Three reasons to learn grantwriting

And hey, what do owls and other birds have to do with it? Or me?

Sleepy Screech Owl illustration by Catherine Arnold at Snowseasons. May 2024.

May was rife with sneak-attack storms, conflicts arising when a heat dome over Mexico and southern states hit cooler northern winds.

What resulted on May 16 was very violent weather, later termed a “derecho,” or a long line of prolonged and hurricane-speed winds. Lives were lost to fallen trees. Many of us hid in hallways and bathrooms to avoid windows.

The next day, work calls felt odd in the wake of emotional bruising. The ground was littered with branches, traffic lights blinked, around 900,000 people lacked power.

Positive things also happened in May. For me, the temperature drop in the wake of the storm belts figured large. Before each cloudburst the heat dome rose to high 80s and 90s, with heat indexes of 100+ temperatures. These are very high rates for May here. Temperature drops to 68, 69, and 72 left me feeling less anxious and birds sang hearty approval.

Earlier in May I had a professional development class in fundraising; as some of you know, I now work as a grantwriter. In the class, a fellow fundraising writer observed that we should protect lands and waters for indicator species, such as birds.

Their wellbeing says much about our own, she noted, and healthy lands prevent flooding. Neither was a new line of thought for me, but I liked how she put the points.

Here are three reasons grantwriting and fundraising are worth learning, and two tips I have for finding out more: