Tag Archive for: grants

NAME THE CAMPAIGN CONTEST

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NAME THE CAMPAIGN CONTEST

The Every Chapter Challenge campaign is THE annual campaign to support grant professionals and advance the grants profession! Funds raised provide scholarships to support GPA membership, credentialing and Annual Conference attendance! Help us rebrand this campaign today!
The GPF Annual Campaign will be rebranded in 2019, and we need a new name!
The “Name the Campaign” Contest goes from now until December 31, 2018.
The winner will receive a year’s membership to the Grant Professionals Association (a $225 value)!
To enter, simply email your ideas (as many as you want to submit!) to micki@lakeviewconsulting.net.
Only ideas submitted prior to 12/31 will be entered in the contest. 

International Grant Professionals Day 2018

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PRESS RELEASE

International Grant Professionals Day – March 9, 2018

Overland Park, KS: The Grant Professionals Association (GPA) announces the fourth annual International Grant Professionals Day to be held on March 9, 2018. International Grant Professionals Day increases awareness internationally of the work grant professionals perform as well as celebrates the work of grant professionals, who serve as administrators, consultants, managers, grant-makers, and writers.

Every day, grant professionals work diligently, usually behind the scenes, to seek grant opportunities, administer projects and implement important programs for the benefit of society’s disadvantaged and underserved people. These talented professionals are dedicated to providing the highest standard of ethics, quality program development, thoughtful project implementation and wise financial stewardship. Often, those standards extend beyond the mere financial and include capacity support, long-term solutions to challenges, fundraising assistance, expert project management, sustainable programming and so much more.

“Please join me in celebrating International Grant Professionals Day. Grant professionals are actively involved in making things happen in our society, from public works to helping the less fortunate. All of us are impacted by the hard work that grant professionals accomplish to make our communities better. Please take some time to thank a grant professional today.” stated Jo Miller, GPC-President of GPA.

Events planned for March 9, 2018 encourage grant professionals and their organizations to celebrate themselves, the profession and highlight important issues faced by grant professionals.

GPA is a professional organization that builds and supports a community of grant professionals committed to serving the greater public good. We have partnered in this effort with GPCI, the grant profession’s organization that is dedicated to promoting competency and ethical practices within the field of grantsmanship, and the Grant Professionals Foundation (GPF), the fundraising partner ensuring that resources are available to train, credential and advocate for all grant professionals.

For more information, visit the International Grant Professionals Week web page at www.grantprofessionals.org/igpd.

For Immediate Release Contact:

Kelli Romero, Membership & Marketing Director

Grant Professionals Association

kelli@grantprofessionals.org

(913) 788-3000

Today the Grant Professionals Foundation (GPF) released its sixth annual “Grant Professionals Impact Survey.”

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The GPF seeks the feedback of grant professionals in the U.S. and around the work, as the results of this survey will be used to define the significant impact grant professionals make in our world every year. The Grant Professionals Association, its affiliate organizations (GPF and the Grant Professionals Certification Institute), and the public may use the results to make a case for support to grant makers and donors.

The Grant Professionals Impact Survey will be open for six weeks, closing on October 8, 2016. All responses will remain strictly confidential, and the survey takes 10 minutes or less to complete. Please go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2016GPAImpactSurvey and complete the survey today. All survey participants can choose to enter a drawing for a $100 Visa gift card.

Visit us online www.grantprofessionalsfoundation.org for more information about the GPF, other grant research projects, or our scholarship programs. Support your grants profession by giving to the GPF. Please Donate Now!

 

Looking Forward to GPA Annual Conference 2016

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By Fielding Jezreel, Recipient of a 2015 St. Louis Chapter Conference Scholarship

I should start by saying that the GPA Annual Conference left me rejuvenated and excited to return to work with new contacts across the nation and with a long list of to-dos: demo grant management software systems so I can recommend one to my organization, reach out to those new contacts on LinkedIn and by email, get more involved with the local GPA Chapter, and come up with a 12-month plan for pursuing my GPC.

And as I reflect on the overall conference experience, I’m glad I made time to attend and am grateful for the scholarship I received and the donors that made conference scholarships possible.

One of the last sessions I attended surprised me—the session was not at all what I thought it would be, but like most sessions, there was at least one thing to take home to improve my work. The session covered about a dozen tools, each of which could be integrated into my work but for which I would need to do some significant reading to understand and effectively implement.

Working for a young nonprofit with rapidly evolving strategies and big aspirations means I spend more than my fair share of time anguishing over rushed planning processes and last minute programmatic changes. As the organization grows, focuses, and devotes more time to planning, evaluating, and improving processes, the tools discussed during the Saturday session will contribute to those endeavors.

