Nonprofit I.Q. Services & Support

Nonprofit Success & Strategy Coaching

Are you ready to learn how to create a healthy, strong nonprofit positioned for long-term success and sustainability?

Nonprofit I.Q.’s Fundability Leadership Coaching helps nonprofit leaders like YOU who are ready to create a more efficient, effective, and fundable nonprofit. If you want to transform your charitable nonprofit organization into one that’s healthy, strong and able to serve your community or world more powerfully, this is the program for YOU!

Shelley coaches nonprofit leaders to optimize their teams, build capacity, and learn how to attract the funding and support needed so you can finally begin serving your clients and/or communities at the level your nonprofit is truly needed.

If you’re a defender of the status quo, this isn’t for you. However, if you’d like to create an organizational culture dedicated to excellence, where your entire team feels valued and helps contribute to achieving your goals, let’s talk. If you’re tired of working your butt off for Nonprofit leaders learn how to leverage the collective financial, in-kind and human resources available to maximize the capacity of the entire organization and team. 

This requires a different way of thinking. Sustainable change is created from within and must have buy-in and dedication from you and your entire team if it’s going to succeed long-term. We don’t tell you what to do, but rather coach you and your team how to to create the organization you’e always known is possible. Fundability Leadership Coaching is specifically designed for BUSY nonprofit leaders and their teams teaching you how to leverage and maximize your most precious asset – time.

We strongly emphasise the importance of reprogramming your minds from REACTIVE to PROACTIVE which over time will completely transform your entire operation and team. By setting aside time to for planning and organizing, you’ll save vast amounts of time, energy, and money in the long run which translates to more stability, happiness, balance, and satisfaction for your team. 

Success doesn’t happen by accident. It requires thoughtful intention, planning, and strategy. Mindset is everything. When you place your energy in stress, anger or fear, your results will reflect that energy. Conversely, when you lead with excitement, enthusiasm and an expectation of success, your results will reflect THAT energy. It’s a simple, yet powerful choice. Most nonprofits operate in a constant reactive state. This is stressful and fraught with frustration and chaos which inevitably leads to a perpetual cycle of problems, barriers, and disengaged, stressed out, or otherwise unhappy team members. It’s no wonder why turnover is so high in the nonprofit industry! When all the joy is sucked out of your job, it’s time to either fix it or go somewhere else where you’ll find your joy once again. Hey, life’s too short to be miserable!

Shelley believes in making things as SIMPLE and as FUN as possible. It takes some training and practice to change and for many, change is scary. Change takes courage and fortitude. In the end, it’s totally your choice. You’re welcome to continue doing things the same way that you’ve always done them, but remember Albert Einstein’s famous quote, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”   

The strategies and tools Shelley uses have been created based on the most up-to-date research and best practices in nonprofit and for-profit business practices, psychology, brain research, and mind/body/spirit wellness strategies. The Fundability Leadership Program creates empowered leaders, inspired supporters, and happier, more joyful team members building your organizational strength, health, and growing capacity to serve in the most effective way possible. If you’re interested in creating awesomeness in your organization, let’s connect!

For those that are serious about improving their organizations, I offer a FREE Nonprofit Health Strategy Call ($100 value) for leaders from small to mid-sized nonprofits who want to learn how to improve your efficiency, effectiveness, and fundability that are committed to their organization’s long-term success. 

In order to maximize the value you will receive from our phone session, please answer the questions on the strategy session form (link below) as honestly as possible.  All information is strictly confidential. After you have submitted the form, you will be given my phone number to schedule your appointment at a mutually beneficial time.   

Fund Development Services

 Grant Development

There is both an art and a science to successful grant development. Back in the day, grantwriting was as simple as having a general concept for a program or project and writing a simple letter or proposal describing that idea. Sorry to say, those days are pretty much gone. I’m not saying it doesn’t still happen that way (sometimes), BUT that is now the exception, rather than the rule. Quite understandably, today’s much more savvy funders want to ensure that their philanthropic investments will make a positive impact on the clients, communities, or issue areas they care about. 

Funders today evaluate prospective grantees not only by looking at the program/project you’re wanting to fund, but they also analyze the stability, health, and organizational capacity of your team, your nonprofit, and even your partnerships. As a result, nowadays grantmakers typically require much more from potential grantees – both on the front end through the grant submission/evaluation process, and also on the back end requiring more rigorous reporting and accountability from their nonprofit partners. 

