Most people think grant writing is about securing funding. But in our experience at Lapicero, it’s much more than that. It’s a mirror, and most organizations aren’t looking in it often enough.
People think of grant writing as a skill that you hand off to “the writer” or the development director. But the truth is, a strong proposal doesn’t start with a good writer. It starts with a team that knows what it’s doing, who it’s doing it for, and how to work together when the stakes are high. A grant proposal quietly tests your team’s internal structure, communication, and alignment. When your messaging feels off, your budget doesn’t reflect real work, or your leadership isn’t in sync, funders can sense it. That’s why we approach grant writing not just as a funding strategy, but as a team building tool.
What Grant Writing Actually Tests
A grant application quietly tests your organization’s internal health. It exposes the cracks you don’t always see during business as usual:
- Are your goals clear?
- Can your programs be explained without three paragraphs of backstory?
- Do your numbers match your narrative?
- Who’s in charge of gathering what and do they know that?
Some of our past clients have come to us because they want to win a grant. But what they often discover is that they need to clarify who they are, what they measure, and how their work fits together before they’re even ready to apply. Not to worry. It isn’t a failure; rather it’s an opportunity to lean into your brand strategy, brand voice, and brand value. Every organization has to do this.
The act of sitting down as a team and building a proposal forces conversations that should’ve happened months ago. It invites program staff, finance teams, communications folks, and leadership to the same table. It requires honesty about capacity. It sparks alignment around mission. And sometimes, if you let it, it even re-ignites the passion that brought people into the work in the first place.
Why the Solo Grant Model Falls Short
Now, I know what some folks are thinking: “We already have someone who writes our grants.” That’s fine. Having a designated point person matters. But handing everything to one person and expecting them to magically translate the work of an entire organization into a compelling, fundable story? That’s not strategy. That’s outsourcing your voice.
One person can’t and shouldn’t carry the weight of vision, budgeting, impact tracking, storytelling, and reporting all on their own. When you silo grant writing, you miss the chance to refine how your team communicates, tracks progress and talks about impact internally. In fact, grant writing should simply be part of our overall strategic communications plan, so it’s not standalone.
What we see from those in education, small businesses, or community programs just starting to chase funding is they’re often building the plane as they fly it. That’s why it’s even more important to see grant writing as a team process. It helps you build shared language, spot gaps early, and set the tone for how your team collaborates under pressure.
What a Team-Based Approach Looks Like
So what does it actually mean to treat grant writing as a team sport? It means bringing the right voices to the table early—ideally in the planning phase. Not after the Request for Proposals (RFP) drops. Not when the budget’s already been built. But when there’s still room to ask: “Does this opportunity align with what we’re already doing?” and “What would it take for us to do this well?”
Here’s a simplified look at how different roles should contribute:
- Program staff bring the lived experience of implementation—what’s working, what needs fixing, and who’s being reached.
- Finance teams ensure that the numbers make sense—and help build a budget that reflects real costs.
- Leadership provides strategic direction and makes the call on alignment, sustainability, and partnerships.
- Communications ensures that messaging is clear, aligned with public-facing materials, and speaks to the intended audience.
When all of these perspectives inform a proposal, what you submit is more than a polished PDF. It’s a reflection of your team’s readiness to deliver.
The Unexpected Benefits
Once you start treating grant writing as a team process, a few things happen that have nothing to do with money—but everything to do with organizational health:
- Your meetings get sharper. People start showing up with clarity on what they’re responsible for and how it fits into the whole, and what was taking you 2 hours can become 30–45 minutes.
- You document more. Instead of chasing old spreadsheets or digging through email threads, teams start creating templates and systems that serve future proposals. And the best part is you know which tools to use while doing this!
- You get better at onboarding. When new people join the team, it’s easier to plug them into a process that’s already running instead of one that lives in a single person’s head.
- You notice the gaps. And not just in your programs, but in your data, your follow-up strategies, and your assumptions about impact.
- You build shared language. The more you write proposals together, the more your team starts defining success in the same terms. That consistency shows up in funder meetings, staff retreats, and even in onboarding.
- You create alignment around storytelling. Everyone begins to talk about your mission, your vision, and your impact in a cohesive way. That strengthens not just your proposals, but your brand and your relationships.
The Invisible Labor Behind the Proposal
Here’s something we don’t talk about enough: writing a grant often assumed unpaid, invisible labor. It assumes someone on your team—usually the most overcommitted person—has time to chase clarity, coordinate inputs, and perform strategic vision under pressure. If they are not performing strategic vision, they are certainly having to catch the organizational leaders’ vision, write it, and make it plain. And too often, that someone is a woman, a first-generation professional, or a person of color who already carries more than their share.
In underfunded organizations, especially community-based ones, the emotional labor of grant writing becomes the price of being taken seriously. The effort is not just cognitive but reputational. You’re trying to impress a funder while protecting your voice. You’re drafting budgets while wondering if the team can stretch any further. The worst part is all of this happens before you receive even a confirmation that your grant application has been received.
We owe it to our own growth to start talking about and addressing this problem. A grant proposal is not just a writing task, but a trust-building activity that needs support, structure, and space. If our organizations don’t name the hidden labor, we risk burning out the very people keeping our organizations afloat.
What Funders Notice That Teams Don’t
Funders can tell when a proposal has been stitched together at the last minute. They notice when your budget doesn’t align with your activities; when your outcomes feel vague; or when your “we” reads more like an “I.” That kind of mismatch doesn’t just lower your chances—it chips away at your credibility.
A team-based process signals something different: alignment, readiness, and trust. It communicates, “We’re not just asking for support. We’re prepared to deliver.” And when a proposal carries that kind of clarity, funders listen more closely.
