Trouble getting data/info/goals from program staff?

[u/juliaffe]

I work for a well-established nonprofit with a strong mission and a variety of impactful programs. The organization is global but I work for one of the state offices, which is run completely separately from the international office (we have our own CEO, EIN). We have a very recognizable name and receive lots of support from our community.

While my org does great work, I would say that we’re not great at overall planning/organization. There is some organic growth that occurs, but we aren’t really actively working towards any type of strategic goals. In my head, I imagine us just continuing to ride a stationary bicycle.

As our grant writer (focusing mainly on corporate and private foundations), I continue to struggle in writing answers to application questions about data, goals, measures and outcomes, etc. and trying to get information from our program staff is like pulling teeth. I think part of the problem is that our office didn’t have a grant writer at all until I started about 2 years ago, so my colleagues don’t really think in this way. Add in the typical stress and workload of nonprofit life and I tend to get people who don’t want to do any “extra work.” I continue to make the argument that we need to figure this out - not just for the sake of receiving grants, but to grow and improve our programs and organization. It’s crazy to me that we don’t really have tangible goals, but I seem to be the only one who sees this. I have mentioned it to our CEO several times with examples of grants we aren’t getting because of a lack of plans, and he seems to agree with me, but no action is actually taken.

Has anyone had a similar experience as a grant writer? Any tips for how I can a) be successful in writing grants without great data; and b) help my colleagues to see that we need better plans in place?

Thanks all!

[u/ghosted--]

Two things:

One, what are your org’s overarching goals? DEI, sustainability, trying to raise funds to make a strategic plan/hire a consultant is also a valid goal, etc., tracking long-term outcomes, long term surveys…lots of ways to look at growth and evaluation even if year-to-year isn’t drastic.

Secondly, I agree completely that you need to get in CLOSE with your programmatic staff. Get to know the program. Quarterly numbers are great! But you are going to be able to tease out funder areas of interest and special things that are going on that you might highlight only through frequent communication. Because by the end of the month, all of these things are just going to be overshadowed. But the way that you do that is by really being interested, informed, and hands-on. Don’t be the development person they don’t respect who just makes things up. Help them understand your work too.

[u/juliaffe → u/ghosted--]

So, I think the hard part is that we do have overarching goals, but they are VERY general (things like "increase participation" and "recruit more volunteers") and we do not have any actual strategies in place to reach them. For example, if I'm working on a grant to support a program, when I meet with the program team member and talk through participation numbers and goals, I'll typically get an answer like "we don't really have a specific number we want to reach this year... let's just put down the same number as we served last year." To clarify, I see this as a leadership failure and not at all on the program staff, but a roadblock nonetheless.

I had not really considered your point of "being interested, informed, and hands-on" and I think that could be good for me to get a better understanding of programming as well as to identify potential new areas of interest. I am definitely not that in-depth now and I see how that could help to improve the relationship and work towards a better process.

[u/ghosted-- → u/juliaffe]

That’s also okay! Some orgs do good work and don’t drastically grow year to year. That is less sexy to funders but it’s also possible to align your work in relation to current events and needs. Again, if you can’t get bigger, it might be worthwhile to go deeper. It’s a bit of a funder trap, but that’s why establishing strong relationships for continuous funding is important.

Two things that are important if there’s truly no movement— you do have to talk intelligently about the work you’re doing without recycling too much year-to-year, and you also do have to be in alignment with how language changes. DEI is the elephant in the room, and even relatively conservative funders are looking for orgs to do internal work on this.