Development and Fundraising Generalist, Loaves and Fishes MN

My name is Emily Kelson, and I am the grant writer at Loaves and Fishes Minnesota. So Loaves and Fishes is a nonprofit that serves free and healthy meals to people here in Minnesota, mainly in the twin cities, but some greater Minnesota areas and we're looking to expand to even more sites. So what I do is I write grants, I write the reports, I keep and maintain relationships with our contacts at the foundations, and just try to kep all of that stuff organized. A grant is money given by any number of different types of organizations, and they're giving it to usually a nonprofit to fulfill their mission. In our case, it's to serve free healthy meals. So people, we apply for funding and hopefully they give us that funding to fulfill our mission. It is kind of a lengthy process. Most of the time you have to start with a letter of intent to the organization you're asking for funding from, and then from there, they will let you know if you are approved to apply for funding. So after you submit whatever they need for the application for your proposal, you wait, if you get awarded the grant, there is often a report that is also going to be due, usually within a year of the grant being received. Sometimes people have kind of an open enrollment period, and so for several months, they're getting a ton of applications whenever people submit them and then at that day, they will review all of them, however long that takes. So kind of depending on people's process, sometimes it can take eight, nine months to know whether or not you receive the funding. Some smaller organizations, or maybe people you have a better connection with, you will probably know a lot sooner.