Elevate partners with effective and ambitious nonprofits to build smart and sustainable grants programs. We form in-depth partnerships with clients all over the country to support their leaders, increase their revenues, and build more sustainable organizations. From Comprehensive Grant Writing Services to discrete Writing Capacity Projects, we help organizations to secure the funding they need to drive powerful social change.
Philosophy/Approach: Our mission is to support nonprofit leaders and bring the highest-level grants expertise to organizations of all sizes. We do this by employing a team model that brings exceptional and experienced fundraisers who specialize in institutional philanthropy to you at a more affordable rate. Our team takes the time to understand your organization’s mission and story to better communicate the why of what you do to funders. We research your unique landscape of funders and peer organizations so that we can pursue the most strategic grant opportunities and position and differentiate your organization’s work relative to others in your field. We help you build and steward relationships with prospective funders, and we organize all of the details, materials, and deadlines so that you never have to worry about where to find a document or when a proposal is due.
Our model works. In 2021, Elevate secured over $115 million in grants for 100+ nonprofit organizations, and our win rate is 61%, more than triple the national average.
Types of clients: Small to mid-size nonprofits, Major nonprofits
Issues/Focus: Arts & Culture, Civic, Education, Environment, Health, Science, Social
Specialization:
COMPREHENSIVE GRANT WRITING SERVICES: ELEVATE’S HOLISTIC SIGNATURE SERVICE
Our Comprehensive Grant Writing Service is designed to provide all-inclusive, full-service support for your grants program. Your dedicated Elevate team will research funding prospects, develop and implement a cultivation strategy, draft and submit proposals and reports that effectively communicate your work to new and existing funders, and offer strategic insight and advice. We also handle all of the time-consuming details like securely storing your grant portal logins, tracking deadlines and deliverables, and organizing documents like proposals, award letters, budgets, and more.
WRITING CAPACITY PROJECTS: EXTRA SUPPORT FOR BIG ONE-TIME PROJECTS
Elevate’s Writing Capacity Projects provide extra capacity to help organizations pursue large grant opportunities, like big federal grants, or manage a time-bound staffing gap.
GRANTS ACCELERATOR PROJECTS: JUMPSTART YOUR GRANTS PROGRAM
The Grants Accelerator Project is ideal for nonprofits with little to no grant history, those in the early stages of a comprehensive fundraising plan, and well-established organizations looking to expand into new programmatic or geographic areas. This service includes strategic prospect identification and research, plus the preparation of one piece of writing – a proposal template or Case for Support.
ONGOING WRITING RETAINERS: SUBMIT MORE GRANTS EACH MONTH
With an Ongoing Writing Retainer, Elevate assigns an experienced grant writer to plan, draft, edit, and submit grants and/or reports every month. While you do not benefit from our strategy, cultivation, prospecting, or project management expertise – and need to have those elements solidly in place internally – you can get more deliverables per month through this more streamlined retainer package.
CUSTOM WORKSHOPS & WEBINARS: BUILD A CULTURE OF PHILANTHROPY
Elevate’s workshops and webinars help build fundraising skills and expertise for staff whose work intersects with grants, whether it is your program staff, finance team, or other fundraisers. Our webinars are designed to be interactive and experiential. Not just because it is more fun, but because we believe people learn better when doing.
Not only did Elevate help Imagine LA break the $1M grant funding ceiling for the first time, they are a true partner: actively working with us achieve new levels of strategy, expertise, and clarity in terms of how we talk and write about our ever-evolving organization -- and always in the service of our mission to break the cycle of family poverty and homelessness.
- (Imagine LA) Brian Rosenbaum, MSSW, CVA Community Engagement Director