LA n Sync - Grant Development Corps

LA n Sync is helping the Los Angeles County community collaborate and compete more effectively for grant funding to realize its tremendous potential. It’s building a unified approach for bringing in money to achieve what the community wants—a reinvigorated downtown; a revitalized, de-concretized, and accessible waterfront; better schools and health care; more mass transit options; a greener, more walkable, more livable LA; and vibrant businesses and arts to make Los Angeles the financial and cultural capital it can be.

See the LA n Sync website for more information.

Funding Criteria

Currently, LA n Sync is focusing on federal grant opportunities that meet the following criteria: 

• Require direct application to a federal funding agency (not passed through State)
• Have an award value of $1 million or above ($250K or above for Arts & Culture, and Environment)
• Require a cross-sector, collaborative model
• Offer the potential for systems change.

Topic Areas

LA n Sync is focusing on the following topic areas:

LA n Sync Grant Development Corps

LA n Sync engaged The Grantsmanship Center to assist in building the LA n Sync Grant Development Corps—a group of top-quality grant proposal professionals who provide support and expertise to selected organizations as they plan, write, and submit highly competitive applications for big-dollar projects that will benefit the Los Angeles County community.

Grant Development Corps consultants complete assignments such as:

• facilitating program planning for an organization or a coalition of organizations
• writing proposals—producing the written document to be entered in a funding competition
• facilitating the proposal development and submission process to enhance competitiveness
• reviewing proposal drafts and providing specific feedback to enhance competitiveness
• helping organizations establish policies and procedures for developing and managing grants
• helping organizations build data-gathering approaches to enhance the ability to prepare high quality grant proposals on a tight timeline.

Experience and Skills

LA n Sync Grant Development Corps professionals have extensive, high-level experience developing successful proposals for big-dollar grants. In creating the Corps, La n Sync sought consultants with:

• at least 10 years’ experience developing successful, complex $1 million+ proposals
• extensive experience with federal grants: forms; certifications; Grants.gov, FastLane, and other electronic submission systems; the review and award process, etc.
• experience serving as a proposal reviewer for federal agencies or for private funders
• high skill levels in all aspects of grant proposal writing: responding to review criteria; designing measurable outcomes; creating logic models; creating compelling narratives; etc.
• commitment to the benefits of genuine collaboration and experience in facilitating collaborative proposals
• ability to facilitate decision-making and compromise on tough issues (i.e., shared budgets, measurable outcomes, partner roles) in a way that strengthens partnerships and produces a high-quality product.

The LA n Sync Grant Development Corps is a reource for Los Angeles—a highly qualified, well-vetted group of experts to whom organizations can turn for help.    

click for the LA n Sync Grant Development Corps Roster

A Few Details

LA Focus – LA n Sync prefers to engage consultants from Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, or the nearby California area but will also consider consultants from outside the area and from other parts of the country who have outstanding expertise and skills that will significantly enhance our ability to provide top-level assistance to applicants.

Assignments – LA n Sync does not guarantee a set amount of work for Grant Development Corps members, but  it does promote use of the Corps and expects members to enjoy the distinction of affiliation with this effort.

For grant development projects that LA n Sync will support, we provide  applicant organizations with contact information for several appropriate Grant Development Corps members. The organization interviews the consultants and selects the one with whom it will work.

Contracts and Fees – The applicant organization negotiates fees with the consultant, and contracts directly with the consultant to complete an agreed upon scope of work. In some cases LA n Sync supports a portion of the consultant fees. In these situations, LA n Sync provides support directly to the applicant organization, bases its portion of the expense on a rate of $125 per hour, and recommends that the organization negotiate a flat-fee or not-to-exceed fee for the project. 

New applications

The application process for the Grant Development Corps is currently on hold and new applicants are not being sought.