Carinci Consulting: Strategy, Funding, Coaching, and Evaluation Services to Advance Nonprofit Impact
As Founder and Principal Consultant of Carinci Consulting, I bring two decades of non-profit leadership launching national strategic and research initiatives, conceptualizing networked improvement communities, and forging diverse partnerships to address gaps and improve stakeholder outcomes. Since launching a grants agency in December of 2022, I have helped clients win over $200 million in grant funding. How could leveraging my expertise advance your mission and free up your time?
Share
🍂 Grateful for the Work. Grateful for You.
Published 4 days ago • 8 min read
November 2026
🍂 Grateful for the Work. Grateful for You.
This time of year naturally invites us to think about what we're grateful for.
At Carinci Consulting, one thing rises quickly to the top: We get to help the organizations that help everyone else.
When I first started grant writing, I don't think I fully appreciated the extraordinary leverage of this work. A single successful proposal can bring hundreds of thousands—or millions—of dollars into an organization. But the award itself isn't really the impact. It's what happens next.
It's scholarships that help low-income students pursue STEM degrees.
It's addiction medicine fellowships preparing the next generation of health professionals.
It's equipment that improves health screening in rural communities.
It's AI infrastructure accelerating scientific discovery and strengthening U.S. competitiveness.
It's better systems supporting naval aviation readiness.
It's free summer learning opportunities for urban students.
It's safe, high-quality housing for Native families.
It's faculty development that transforms undergraduate education.
It's preparing teachers in high-need school districts to equip students for careers in semiconductors and other emerging technologies.
And that's just a glimpse of what we get to learn about and contribute to through this work.
Every day, our clients invite us into their ideas, challenges, communities, and visions for what could be better. We get to learn about things we never would have encountered otherwise, help translate ambitious ideas into fundable strategies, and then watch those ideas become real.
That's an incredible privilege.
And none of it happens without the smart, passionate, mission-driven people who trust us to be a part of their work.
So this November, we're especially grateful for you - our clients, partners, colleagues, collaborators, subscribers, and friends - who bring purpose, challenge, learning, and quite a lot of joy to what we do.
Thank you for letting us have a small part in your very big impact. 💫
The Smarter Capacity Play: How Strategic Consulting Partnerships Help Nonprofits Do More Without Burning Out Staff
“Do what you do best and outsource the rest.” — Peter Drucker
November naturally puts collaboration and gratitude on our minds. We’re grateful for the nonprofit leaders, program experts, researchers, educators, health professionals, fundraisers, finance teams, and community partners we get to work alongside - the people doing extraordinarily important work, often with extraordinarily limited bandwidth.
If you're hearing - or saying - that more often lately, you're not alone.
Organizations are operating in an environment where resources are constrained, costs continue to matter, and teams are being asked to accomplish ambitious goals without proportionally larger budgets.
That can make outside consulting support feel like something to cut.
But there's another way to look at it:
When resources are tight, the question isn't simply “What costs less?” It's “What creates the most value?”
A strong consulting partnership shouldn't just add another person to your project. It should extend your team's capacity and improve what that capacity produces.
That means looking for partners who can:
🧠 Bring expertise you don't need to hire full-time.
Your organization may need a grants strategist, evaluator, subject-matter expert, project manager, or specialized writer—but not 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year.
⏱️ Give valuable time back to your internal team.
Every hour a senior leader spends searching databases, deciphering a NOFO, or wrestling with proposal language is an hour that leader isn't spending on the work only they can do.
🔄 Create reusable value.
Good consulting shouldn't leave you with one finished deliverable and nothing else. Look for work that strengthens systems, develops reusable content, builds staff capacity, creates tools, and improves future efforts.
🎯 Help you say “no” as well as “yes.”
This is particularly important in grants. Applying for a poorly aligned $1 million opportunity isn't a bargain just because the application is free. Staff time has a cost. Opportunity cost has a cost. A good strategist helps you invest limited resources where they have the strongest chance of producing a return.
📈 Focus on outcomes—not hours.
The least expensive proposal, consultant, or approach isn't necessarily the best value. Consider what the partnership can help you accomplish, avoid, accelerate, or improve.
When budgets tighten, organizations understandably scrutinize every investment. They should.
But resource constraints make strategic partnerships more important, not less—because getting maximum impact from every dollar and every staff hour becomes even more essential.
The goal isn't to spend more - It's to make what you do spend work harder.
Know an organization that could use a strong grant partnership?
