Beginner Grantseeking

Virtual Workshop – Live/Online

Fee: $95 for MCN members / $135 for nonmembers

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Where does the grantseeking process start? How do you find funders interested in your organization and your programs? There are proven tactics for finding funders that are a good fit for your organization–and plentiful resources online–many of them free!

In this three-hour live online training, we’ll discuss the best ways to begin grantseeking (which is closer than you think!), explore four good places to start looking, work through a proven process for finding funder information, discover how to “dig deeper” into a foundation’s interests, and determine the best way for you to start capturing what you are learning about your organization and its potential funders.

This training is specifically designed to help you gain important grantseeking competencies and skills related to researching, identifying, and matching funding resources to meet specific needs. Through this training, you will:

• Know more about major trends in grant funding
• Apply methods of locating funding sources
• Explore techniques to learn about specific funders
• Determine the right method for maintaining, tracking, and updating information on potential funders
• Identify fundable programs and projects for your organization
• Locate best matches between funders and specific programs
• Interpret grant application request for proposal guidelines and requirements to accurately assess funder intent

Workshop participants will receive a digital copy of the Handbook for Successful Grant Writing that covers topics ranging from research and planning to a glossary of commonly used terms. The Handbook is only available to participants and is not otherwise for sale.

This session focuses on the nonprofit funding landscape and the process of seeking grants. The second session in this series is Beginning Grantwriting, which centers around writing grants. There is also an Intermediate Grantwriting session that serves as a writing workshop.

Event Details

This virtual event will take place on the Zoom platform. Your access link will be emailed to you the day before the event after 12 p.m.

This session will be recorded. The recording will be made available to registrants after the live event.

Captioning is provided automatically through Zoom. For information on requesting CART, ASL, or another accommodation, please visit our Registration Policies page.

To learn more about events, registration, and payment, visit our Event & Registration FAQ page.

Speaker Information

Sara Spiess brings twenty years of nonprofit fundraising and development experience to her current role as Director of Grants & Foundation Relations at the YMCA of the North in Minneapolis – St. Paul. Sara specializes in securing grants and gifts from private and public partners and works to develop and steward a broad base of strategic partnerships to meet advancement objectives. In addition to grant-seeking, Sara holds expertise in sponsorship sales and fulfillment, corporate engagement, government relations, executive communications, and fundraising events. Sara holds a B.A. from New York University, a University of St. Thomas Fundraising Certificate, and is a 2016 graduate of the Leadership Saint Paul program of the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce. Sara has served on the board of directors for the Association of Fundraising Professionals – Minnesota Chapter and is an active community volunteer.