Like many of us with previous non-profit experience, prior to my fellowship position at the NFF, I had always been on the receiving end of funder relationships.

Searching, finding, filtering, asking for, and receiving grants or donor funding can be an incredibly time-consuming, exhausting, and emotional process. It not only entails countless hours of Googling, subscribing, and searching through various funder databases, or staying up to speed with different newsletters and social notifications to find the opportunity in the first place, but then requires a high level of technical expertise and attention to detail to effectively write project proposals, synthesize budgets, and gather necessary resources and materials within the bounds of a deadline crunch.

Even after going through all the required steps and putting out a quality proposal (which can take more than 50 hours of work for some applicants), eligibility errors, misalignment with a funder’s objectives, a high number of competitive applicants, or lack of available funding can leave an applicant with the disappointment of receiving the dreaded “Dear ____, Due to the high number of competitive applications we received this round, we are regretful to inform you...”

If you have been on the receiving end of that message, you know the gut-wrenching feeling it brings. It’s difficult not to anguish over the time, resources, and energy lost. Whether you were hoping to kickstart a new and exciting project or simply keep your organization’s payroll afloat another month, it never feels good to be an unsuccessful grant applicant.

During my fellowship, I learned that grant opportunities, particularly open competitive grants, are an essential avenue for potential new partners to establish relationships with funding organizations. For funders, opportunities for expanding and diversifying external partnerships are crucial. Non-competitive funding programs can be insular and exclusionary to organizations that may be new, have low capacity, or are outside the funder’s personal or geographic network.

The National Forest Foundation currently offers two competitive grant opportunities: the flagship Matching Awards Program (MAP), which focuses on on-the-ground stewardship work and community engagement, and the Collaborative Capacity Program (CCP), created to focus on collaboration capacity building. Both programs see an annual increase in competitiveness. For example, only about 46% of the MAP and 11% of the CCP funds were awarded in 2024 compared to what was requested.

The incredibly resource-intensive grant writing process requires program managers with various technical skill sets. From securing and allocating budgets, writing and reviewing technical documents, processing applications, managing software, organizing and coordinating reviewers and funders to stellar project management, grantmakers have a lot on their plate to keep fund allocations moving around promptly.

Further, a competent program manager knows that doing this job well doesn’t only constitute technical competencies. Still, they must also navigate the emotions, complications, and trust-building that go into a healthy, sustainable grantor-grantee relationship. Within the myriad technical and emotional competencies that a grant-maker possesses, an essential aspect often overlooked in this work is the relevance of developing effective and authentic communication practices as a grant-maker.

For my fellowship with NFF this year, I collaborated closely with the Competitive Grants team within Conservation Awards to create a comprehensive strategic communication plan. It was the first time I had been deeply exposed to the other end of the grantmaking process, in which I could better grasp many of the intricacies of each phase and the required communication practices.

Throughout the fellowship, my team and I utilized working groups to create a communication plan template and recommended practices as deliverables and also to create a process and educational agenda that provided skills, knowledge, and awareness around communication practices and procedures that will be lasting and sustainable beyond my fellowship’s end date.

Below, I share a few of my favorite communication practice notes (and questions) that are not only applicable to grant stakeholders but to folks across conservation organizations and positions.

#1: As communicators, we should lead with compassion.

First and foremost, it is essential to recognize that grantmaking relationships are merely relationships between people. Recognition and validation of the work, effort, and emotions that come with the process can help establish long-term relationships and credibility for both funded and un-funded partners.

This might look like creating expectations for timely responses, acknowledging frustrations or confusion, admitting missteps or missed communication opportunities, and a commitment to understanding and addressing where another person or organization might be coming from or hoping to go. To lead with compassion takes practice, introspection, and humility, all essential components of being an effective grantmaker and partner.

#2: The language we use matters.

Now more than ever, organizations are considering the importance of language, including how to elaborate in messaging, who is attempting to be reached, and the goal of communication. Much of our process involved evaluating our public-facing materials and email templates for clarity, conciseness, and consistency, removing unnecessary jargon, and utilizing specific language to get needed information across without being too exclusive or overreaching.

We also thought about terms that might need to be better defined and essential to the messages we were trying to convey, such as “community engagement.” Especially in public-facing messaging, it is essential to consider how to use communication practices to anticipate potential questions or considerations and when to leave information broad enough that details can be further elaborated with one-on-one communication available through office hours or scheduled meetings.

