Grant Writing Fundamentals

I was catching up with a communications colleague recently. While we were chatting, she received an email with the same subject line as so many others: "Quick comms request." I could see the frustration cross her face as the notification popped up on her screen. She receives so many of these messages, all with asks to profile work happening within the organization. Program team: "Can you post about our workshop series?"  Development: "Don't forget to highlight this funder partnership!"  ED: "Board wants to see more about our policy work in the newsletter." It's all good and worthy so she's lost her will to say "no" despite the volume. The problem isn't that nonprofits are doing too much work. It's that they're communicating about too much work, all at once, without a frame. Every program gets a mention. Every milestone gets a post. Every partnership gets a release. But, without an overarching narrative, it all lands as noise. Your community doesn't need to know about everything you're doing. They need to know what it all means—for them, for the people you serve, for the change you're trying to make. When you communicate without a plan, you're working twice as hard for half the impact. You're writing posts that get scrolled past, newsletters that don't get opened, annual reports that don't inspire anyone to give again. And your team knows it. They feel it. That's why those "quick comms requests" keep piling up. Everyone's trying harder because nothing's breaking through. Before you write another word, name three ideas you want your community to actually understand right now. Not three programs. Not three events. Three ideas about your work and why it matters. Then look at all those requests sitting in your inbox. Which activities, milestones, or stories actually support one of those three ideas? Use those. Give them context. Weave them into something meaningful. The rest? They can wait. (Or, maybe they don't need external comms at all.)

My first 5 grant applications were rejected. Every single one. Here's how I went from £10k to £10m in research grant funding: I remember opening that fifth rejection email and thinking maybe my research just wasn't good enough. Maybe I wasn't cut out for this. Then a panel reviewer told me something that changed everything. She said: "I stopped reading on page 2." Not because the science was weak. Because the way I presented it was. I had buried the real-world impact on page 3. I led with the literature gap instead of the problem. My methodology was sound but my narrative was invisible. I was writing for academics. I should have been writing for funders. So I rebuilt my entire proposal structure around three principles. I now call it the 3P Proposal Structure. P1: Problem Framing. Lead with the real-world problem and its cost. Not the gap in the literature. Funders don't fund gaps. They fund solutions. "This problem costs the NHS £2.3 billion annually" hits harder than "this area remains under-explored." P2: Path Innovation. Show what you will do differently. Not just what you will study. Every applicant studies something. Very few explain why their approach is the one that will actually work. P3: Projected Impact. Connect your outcomes to the stakeholders who fund research. If the funder can see themselves in your story, you win. Same research question. Completely different proposal structure. The next application secured half a million pounds. Then a million. Then over the course of my career, more than £10 million in research funding. Grant writing is storytelling. Your research is the plot. The funder needs to see themselves in the story. What's the most frustrating feedback you've received on a grant application? Save this framework. Repost for anyone applying for funding. #GrantWriting #AcademicFunding

The "love letter" era of NIH grant applications is officially ending. On July 27, NIH released NOT-OD-26-094, announcing that Letters of Support will be replaced with Letters of Collaboration when Forms J are implemented in Fiscal Year 2027. This is a significant shift in how we document collaborative relationships in our applications, and I want to make sure my community understands what it means — and what it doesn't. Here's what's changing: ➡️Letters of collaboration are capped at 100 words. NIH has even provided a single-sentence template that essentially says, "Yes, I intend to collaborate as described in the application." That's it. ➡️Endorsement letters — the kind that sing your praises, tout the significance of your work, or vouch for your track record — will no longer be permitted. Applications that include them after the implementation date may be returned without review. ➡️Letters from trainees or staff in the PD/PI's own laboratory (graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, technicians) are explicitly prohibited. ➡️Senior/key personnel and other significant contributors already provide biosketches, so letters of collaboration from them are considered unnecessary and burdensome. Here's why this matters for your grant strategy: If you've been coached to collect long, effusive letters from prominent investigators to bolster your application, that approach is not just outdated — it's about to become a compliance risk. The return-without-review consequence is real, and review panels will be looking at this during the transition. What NIH is telling us is clear: let the science and the research plan do the talking. A collaborator's commitment should be evident in how their role is described within the application itself, not in a separate letter that restates or embellishes it. For those of us doing community-engaged research, this change raises an important question about how we document the depth of our community partnerships. Community advisory boards, faith-based organizations, and health systems have traditionally used letters of support to articulate what the partnership looks like from their perspective. That function is different from an endorsement, and I'll be watching closely to see how NIH addresses it in the forthcoming Forms J instructions. My advice right now: start socializing this change with your collaborators and your grants office. If you have submissions going out after Forms J implementation, build your collaboration documentation into the research strategy and resource sharing plan rather than relying on stand-alone letters to carry that weight. The notice is here: https://lnkd.in/ef8gn5iN #Grantsmanship #NIHFunding #ResearchStrategy #LostInTranslation