As you prepare for grant funding, it’s critically important to understand your funders – what’s important to them, their mission, funding priorities, and their specific funding process, deadlines, etc. The old “shotgun approach” of yesteryear is not only a waste of your time, energy and money, but it may have the opposite of the desired effect. What’s the shotgun approach, you ask? It’s developing a general funding request (LOI, proposal or application) and sending it out to any and all grantmakers without doing the proper funder research and customizing it to each particular funder.

For the sake of your funding success, please don’t do that! We call that “chasing the money” and it’s the exact opposite of what you should be doing as you prepare your grant funding strategy. If this has been your organization’s current or past approach, you may want to help educate your staff and/or board members who mistakenly think this is an “efficient” way to raise funds. I cannot tell you how frequently this strategy is employed by struggling nonprofits – which is partially the reason most nonprofits continue to struggle year after year, or end up closing down entirely.

I’ve participated in all sides of the grant development process and have some knowledge and decades of experience to help guide you toward success. In terms of the grant development process, some of my experience includes: 

• Grantwriting – I’ve been writing successful funding requests for 20 years, and have helped raise millions of dollars from foundations, corporate and government funders.

• Fund Development Teacher / Trainer / Guide – As a board member for the Puget Sound Grantwriters Association from 2009-2014, I helped teach and guide grantwriters, nonprofit staff/leaders, and volunteers how to be more successful in their grantseeking practices.

• Grantmaker – In 2016, I joined the Washington Women’s Foundation to learn and understand the grant process from the other side of the funding table. In this capacity, I worked with a team of other women to evaluate funding requests (LOIs and full proposals, research prospective grantees, conduct site visits and make final funding recommendations to the entire 400+ member group of philanthropists for the foundation’s highly competitive $100K grants. 

I’m interested in helping you get the grant… but far more importantly, I’m interested in helping you and your team set up your organization for long-term funding success, not just for this funder, but for all of your prospective funders and supporters this year and in the future. I want you to learn how to create this long-term success so that you aren’t eternally dependent upon me (or any other grantwriters or consultants) you may work with for the health and well-being of your nonprofit.  Yep, there’s a story there, but I won’t go into that right now. 

I don’t just write grants. I uncover the soul of your organization and help articulate that to your prospective funders and supporters. A large chunk of what I do as a Nonprofit Success Strategist is to help educate my nonprofit clients about how they can begin to attract more funding and support for your organization, programs and projects. If you just want the money and don’t much care how or from whom, I’m definitely NOT the right fit for you. Integrity is everything to me.

If we work together, I will help you and your team members to understand how funders evaluate your organization. This is very important if you want to be successful in all of your grantseeking efforts.

 Looking at your organization like a big puzzle, together we will identify which areas are whole and complete, which areas you may need to make some necessary changes, and what may need to be developed from scratch. If you haven’t read or heard my puzzle analogy, you may want to read this blog post. Most grantmakers in today’s funding environment want to fund organizations that present a whole and complete “puzzle”.

Funding is highly competitive – though in a really good way. Your funders want to support organizations that will be around next year AND in 5, 10, or 20 years from now. This is great news, because assuming your a great leader, this is what YOU want too! This is the work I LOVE to do and can help you with.

Truly, your funding success is predicated in large part on your health and stability as an organization, the strength of your leadership, and your strategy for long-term success and sustainability. Now, if that’s no surprise to you and you’ve already got all your (proverbial) ducks in a row, YAY, grant development will be simple for you! However, for those who may be surprised or possibly even resistant to this news, take heart. There’s hope for you too! It’s just going to be a bit more of a process, that’s all. As a big planning geek, I love this stuff and hopefully you will too.  

For those who are truly ready and eager to take on the work of positioning your nonprofit for long-term success, I’m happy to talk to you to see if we’re a good fit and whether I have the time and availability in my schedule to help you out. If our fit isn’t right, I’m connected with a whole network of freelance grant development professionals who may be a better fit for your needs. 

 If you’re intrigued and would like to explore the possibilities, please click on the link below. As my schedule allows, I offer a FREE Grant Strategy call to prospective clients who are serious about wanting to figure out your best next move forward. Filling out this form will provide me important information prior to our call so I have some background info and can identify how best to spend our time. Once you submit the form, you’ll be provided my phone number so you can call and schedule our call.

I look forward to getting to know you and your nonprofit!

Shelley Milne
Nonprofit Success Strategist