With all forms of communication, it is imperative to be thoughtful and deliberate with our words to avoid unnecessary confusion, misinterpretation, or assumptions about our relationships and intentions.

#3: Effective communication is a collaborative and dynamic process.

While thoughtful and consistent communication practices can help establish credibility and rapport between a grant-maker and a potential grantee, these practices cannot be created and then marked as complete. Changing challenges, needs, and considerations for variations in communication practices will likely come up based on shifting timelines, changes in organizational funding priorities, shifting leadership and staff, and other factors that constitute a need for communication to flex alongside organizational changes.

As such, communication plans and practices should continuously be evaluated and adapted. We need to remember that communication is a two-way relationship and to allow for opportunities for input and process improvement from the grantmakers, grant applicants, and other relevant stakeholders. This might occur through feedback sessions, self-reflection processes, or measurable performance indexes. The anticipation and acknowledgment of potential shifting circumstances and priorities can help set communication practices up in a way that is not just reactionary, but proactive.

For example, if more applications than anticipated are received and funding decisions will take longer than initially planned, something as simple as sending a preliminary message communicating a potential delayed decision notification timeline may help to improve trust in the relationship and process.

#4: It is important to consider power dynamics.

When we are communicating with others, especially potential grant seekers or a partner who is on the receiving end of a funding relationship, grantmakers need to consider carefully who we are trying to reach, what our intentions are in the relationship, and if there are any potential barriers or conflicts of interest as to what and how we are communicating.

We should be mindful of the potentially limited resources that smaller or underfunded organizations may have and consider others’ available time, energy, or capacity and how particular communication agendas benefit each stakeholder. For example, when creating a survey to ask potential grantees’ about the application process and accessibility of NFF programs, one of our team members noted we needed to think about how we would tangibly use the survey results to ensure we weren’t asking input without intention.

We also ensured that a survey didn’t go out before funding decision notifications were sent out so potential applicants didn’t feel coerced into filling out a survey in a way they felt could influence the decision-making process.

If we ask for significant community input or involvement on a project, check a message’s relevance, or ask for feedback from certain groups, taking steps to consider potential power dynamics involved in relationships can help ensure our communication practices are more well-received and sustainable. A few examples of more effective and accessible communication practices may include allowing for:

• Flexible communication timelines
• Including community input on the effectiveness or relevance of communication practices and providing compensation when appropriate
• Involving a process of genuine feedback and self-reflection on each phase of the communication process
• Offering a range of communication modes for interactions

#5: Act with brave and authentic intentions.

Communicators must have processes that allow us to stay true to personal and organizational values throughout the grantmaking process and consider when and how to ethically and effectively emulate these values to potential grant applicants and partners. This reflection might include a team taking time to critically examine personal and organizational missions and visions, performing audits about communication practices, program goals, funding priorities and gaps, current partner relationships, or the effectiveness of the current evaluation processes.

However, balancing effective and authentic communications with tangible, on-the-ground actions and relationships is essential. While being thoughtful and considerate of our messaging is important, inauthentic or hollow messages without plans for action or examples of current values and priorities may do more harm than good in effective relationship building.

Reflecting, this fellowship taught me so much more than the Excel spreadsheets, surveys, and graphs produced can honestly portray. It made me stop and consider the significant roles that nonprofit grantmakers hold in an ever-shifting funding landscape and the weight those relationships can have.

It allowed me to pause and consider our obligations in that relationship and how vital authentic and transparent communication can be in securing and maintaining trusting partnerships. I recognized and celebrated how funders can empower a range of opportunities to diverse community members and projects and the importance of having a designated yet adaptable plan to support a range of needs and challenges.

As leaders and innovators in conservation, we may all pause to ask ourselves, “How am I showing up as a reflective and empathetic communicator? How might I say this more thoughtfully and effectively? How might this circumstance or relationship dynamic require a different approach? How do I know how effective my communication is, and how might I or my team hold ourselves accountable?”

Carly Knudson is a 2024-25 Conservation Connect Fellow. She recently completed her Masters of Science in Parks, Recreation and Tourism at the University of Utah and is continuing on to pursue her PhD in her program. Growing up in the rural community of Salmon, ID, Carly learned from a young age the importance and benefit of public lands and nature. Carly is interested in the human dimensions of natural resources, particularly how public natural spaces impact health, wellbeing and quality of life for communities and people, and where access issues and disparities exist.