Introducing ARCH

Most nonprofits treat grant development like a sprint. 

They see an RFP and take off running at full speed. A fury of activity commences and five minutes before the deadline, they hit submit…breaking the tape just in time.

Then they stop running and wander around the track aimlessly, with their hands on their heads.

A month or two, or sometimes 24 goes by, and an award notification (or loss letter :/) comes, and it all begins again.  No learning; no growth. Just motion.

But growth isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon. 20,000 steps in a repeatable, defined order, while closely managing effort.

One of my favorite running quotes is, “A runner is a miser, spending the pennies of his energy with great stinginess.”

Growth is similar. We expend our energy wisely. Each activity needs a purpose.

In 20 years at nonprofits, I helped raise over $400M for health, nutrition, and governance programs, all without working too many weekends, and revising my application for the 27th time.

We had a systematic approach that I’ve adapted to help nonprofits structure their grant development.  I call it ARCH:

ANALYZE - Understanding makes your organization different

REVEAL - Identifying donor and community needs and how to frame impact

CRAFT - Writing proposals that inspire

HONE - Learning from every proposal

Most nonprofits skip straight to CRAFT. Find RFP, write response, repeat. Beautiful proposals that chase the wrong funders, highlighting programs that don't differentiate them.

Over the next few weeks, I'm breaking down each piece of ARCH: what it is, why it matters, how to use it.

First up: ANALYZE. What makes your organization genuinely different? Why YOU?

As my uncle would say, it helps to think like an investor, not a do-gooder.