Happy Holidays !

As I celebrate the holidays and reflect back on 2014, I am filled with gratitude for all the blessings that came to me this past year.

Blessed to Work with Great People Doing Good 

I am so lucky to work as a consultant who helps organizations realize their visions to improve lives and communities.

I love helping organizations find funders who share their dreams and who want to invest in making the world a better place.  As a grant developer, it is such a pleasure to get to know new clients and to reconnect with long-standing clients. I am given a great privilege when I  help in building their strategy to take their good work to the next level  and when work to reflect their strengths and good work through proposals and social media.

When I have a tough day – which happens for grant professionals, given the pressure, deadlines and details we manage – I take a moment, and I think about the people who are out in the community making a difference because they have funding. I think of Lauren, Eliza, Lisa, Megan, Jeff, Brian, Alex, Jen, Jon, Rachael and many others. There are so many people who are making a difference in the lives of others – often our unsung heroes – and they inspire me to work harder so they can be the difference in someone’s life – today!

Blessed by Communities and Networks 

I am amazed by the innovation through and possibilities of connections.

It is exciting to see the way nonprofit and grassroots organizations are actively partnering with government. Nearly 15 years ago, I was lucky enough to have a couple of bosses that let me create an unconventional position in a grant application for a program I coordinated.  The position was designed to hire new staff as 50% city employee and 50% nonprofit organization employee (and still receive full-time benefits). I wanted to structure this job in this way to build better communication among the grantee and subgrantee, to leverage our collective resources and to build a community focused approach rather than an approach that only worked for a specific type of organizations.

Did it work? I will answer that question by telling you that the person I hired is still working for the nonprofit organization and she is still an essential subrecipient and part of federal grants received by the city, county and state. Yes, it worked. It worked because 1) we hired the right person and 2) we knew it wouldn’t be easy.

Grantmakers have invested in researching unconventional or non-traditional partnerships and collaborations – and, like us – they have found opportunities to build bridges and leverage the strengths of many rather than just funding the few. More often than not, grantmakers are asking for partnership across all levels of government and community.

For nearly 2 decades, I am lucky to have been a part  of building numerous innovative partnerships. I am grateful for the opportunities to help build these connections and partnerships. Often, I get to  identify and make the connections and then …I get to step back and watch the magic that happens when 2 people or organizations discover they are going to do much more together than they could have done alone!

Blessed by Partnerships and Friendships

With good partnerships and teamwork, even a small contribution from one is multiplied for much greater achievements when combined with contributions of others!

Wow. Reflecting back on 2014 in the context of business partnerships and friendships is something I should do each week. I don’t know how I got to be so lucky. In 2013, I co-founded Grantchat with Diane H. Leonard – we barely knew each other but we shared a vision and passion to serve Grant Professionals. We started our weekly #Grantchat to help build awareness of the profession and organizations that support our profession, including the Grants Professionals Association, Grant Professionals Certification Institute and the Grant Professionals Foundation. Diane and I have been blessed by our Grant Chat community and, in 2015, we are taking our work to the next level with Smartegrants. We will be offering training, toolkits, coaching and much more! We are thrilled to get this dream off the ground.

I hope, as you reflect back on 2014, you find that you are blessed by your partnerships, your community and your networks. I wish for you a bright 2015 that brings you an abundance of blessings.