About
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Winning grants can be an enormous challenge for movement building organizations. Few funders understand or value grassroots organizing, and too many impose the kinds of restrictions that make equitable movement work impossible. These challenges are often especially pronounced for organizations led by marginalized communities.
If any of this sounds familiar, I am here to help!
My name is Susan Zakaib—I'm the Founder and Principal of Fund Your Movement, which supports movement organizations to grow their revenue and build their capacity for securing grant funding. In addition to writing and editing grant materials, I provide coaching, training and support to help you strengthen your grant work in the long run. My goal is to help you build a grants program that provides you both the funding and the flexibility required to organize effectively.
Values
I aim to conduct all of my work in accordance with the following values:
1. I believe in equitable fundraising practices, and I'm committed to advancing the principles of Community-Centric Fundraising.
2. Moving grant funding to social movements—especially to organizations led by marginalized and oppressed communities—is urgent and necessary. All such organizations should have access to the tools, skills and support required to resource their work.
3. Philanthropy has a long history of molding and undermining social movements. My priority is to help you avoid this pitfall of institutional funding, and grow your revenue without compromising your values and strategies.
4. As a member of the Grant Professionals Association, I am committed to upholding the GPA Code of Ethics.
Services
Grant Writing & Prospecting
Supporting your revenue growth strategy by conducting prospect research and writing grant proposals, grant reports and LOIs.
Coaching & Training
Providing bespoke coaching and training to help you learn to write winning proposals and manage grants effectively.
Infrastructure Design
Helping you build an efficient and sustainable grants program by developing grants management systems, revenue plans, boilerplate language, metrics, and more.
Serving 501(c)3s, 501(c)4s and fiscally sponsored organizations throughout the U.S., as well as charities in Ireland.
Have a specific need? Let's talk about it.
Experience
I have more than eight years of experience as a grants professional. I initially learned to write grant proposals as part of my PhD studies as well as an internship at Austin Partners in Education. I then spent four years honing my grant skills at Workers Defense Project and Workers Defense Action Fund, where I wrote proposals and reports, managed grants, cultivated funders, directed the organization's institutional giving strategy, and designed grants infrastructure. I more than doubled their grant revenue, created a new proposal development process that dramatically increased input from program staff, and wrote proposals and managed funder briefings for multiple coalitions.
My experience at Workers Defense taught me that grantmaking processes aren't designed for movement building organizations. The organization's organizing work belied the tidy categories on grant applications, defied evaluation norms, and rarely fit neatly into funders' grantmaking strategies. Although this was frustrating, I loved the challenge of developing a grants program that brought in revenue while remaining true to the organization's strategies.
I founded Fund Your Movement in 2020 so that I could address these challenges on a nationwide scale. Since then I have provided grant writing, coaching, training, and infrastructure development services for movement organizations all over the U.S. I have worked on grants across multiple issue areas, including the criminal legal system, public education, voter engagement, racial justice, reproductive rights, climate change, housing justice, and more. I have experience working with nonprofits of all sizes, ranging from national networks and foundations to small grassroots organizations.
I have recently relocated to Ireland—and while I continue to support American nonprofits, I am also looking forward to bringing my grants expertise to charities based in my new home. Please contact me to discuss how I can support your fundraising goals!