Evaluating LLMs is hard. Evaluating agents is even harder. This is one of the most common challenges I see when teams move from using LLMs in isolation to deploying agents that act over time, use tools, interact with APIs, and coordinate across roles. These systems make a series of decisions, not just a single prediction. As a result, success or failure depends on more than whether the final answer is correct. Despite this, many teams still rely on basic task success metrics or manual reviews. Some build internal evaluation dashboards, but most of these efforts are narrowly scoped and miss the bigger picture. Observability tools exist, but they are not enough on their own. Google’s ADK telemetry provides traces of tool use and reasoning chains. LangSmith gives structured logging for LangChain-based workflows. Frameworks like CrewAI, AutoGen, and OpenAgents expose role-specific actions and memory updates. These are helpful for debugging, but they do not tell you how well the agent performed across dimensions like coordination, learning, or adaptability. Two recent research directions offer much-needed structure. One proposes breaking down agent evaluation into behavioral components like plan quality, adaptability, and inter-agent coordination. Another argues for longitudinal tracking, focusing on how agents evolve over time, whether they drift or stabilize, and whether they generalize or forget. If you are evaluating agents today, here are the most important criteria to measure: • 𝗧𝗮𝘀𝗸 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀: Did the agent complete the task, and was the outcome verifiable? • 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: Was the initial strategy reasonable and efficient? • 𝗔𝗱𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Did the agent handle tool failures, retry intelligently, or escalate when needed? • 𝗠𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝘂𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲: Was memory referenced meaningfully, or ignored? • 𝗖𝗼𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶-𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀): Did agents delegate, share information, and avoid redundancy? • 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲: Did behavior remain consistent across runs or drift unpredictably? For adaptive agents or those in production, this becomes even more critical. Evaluation systems should be time-aware, tracking changes in behavior, error rates, and success patterns over time. Static accuracy alone will not explain why an agent performs well one day and fails the next. Structured evaluation is not just about dashboards. It is the foundation for improving agent design. Without clear signals, you cannot diagnose whether failure came from the LLM, the plan, the tool, or the orchestration logic. If your agents are planning, adapting, or coordinating across steps or roles, now is the time to move past simple correctness checks and build a robust, multi-dimensional evaluation framework. It is the only way to scale intelligent behavior with confidence.

Gearing up to secure funding for your research project? OR Applying for your PhD and need a Proposal? Crafting a compelling research proposal is your ticket to making a strong impression. Here's my detailed guide to help you put your best foot forward: 1. Start with a Strong Introduction: Your introduction is your chance to grab attention. Clearly state the problem your research aims to solve and why it matters. Think of it as your elevator pitch – concise, engaging, and to the point. 2. Define Your Objectives: Outline your research goals and objectives. What do you hope to achieve? Make sure they’re SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound). This helps funders understand the impact of your work. 3. Conduct a Literature Review: Show you’ve done your homework. Summarize the current state of research in your field and highlight gaps your project will fill. This demonstrates your knowledge and the necessity of your research. 4. Describe Your Methodology: Detail your research design and methods. Explain how you’ll collect and analyze data, and why you’ve chosen these methods. Be clear and thorough – funders need to see you have a solid plan. 5. Highlight Your Team : Introduce your research team and their expertise. Showcase previous work and successes to build credibility. Funders invest in people as much as they do in ideas. 6. Present a Realistic Budget: Break down your budget, explaining how funds will be allocated. Be transparent and realistic. Justify your expenses by linking them to your research activities and goals. 7. Outline the Impact: Discuss the potential impact of your research. Who will benefit and how? Highlight the broader implications and the value it will bring to the field, community, or society. 8. Include a Timeline: Provide a detailed timeline for your project. This shows you’ve planned your research carefully and can manage time effectively. Include key milestones and deliverables. 9. Proofread and Peer Review: Before submission, proofread your proposal meticulously. Consider having colleagues review it for clarity and coherence. Fresh eyes can catch errors you might miss. 10. Tailor to the Funder: Finally, customize your proposal to align with the specific interests and guidelines of the funding body. Show you’ve done your research on them too, and explain why your project is a perfect fit. Remember, a well-crafted proposal is not just about presenting your research. It's about telling a compelling story that convinces funders of its value and feasibility. Good luck, and happy writing! #ResearchFunding #GrantWriting #AcademicResearch #ResearchProposals #HigherEducation #FundingSuccess #ResearchTips #researchers #phd

