GGFPP: Grant Professionals as Change Agents & Social Entrepreneurs, Writing Winning Letters of Inquiry/Intent

CEUs: Prevention, CHES
3 Hours
Domains: PS2- Fiscal Management 

Description: Grant professionals are more than just writers. We are change agents. We are social entrepreneurs. We are dedicated to a mission. And we are innovative in our unique approaches to social change. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t win grant awards! Society has many complex social problems that we must all work together to solve, and the grant professional is one of the most valuable players at the table. As we turn eloquently written words on a computer screen into dollars in our organization’s pockets, we are supporting the plethora of wonderful social causes, and we do so with all the skills and finesse that the profession has to offer. But first, that means we must know how to write winning Letters of Inquiry/Intent (LOI) and Organizational Profiles. This session will cover a trio of those topics, including: 1) the way that grants professionals are compassionate individuals committed to social change, 2) how to write LOIs that will open doors for your organization, and 3) how to write organizational profiles with credibility statements that will WOW grant reviewers!

Learning Objectives:

1. Define how grant professionals are parallel to change agents and social entrepreneurs.
2. Describe the differences between a Letter of Inquiry and a Letter of Intent.
3. Explain a minimum of 2 best practices for writing an LOI.
4. Illustrate how to write credibility – or WOW! – statements into your organizational profiles.

Presenter(s): Deborah Combs, MA
Deborah Combs is an experienced grant researcher and proposal writer whose work has won over $26 million in awards for nonprofit organizations in regions throughout southwest Ohio. In addition to two decades as a grant professional, she has ten years of experience as a composition instructor and English literature lecturer for Dayton-area colleges and universities, and she is also an experienced technical writer. She is a founding member and past president of the Grant Professionals Association’s Miami Valley Chapter (GPA MV) and a Grant Professional Certified (GPC) from 2009-2016. She holds a Master of Arts in English from the University of Dayton with Minors in Communication Arts and Education. She brings her broad base of experience to You Thrive Training & Consulting to produce winning proposals to private, community, and corporate foundations and county, state, and federal funding opportunities.