Lecture: Increasing Big Grant Capacity and Impact in an Environment of Scarcity

Three of our local grant experts will be presenting at the annual Grant Professionals Association Conference this November and would like to share their workshop with our New Mexico nonprofit community before heading out.

Join us to learn about New Mexico's funding landscape and to learn a few takeaways related to grants that you can implement back in your organization. 

Learning Objectives

• Increase understanding of New Mexico’s fundraising landscape, and how its challenges apply to other states.
• Explain how a team-based collaborative model can help grant writing professionals around the country to secure high value grant awards.
• Review the grant process from prospect research, to grant writing, through reporting and tracking.

Description

New Mexico is an under-resourced state, with few opportunities for large grant awards within state boundaries—leading to a scarcity mentality that is not conducive to growth, leveraging, or sharing in the nonprofit sector. Learn about how The Grant Plant (TGP) helps to bridge gaps, strategize programs, and conduct research to shift thinking within the nonprofit sector.

This presentation will discuss the roots of TGP, including how the model has been able to contribute services and leverage community resources to increase the health of the nonprofit sector. It will outline the TGP approach and processes, as well as highlight innovations that are currently in the works to help raise the bar for nonprofits through increased efficiencies and a strong grant seeking strategy.

Level

Intermediate

Audience

Nonprofit professionals and community stakeholders interested in the field of grant seeking in both a local and national context. Interested people may be those who have been in the landscape and that are interested in hearing how the field has changed since The Grant Plant started in 2003 and how they want to support it in the future. 

Presenters

Tara Gohr and Erin Hielkema have 13 years of experience leading The Grant Plant. Tara holds a Bachelor of Arts from New Mexico State University (NMSU) and a master’s-level certificate in resource development from Regis University (Denver, CO). She is a graduate of the Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Albuquerque program (2009) and has been recognized as a Top-Performing CEO (2011) and a Forty Under 40 Leader (2014) by the New Mexico Business First. Erin holds a Master of Science in Speech-Language Pathology from University of New Mexico (UNM) and a Bachelor of Business Administration from New Mexico State University. 

After growing TGP into a ten-person team and securing more than $75M in grants, they recently launched The Grants Collective, a nonprofit aimed at building local nonprofit capacity to increase awards flowing into the state.

Aly Sanchez has been with TGP since 2008, helping it to grow and refine its strategic direction over time. She holds an Executive MBA from University of New Mexico (UNM) Anderson School of Management and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from UNM. In addition to grant writing and research, Aly excels at graphic design, and creating many presentations, infographics and marketing materials for clients. In 2016, she was recognized as one of ten Diverse Business Leaders by the New Mexico Business First.

The Grant Plant has been supporting the needs of New Mexico nonprofits for over 13 years, including grant writing, prospect research, project design, reporting and tracking, and marketing and outreach. TGP has won over $75 million in grants to date to support nonprofits in a diverse range of sectors. Since its founding, the TGP model has been highly effective at helping its clients be more competitive for national grants.