Your model is trained. But is it actually good? Most ML engineers default to accuracy. Then wonder why their model fails in production. Here are 20 evaluation metrics — and when to actually use each one: Classification: - Accuracy → Balanced datasets only. - Precision → When false positives are costly. - Recall → When false negatives matter more. - F1 Score → Imbalanced datasets. Balances both. - ROC-AUC → Binary classification evaluation. - Log Loss → Probabilistic models. Penalizes confident wrong predictions. - Confusion Matrix → Error analysis. See exactly where it breaks. - Specificity → When detecting negatives correctly matters. - Balanced Accuracy → Uneven datasets. Don't trust plain accuracy here. Regression: - MAE → Simple, interpretable error measurement. - MSE → Penalizes larger errors more heavily. - RMSE → Error in original scale. Most interpretable. - R² Score → How much variance your model explains. - Adjusted R² → Feature-heavy models. Adjusts for complexity. - MAPE → Business forecasting. Error as a percentage. - Explained Variance → Model consistency evaluation. Clustering: - Silhouette Score → Cluster cohesion and separation. Cluster validation. - Davies-Bouldin Index → Lower is better clustering. NLP: - BLEU Score → Machine translation quality. - ROUGE Score → Text summarization quality. Accuracy is not a strategy. Picking the right metric for the right problem is. A model that looks great on accuracy can destroy real-world outcomes when the wrong metric guided its evaluation. Save this. 📌 Which metric do most engineers misuse? 👇

Stop pitching, start listening. I lost a $250K gift because I walked into a meeting ready to close. The donor was ready to talk. I was ready to perform. Deck loaded. Budget tight. Impact projections color-coded. I thought this was professionalism. It was just... transactional. Fifteen minutes in I could feel it. The shift. They went polite but distant. "We'll think about it." Never heard from them again. What I figured out: you're not here to convince anyone. You're here to find out what they already care about, then show them how your work connects to that. That donor didn't need a pitch deck. They needed someone to listen. So I rebuilt my whole approach. First meeting? I ask questions and listen. That's it. Second meeting? I share stories, not spreadsheets. Third meeting? I invite them to experience the work firsthand. Fourth meeting? They tell me what they want to fund. The ask becomes a formality. You're already partners by then. My close rate went from 40% to 85%. Not because I got better at selling... but because I stopped trying to sell. People don't fund organizations. They fund visions they co-created with you. What's a mistake that completely rewired how you approach your work? Photo:  Having a deep conversation with Reggie Love, Obama's right-hand man. #DonorRelations #FundraisingStrategy #NonprofitLeadership #ListeningFirst #PhilanthropyTips

September to December is a *hot* period for nonprofit fundraising. Many foundations and donors are back to their desks after the summer and looking to make their closing funding rounds before the end of the year. If I were an advisor in your nonprofit organization, this is what I would suggest prioritizing in your fundraising plan from this month through the end of the year: 🫂 Curate Relationships Curating relationships with existing donors or key stakeholders is one of the most overlooked practices in fundraising. Only chasing new donors or funding opportunities goes at the expense of trust-nourishing and enthusiasm of those donors and stakeholders who are already "warmed up" about your work and mission. Don't make this mistake, and create space to strengthen the bonds with those who are already there. Think about personalized engagement and regular touchpoints to make them feel part of your mission and deepen their commitment to your cause. ⭐ Impact Storytelling Creating visibility around all the things your organization and your team have achieved throughout the year is a powerful avenue to leverage your commitment and attract the attention of donors and stakeholders ready to fund. Don’t be generic or conservative when it comes to showing the outputs, activities, results, community feedback, and transformations your work generated. Donors want to feel like they can make a tangible contribution to the end goal of your impact mission. Showing this to them in a compelling, story-based approach will help them understand what and why they are funding. 💰 Do Your Budget Know your number and make your financial plan clear. Prepare a budget that outlines your organization’s funding needs for the next 2 to 5 years. Identify the core areas that require sustained resources and ensure your strategy is aligned with long-term objectives. Create a strong narrative around why these areas need funding, how they will serve your impact goals, and why mobilizing resources into these areas will be foundational in securing sustainability and scalability to your work. 💥 Optimize Your Strategy You must have learned a lot in the past 9 months and got a lot of feedback, observations and lessons learned around your work. This is the perfect time to integrate the learnings into your overarching organizational strategic plan and fundraising strategy and adjust it according to the things you have now gained more clarity on, such as your new targets and goals. -------- Hey! I am Margherita, senior nonprofit consultant and advisor. I am open to working with nonprofit organizations in social justice and accelerating their development goals through fundraising, financial planning, organizational development, and operations. My fee model is equity-informed and open to accommodating all budgets. Contact me to learn more!