But What If My Team Is Just Me?
This is a question we hear all the time. “This all sounds great, but I’m the only one doing the work.” If that’s you, you’re not alone. Small teams, solopreneurs, and startup leaders often shoulder every part of the process including program design, budgeting, narrative writing, and reporting. But you can still approach grant writing like a team, even if the team is informal or temporarily borrowed.
Start by naming roles. Who can review your budget? Who can give feedback on clarity? Is there a board member, mentor, or trusted peer who can look over your goals? You don’t need to do everything alone to be effective— you just need to be clear about who’s helping you think.
Use tools that externalize the process: a grant calendar, narrative checklist, shared Google folder, or Asana if you need to see a unicorn dance across the screen to release your endorphins each time you complete a task. These act like your virtual team. And when you do have the chance to grow, you’ll already have a structure in place.
You should absolutely be using some of the latest in artificial intelligence to help you, but it should not be writing your grant. That work should come directly from you. Overusing AI creates the problem of so many applications sounding alike. In these instances, the people who actually wrote their applications and maintain their unique voice via their writing style are more likely to stand out in a pile of applications. However, we will always recommend using Grammarly (though Lapicero isn’t being paid to do so) because it helps you think through the writing choices you’re making and make informed decisions about your communication based on audience and flow. It also helps with economy of language, or the effective use of words so your sentences aren’t wordy.
And if you truly are the only person managing the full grant alone, you need time and a lot of coffee. I recommend getting a dark roast and putting on your favorite Spotify playlist to help you get motivated. Before starting Lapicero, I acquired about $500,000 in grant funding for companies I worked for or for educational projects; most of those applications were written as solo projects. The trick really was that I had to have time, and each year seek out grant-writing training so I could do my job effectively.
No matter what your obstacle, you can do it. You just need to develop the right strategy.
10 Early Warning Signs a Grant Will Cost More Than Its Worth
Here are a few signs we look for when advising clients on whether to move forward with an opportunity:
- The application timeline is under 3 weeks, and you don’t have key documents prepared.
- The grant requires complex, long-term outcomes tracking but doesn’t fund infrastructure or data systems.
- The funder’s priorities don’t align with your actual mission, but you’re tempted to rewrite your program just to qualify.
- You’re asking yourself, “Can we just figure it out later if we win?” (That’s rarely a good sign.) You’re bound to write fluff in the application and will embarrass your organization or yourself.
- You haven’t already done the work or connected with the community you claim you want to serve. It reads more like you just want the prestige of a grant and the publicity rather than the real impact. It’s noticeable, and when sitting on committees reviewing grant applications, I have thrown grant applications in the trash because I could tell.
- The application lacks specificity: it doesn’t state names, locations, dates, or times when events are supposed to occur. You’re unsure and the funder will also be unclear about whether the event or initiative is held in your city or planet Proxima Centauri b and lost in space. You may think this statement is wild, but that’s what the application is giving.
- You haven’t made use of tools already available to you in identifying the challenge you’re trying to address or explaining why it’s necessary.
- You have more than three weeks and key documents prepared but have too many other projects going on at the same time, feel overwhelmed, and can’t identify strong support to collaborate in the writing process.
- Your organization is on the brink of crumbling but you think a single grant would save the organization. It’s true that a single grant could save an organization; I have seen it happen many times. However, making that assessment requires honesty. Dishonesty will cost you.
- The funder has unclear of shifting priorities. If their guidelines are vague, their goals change year to year, or past grantees say the reporting expectations were inconsistent and communication lacking, it signals a lack of predictability. Predictability in these aspects of the grant life-cycle are key to successful grant writing, implementation, monitoring, and reporting. Abort mission.
Good grant strategy isn’t just about what you go after. It’s about what you protect.
Not Every Grant is Worth Chasing
Let me be honest here: not every grant is worth applying for. Some proposals ask more of your team than the funding justifies. Some partnerships aren’t worth the strings. And some deadlines will force you to prioritize speed over strategy which never ends well. As a rule of thumb, I advise clients not to apply for grants they have excessively short timelines for.
A team approach gives you the power to say no with confidence. Instead of understanding yourself or organization as chasing dollars, you get the fact that you’re choosing opportunities that align with your mission, play to your team’s strengths, and build toward the future you want. That’s a mindset shift most people don’t talk about, but it’s where the real strategy lives.
We were advising a client who was excited about a STEM-focused grant offering up to $20,000 for youth education. On the surface, it seemed like a great match: strong alignment with their mission, a reputable funder, and a chance to launch a brand-new program. But as we reviewed the requirements, we saw the red flags. The funder required a fully developed curriculum, outcome tracking metrics, and multi-stakeholder documentation all before the program had even launched. The client was still in the early design phase. Applying would have meant rushing their planning process, diverting time from key partnerships they were building, and pushing their small team beyond a healthy workload.
We decided not to apply. Not because the opportunity was bad, but because it wasn’t a good fit at the time. That’s what a team mindset allows you to do: pause, assess, and say no when it protects your long-term goals. It’s not about chasing every dollar. It’s about choosing what builds well and lasts.
This is the Work We’re In
At Lapicero, we don’t believe in quick wins or generic templates, although we have a few templates we will suggest to get you started. Instead, we lean into smart systems, clear roles, and intentional growth. Our grant writing support is just one piece of a bigger puzzle: helping organizations develop the kind of internal clarity and cross-functional collaboration that leads to long-term success.
Because in the end, it’s not just about writing a strong grant. It’s about building a team that’s strong enough to deliver on it.
Interested in learning how your team can grow through grant writing? We offer workshops, coaching, and strategic support for education leaders, business owners, and organizations ready to write (and win) with intention.
Let’s build what matters— together.
