Molly works across nonprofits and education-adjacent orgs, with some exposure to school districts. Her core diagnosis: most organizations struggle to define a precise need, prospect efficiently, and translate their work into funder priorities. Strong teams pair the “science” (clear plan: what/how/when/cost) with the “art” (framing outcomes in the language funders are funding this season). Tools like Instrumentl help, but prospecting remains time-consuming, and users still do manual checks (past grantees, award sizes, recency, geography reality).
(1) high-quality prospecting/fit
(2) AI review/rewrite suggestions.
What’s going wrong
Teams “spray and pray” with generic narratives rather than tailoring to a funder’s priorities and evidence standards.
Quotes
“People aren’t able to define what they need… [they] send the same resume to 100 different jobs.”
Applicants send “really generic information… like being drunk and blind and throwing a dart at the dartboard.”
Impact
Low hit-rate; weeks lost on misfit proposals.
Workarounds
Experienced writers force problem definition and tailor to funder language; most orgs don’t.
What’s going wrong