll lead or support your fundraising efforts, whether you need general support or want to focus on raising money from and for the LGBTQIA+ community.

Learn about our Fundraising Trainings <here> – we can coach your board, staff, and fundraising team on how to fundraise and how to engage LGBTQIA+ donors.

Learn about our other services <here> or our resources <here>.