Writing Services
Acorn Consulting brings twenty years of professional writing experience to every client project. Services vary greatly from project to project. A majority of Acorn clients choose to contract for hourly support following in-depth conversations about the scope of their projects, timelines, and strategic goals.
In addition to the services detailed below, Acorn Consulting can help you manage the ongoing load of your foundations program. Let us oversee your prospect list and deadlines, dig up new opportunities, and respond to your inbox requests from others about that fresh new lead. This ongoing support allows you to relax knowing your grant program is in good hands at a small fraction of the cost of hiring an staff grant manager.
Need support with non-foundation writing? Let's talk! Blog posts, online content, annual appeal letters . . . it's all possible.
Reach out to Jayme with an email to begin this conversation or request a quote.
Private Grant Proposals
Grant proposals to private foundations are often intimidating for organizations, especially those without dedicated communications or development staff. Acorn can craft compelling narratives to private funders of any size. As organization staff explores the personal relationships with funders, Acorn is in the background strengthening the strategic storytelling and building high-quality application packages.
Reporting
What is more important than grant funding? Repeat grant funding. And strong reporting ---that provides meaningful insight to activities, challenges and successes --- is the path to repeat funding. Often time reporting gets the short shrift in an agency's schedule, but it's a powerful tool for advanced programs. Acorn can help you transform your reporting into powerhouse storytelling in a way that is repeatable and sustainable for your organization.
Planning Documents
Good ideas are only ideas until they are tied together in a plan. Acorn can help you wrangle the many great ideas your team has for a project, program or the organization in written form. With a special talent for analytical writing, Acorn can transform what feels overwhelming into a structure and a timeline based on your needs and priorities. Plans take special care to be easy to read and follow, have accessible visual elements (such as timelines) and provide clear lines of responsibility to team members. You make the decisions, we get it down on paper.
Government Grant Proposals
The state and federal grant process is complex and involves numerous levels of an organization's staff and leadership, plus insight to complex metrics and evaluation techniques. Acorn provides narrative writing, data integration, and assistance in shepherding the process from RFP announcement to submission and reporting.
Web Content Development
Is your website good or great? How long has updating its content been on your "to do" list? Websites are our best first impression and a strong, dynamic web presence provides value over time. Acorn can help you audit your web goals and needs and develop content that works for (not against) you. Clean, clear and professional content will pay dividends well beyond the investment today.
Case for Support
What is your "go to" document that explains why your organization or project matters? Do you have a central document that incorporates your vision, values, mission and goals? A carefully written Case for Support can be leveraged in dozens of ways to advance an organization's mission, from educating new board members to quick responses to simple grant requests to one-pagers for outreach events. Acorn can help you develop this essential tool and find creative methods for unleashing its potential in your work every day.