Building Strong Grant Writing Teams
Episode Summary
In Episode One of Inside Grant Writing Firms, Allison Welch brings together Diane Leonard of DH Leonard Consulting & Grant Writing Services, Angela Silva of Community Partnerships Network / CPIN, and Kyle Halmrast of The Ostara Group for a candid conversation about what it is really like to work with or inside a grant writing firm.
A clear theme in this first episode is that successful grant writing firm work depends on much more than technical writing ability. The panelists emphasize collaboration, adaptability, client communication, community voice, feedback, and relationship management as essential skills for grant writers who want to thrive in firm settings.
Diane describes how her firm’s team-based approach depends on collaboration, iteration, and willingness to receive feedback. Angela explains how CPIN looks for adaptable, mission-motivated writers who can work across many types of clients, funding sources, and communities while honoring client voice. Kyle shares how The Ostara Group uses both staff and contract grant writers, and why relationship management, customer service, evaluation thinking, and expectation-setting are central to the work.
This episode is especially helpful for grant writers who want to understand how firms hire, what soft skills matter most, how contract and staff roles differ, and why grant writing is often only part of the larger client relationship.
Chapters
0:00 Welcome
5:38 Intro by Kyle Halmrast
7:37 Intro by Diane Leonard
14:06 Intro by Angela Silva
21:55 The Importance of Soft Skills
32:48 Hard Skills
40:56 Q&A
Panelists
Diane H. Leonard, GPC, RST - DH Leonard Consulting & Grant Writing Services, LLC
Diane H. Leonard, GPC, is driven to help nonprofits create twice the impact in half the time, and to make grants less stressful along the way. She began her career in philanthropy as Program Officer of the Michigan Women's Foundation before founding DH Leonard Consulting & Grant Writing Services, LLC in 2005. Under her leadership, the DH Leonard Consulting team has secured more than $180.67 million in competitive grant funds to date. Diane earned her Grant Professional Certified (GPC) credential in April 2013 and became an Approved Trainer of the Grant Professionals Association in 2017. In 2018, she launched Agile in Nonprofits as part of DH Leonard Consulting, and in 2020 she became a Registered Scrum Trainer through the Agile Education Program powered by Scrum Inc. (RST).
Kyle Halmrast - Ostara Group
Kyle Halmrast is a strategist and problem solver by nature, driven to work with a wide range of clients as they identify what they need to do in order to evolve and succeed. He founded the Ostara Group in 2008 after participating in Leadership Tomorrow Seattle. Since then, Kyle has worked with more than 85 boards on governance, roles and responsibilities, fundraising and storytelling, and relationship management and strategy. Under his leadership, Ostara has worked with more than 430 organization clients nationwide, spanning sectors including higher education, conservation, and business. His areas of expertise include board development, strategic planning, facilitation and training, executive coaching, interim staffing, talent management, and campaign planning and counsel.
Angela J. Silva DBA, MAOL, CRA - CPIN
Angela Silva is passionate about improving lives and communities, helping organizations and individuals seek and secure resources and build capacity through their mission-driven work. She is a master-potentializer who values networking and collaboration, and a seasoned thought partner and executive with real-world experience. Angela is a creative problem solver who can think and act quickly to provide innovative solutions, and she resources those solutions through persuasive writing. She is a certified research administrator with more than 16 years of experience working with federal grants and contracts, both in preparing proposals and managing multi-million-dollar awards. Angela is resilient, flexible, and agile, with a proven record of leading teams to success.
Panelist Quotes
Diane Leonard
00:12:57 — “What we’re really looking for is your approach to collaboration, your approach to iteration, your willingness to receive feedback.”
00:12:30 — “When you’re talking to different grant writing firms, they all have a different theory of how they work, and what collaboration might look like.”
00:13:21 — “We’re looking for personality fit and teamwork collaboration fit more than anything.”
00:13:29 — “The technical skills are super important… but that part, we can all learn and grow together.”
00:13:45 — “What we really want is that innate desire to be in a team environment, not to be a silo in the grant sector.”
Angela Silva
00:14:59 — “What I’m looking for mostly in folks that join my team, whether it’s a staff position or a freelancer, is adaptability.”
00:14:59 — “We are generalist specialists. We write across several themes, we write across all funding lanes.”
00:15:26 — “Where folks have been most successful is… their adaptability and their willingness to manage the various client portfolios they have.”
00:29:58 — “To amplify community voice, or to make sure that you’re going after the grant, you have to understand where that’s coming from.”
00:30:04 — “Our work is very relational… we couldn’t do the work without the people and the trust.”
00:41:32 — “I’m looking for mission-motivated people that have a calling for this work.”
Ariana Garofalo
00:31:38 — “I do think those soft skills are super important to be able to relate to the clients as well as do the grant writing.”
00:31:52 — “Incorporating the voice of your client into the grant, and being able to active listen, I think, is a really important soft skill.”
00:32:23 — “Being able to stay true to what the client wants to say, while also fulfilling what the grant reviewers want to see.”
Kyle Halmrast
00:05:39 — “The team setting generally is more than writing grants. It’s also providing grant strategy.”
00:05:39 — “Helping clients figure out prioritization, helping them navigate public funding options… working with their program directors to refresh and enhance their case for support.”
00:23:10 — “I’m assessing soft skills all the time.”
00:24:08 — “Part of that comes down to managing expectations.”
00:24:31 — “We have to talk to them about probability and projections and making sure that they’re diversifying their portfolio.”
00:24:47 — “All of those relationship-based conversational soft skills are really a part of the work.”
00:24:56 — “Grant writing is probably… two-thirds to three-quarters, and the other part really is adaptability, managing expectations, and managing the relationships of the clients.”
00:25:40 — “Doing it over time helps both sides get a better grasp of where everybody’s coming from, what the skills are, where we might need to bolster some stuff.”
