Effectively Presenting Your Case To Foundations

Every organization needs to make its best case to funders who often don’t read all of the wonderful prose and stories, who skim and want to understand the applicant quickly (sometimes too quickly), but who are quick to point out if some fact or essential element in their minds is missing.

In this session, Mari Brennan Barrera, a foundation funding expert with decades of experience, will share real-life lessons with the group.   While the session will include a few slides, it is intended to focus on discussion and conversation.  We encourage you to actively participate to maximize the benefit you’ll derive from the seminar.

Mr. Barrera encourages participants to forward sample proposals and/or questions to her in advance of the session so that examples she discusses are clearly relevant to participants’ needs.  (Any proposal selected for discussion will remain anonymous.)   Please send your examples or questions to Mari@BarreraConsulting.com.

About the Speaker

Mari Brennan Barrera serves as a Charitable Foundations Manager in Nutter Law’s Private Client Department. She identifies opportunities for strategic grantmaking to help philanthropic families and foundations achieve their charitable goals. She also works with the nonprofits that receive this funding to help them leverage the grants and build their capacity.

Mari has more than 25 years of experience developing grantmaking programs, creating and implementing strategic plans, conducting issue and landscape analyses, and designing staffing and operational structures for a wide range of philanthropic and nonprofit organizations committed to social change.  She has served as chair of Philanthropy Massachusetts (previously known as Associated Grant Makers). She was also board chair of the national organization Full Frame Initiative. She is now in her second term as a member of the Natick grants panels for the MetroWest Health Foundation, and joined the board of Project Bread in January 2020.