In the meantime, I have a list of tools that I can begin to explore. Relatedly, I have a challenge to presenters of the GPA Conference 2016, pick your favorite tool or method and dive deep. Show participants how you use a tool or method. Engage participants in an activity that you use in developing some aspect of your grants program or process, be that in a leadership capacity, in the production of proposal components, or in the guidance of your professional direction.

On Thursday of the conference, I attended Beckie Murdock’s “Mapping Concepts for Grant Proposals.” She walked a crowded room through a mind mapping exercise that she uses with community groups to bring a diverse set of community stakeholders to the table to discuss a problem and corresponding solutions. Assigned to work in groups on a particular challenge, Beckie engaged us in “doing” instead of spending her hour and fifteen “telling.” Beckie showed us how we could use mind mapping to guide the production of a grant proposal that reflects the needs of a group and streamlines the implementation process post-award. The delivery of the materials made this session the most memorable of the conference for me.

In case you are thinking about presenting in 2016, I’ll close by offering up a number of tools and strategies that I’d love to dive deep into at the GPA Annual Conference 2016: SWOT analyses, GIVES strategies for Fundraising, Porter’s Generic Strategies, crafting values statements, Return on Investment evaluations, Sustainability Matrices, Hedgehog Concepts, Gantt Charts, Strategic Planning Cycles, and Strategy Screens.

See you in Atlanta!

My Top 10 #GPAConf15 Insights

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By Dr. Judy Riffle, Pam Van Pelt Memorial Conference Scholarship Recipient

Santa Cruz Grants & Consulting, LLC

 

Thanks to the Grant Professionals Foundation and generous peers, I was a first timer this year at the annual GPA conference. This experience led to so many ideas about diversifying my consultant offerings, and reinforced my love of the grants world. As a former educator and administrator, I never wanted to feel I was an expert in any area. When I feel there is nothing left to learn or a different way to view something, it will definitely be time to crawl under a rock. Every moment of the conference provided something worthwhile to my career and future.
Grant professional rock stars are just real people like us and have so much to offer. The #HumanLibrary at the conference was a great way to get one on one mentoring. GPA, please bring it back in 2016!

The ethical arena of grants has SO many gray areas. Make it a habit to regularly review and reflect on the GPA Code of Ethics: http://bit.ly/1gqrkDO. Go over it with clients and people in the nonprofit world. Incorporate it into your grant related presentations and workshops. #JustGoogleGPACodeofEthics

Networking, networking, networking. I met so many social media friends in the flesh, made great new friends, and discovered how willing grant pros are to share their expertise and tips. #grantchat

Don’t underestimate the #power of partnerships and mentoring. Dr. Beverly Browning and Kimberly Richardson made it clear how even an informal mentoring relationship started at a GPA annual conference can lead to new endeavors, introductions, and much needed advice. Instead of swimming in isolation as the intense work of grant writing often involves, branch out and collaborate. Nonprofits should form more partnerships as well in order to succeed in the crowded landscape of fundraising. Win more grants by remembering this!

You don’t have to write in a strict Ph.D. style to get articles accepted into GPA publications. Plus GPA will support you along the way! Newsletter submissions can turn into strategy papers, journal articles, books, or future presentations/workshops. #GPANewslettersStrategyPapersJournal

Present at #GPAConf16 in Atlanta and get a significant registration discount. Feel the fear and do it anyway!

The Chapter Leadership Pre-Conference workshop provided useful tips for recruiting, retaining, and making members want to volunteer such as Claim to Fame announcements, hot buttons, and using exciting themes for chapter meetings. #LearnHelpMeet

I learned about excellent digital #productivity tools to check out such as Nozbe, Evernote, Hootsuite, Harvest, Time Master, TimeClock Pro, FreshBooks, Foundation Center maps, Google Scholar, and Natural Reader (text to speech). For example, put an RFP into Natural Reader to listen to while exercising or gardening instead of reading it and trying to stay awake!

Grant Pros are some of the most giving people on earth. We should all feel free to share our knowledge, expertise, and referrals to others in our profession. For instance, international grant writers provided me with tons of tips for my daughter’s new nonprofit, ‎Obwaagazi Children’s Foundation, in Uganda. #It’sNotAboutTheCompetition

Peter F. Drucker: “When you find a unique opportunity to make a real difference, you focus on it and constantly reassess results.” The conference revitalized me to hone my craft and to focus on careful reflection in all areas. #LifeLongLearning

In closing, I cannot wait until #GPAConf16 in the wonderful city of Atlanta. A year seems such a long time to wait………are we there yet?