
As Grant Professional Association Certified Trainers, Melissa and Bethany share their experience, strategies, and tips to help you find and get grant funding.
Who
Since 2007, Melissa Draut served as contract grant writer for state domestic violence coalitions and local non-profit organizations. She secured hundreds of grants raising more than $6 million to fund programs, operations, and capital projects. Her strength is building relationships and developing support from private and corporate foundations locally and nationally.
Bethany Planton started her grant professional career as an AmeriCorps VISTA in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and started her own consulting firm bmpconsulting in 2016. Fluent in social media marketing and SCRUM project management, Bethany guides a variety of nonprofits in arts and culture, after-school programming, historic preservation, healthcare, and community centers to secure federal, state, and foundation funds totaling more than $6 million.
Programs Offered
Melissa and Bethany facilitate engaging programs in person and/or virtually depending on your needs. Programs include presentation with real-life examples, exercises, grant writing tools, handouts, research links, questions, discussion, and individual consults. Select one or all based on your needs.
1. Grant Basics: How grants work, how to find grants, how to assess grant opportunities, and how to build opportunities.
2. How to Prepare a Grant Application: How to tell your story through a needs statement, project description, goals, objectives, and outcomes. When and how to write a letter of inquiry.
3. How to Present a Project Budget: How to use a budget to tell your story, how to present sustainability of your organization and project, and how to write a budget narrative.
4. How to Create Success in Grant Funding: How to steward grants, how to write reports, thank you letters, LOIs and ask letters, and how to keep it all organized.