Your board members open doors. Your fundraisers walk through them. A donor was giving $50,000 annually to a nonprofit. We knew he had significant capacity and passion for the mission, but we couldn't get a meeting with him to deepen the relationship. We tried everything to get a meeting: emails, letters, skywriting “Call me?” over his house. Nothing worked. Then we put a list of our top prospects in front of the board. A board member saw the name of the donor we were trying to meet with and said, “I know him. I think I can help.” She called him and shared why she gives her time and money to the organization. She shared why this mission matters to her. The donor agreed to meet with us. The board member joined the development team for a series of meetings with the donor. When the time was right, we asked him for $5 million. The board member was at the meeting but did not do the ask. That came from the development team. The donor said yes. Without this board member, that gift would have never happened. She shared her story. She opened the door. The development team walked through it. If your board stalls at the ask or freezes when asked to help raise money, there is another way. Board members can help fundraise, but they need direction and a simple strategy, and they don’t need to be the one asking for money. Fundraisers are experts at holding the strategy, managing timing, structuring the ask, and stewarding the relationship. Unresolved lane confusion between board and staff kills momentum. Most board members are not trained solicitors. But they can be your trust builders. Your connectors. Your testimonials. When you clarify those lanes, board members make more moves. Staff can do their jobs better. And donors feel it. Board members do not need to be closers to be powerful in fundraising. They need a clear role, a strategic list, and permission to lead with their own story.

I've been dedicating time to collecting grant opportunities for impact-driven companies. I couldn't resist using AI tools to dive deep into the data and analyze where the money is actually flowing... The most surprising finding hit me immediately: -Innovation and Development grants (35% and 33% respectively) vastly outnumber traditional "aid" categories. -Out of 226 grants analyzed (totaling $402M), For-profit organizations now have access to 84% of opportunities. But here's where it gets really interesting for our regions: -🌎 LATIN AMERICA (52 opportunities, 23% of total) The sweet spot? Digital Innovation dominates the landscape. If you're building fintech, edtech, or cleantech solutions in LATAM, you're sitting in the hottest sector for grant funding. -🌍 AFRICA (53 opportunities, 23.5% of total) Climate Action and Global Health lead the charge. The funding priorities reflect urgent continental needs, but there's a strategic opportunity for organizations that can bridge sectors. Think climate-health nexus or education-climate solutions. -The game-changer insight? Few grants explicitly require impact measurement, yet our analysis shows the highest-value grants tend to demand it. This is your competitive advantage: while most organizations scramble to meet basic legal requirements (35% require legal registration, 29% years of operation), investing in robust impact measurement frameworks sets you apart. My strategic recommendations for both regions: 1. Don't just apply to grants in your exact sector. The data shows cross-sector solutions (like digital innovation for climate action in LATAM, or health-tech for education in Africa) are hitting multiple funding streams. 2. Think globally, not just locally. With global grants representing 35% of all opportunities, don't limit yourself to regional funding. Go international from day one. 3. Frame your impact through a digital or AI lens, even if it's not primarily a tech solution. Given digital innovation and AI's dominance in funding opportunities, positioning your work within digital transformation narratives can unlock significantly more funding doors. Want the full report? Comment and I send it out in a DM:  - ➡️ 🇬🇧 "English report" for the complete analysis in English  - ➡️ 🇪🇸 "Reporte en español" for the Spanish version 🔺 Disclaimer: This analysis is based on grant opportunities we've manually collected, so there may be selection biases we cannot control (you'll notice it's heavily focused on companies rather than traditional NGOs). This isn't academic research, but our own analysis aimed at helping the entrepreneurship and social innovation ecosystem. Courtney Sipes Shoshana Grossman-Crist #Grants #ImpactInvesting #SocialEntrepreneurship #LatinAmerica #Africa #Innovation #DigitalTransformation #ClimateAction #GlobalHealth