Refer them to Carinci Consulting and earn $1,000 if they become a 12-month Strategy Client.
NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Program (S-STEM)
Award Amount: Track 1 (Institutional Capacity Building), Track 2 (Implementation) projects may not exceed $2,000,000 total for a maximum duration of 6 years; Track 3 (Inter-institutional Consortia) projects may not exceed $5,000,000 total for a maximum duration of 6 years
Deadline: March 2, 2027
Description: Supports institutions of higher education in funding scholarships for academically talented, low-income STEM majors and in studying and implementing a program of activities that support recruitment, retention, and graduation.
Award Amount: Up to a total of 6.5 months of salary (plus fringe benefits) over the course of the award, and up to $100,000 for other direct costs in support of the research advancement and training plan
Deadline: February 1, 2027 to March 1, 2027
Description: Supports mid-career researchers (associate professor rank) to enhance and advance their research program through synergistic partnerships substantively.
NSF STEM K-12 (STEM K-12) Award Amount: Anticipated to range between $25,000 and $750,000, with a typical duration of one to three years
Deadline: Full proposals accepted at anytime
Description: Supports fundamental, applied, and translational research that advances STEM teaching and learning and improves understanding of education across the human lifespan and a range of formal and informal settings.
Deadline: Rolling proposals accepted year-round; final determinations made three times per year
Description: Supports 501(c)(3) nonprofits developing or rehabilitating multifamily permanent supportive housing for veterans, with funding limited to hard construction costs.
Deadline: Rolling LOIs accepted starting April 29, 2026
Description: Supports bold, exploratory autism and neurodevelopmental disorder research that tests novel hypotheses and opens new conceptual or experimental directions.
Award Amount: Varies; recent awards include $300,000+ grants
Deadline: Rolling; no specific grantmaking cycles or deadlines
Description: Supports work advancing thriving children, working families, and equitable communities, including early childhood education, maternal/child health, food systems, family economic security, racial equity, and community leadership.
🌟 Real results, real impact. Hear what people are saying about their experience with us!🌟
🏆 Grant Win Spotlight
Carinci Consulting is thrilled to have served as the grant writer for a successful $746,008 award from the National Science Foundation’s Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) program.
The NSF IUSE Engaged Student Learning Level 2 project will develop and study a scalable approach for integrating high-performance computing (HPC) education into existing undergraduate STEM courses across a multi-institution consortium.
Through the project, modular, adaptable HPC learning activities will be developed for use within existing courses, while STEM faculty will receive training and support to bring high-performance computing concepts into their classrooms. The initiative is expected to reach hundreds of undergraduate students, helping them build computational skills increasingly important for data-intensive STEM careers.
The project will also examine how students and faculty perceive HPC and identify instructional strategies that most effectively strengthen computational thinking and learning outcomes. The resources and findings will be shared broadly to support adoption at other institutions.
Congratulations to our client and the entire project team on this exciting NSF award!
Lessons Learned:
Trust Is Built Before the Ask
November also has thinking about trust because so much of the work we're grateful to do depends on someone trusting someone else.
A client trusts a consultant with an important idea.
An organization trusts its staff and board to steward its mission.
A community trusts an organization to listen and deliver.
And a funder ultimately has to trust an organization enough to put resources behind what it says it can accomplish.
Recent research highlighted by Candid offers an encouraging finding: public trust in nonprofits remains relatively strong even as trust in many other institutions has declined. But there is a striking divide. In 2026, only 29% of respondents reported high trust in philanthropy, while direct-service nonprofits—particularly human services organizations—earned considerably higher levels of trust.
Why? One answer appears again and again in the data: Proximity.
People trust what they can see, experience, understand, and participate in.
Candid reports that 60% of people who directly engaged with a nonprofit in the previous year expressed higher levels of trust in nonprofits. Nearly three-quarters also said transparency about where funding comes from and how it is allocated makes them more likely to trust an organization.
That's not just an interesting finding. It's a grant strategy lesson. We sometimes think of trust as something we're supposed to create in the proposal.
But a proposal can communicate trustworthiness. It can't manufacture it.
Trust is built when organizations: 👂 Listen before deciding. Can you demonstrate that the people affected by your work helped shape it?
🤝 Invite participation rather than simply deliver services. Are community members recipients—or partners?
📊 Show what happened. Can you clearly connect dollars invested to work completed and meaningful outcomes?
🔎 Practice transparency. Do you communicate successes and challenges honestly?
💬 Build relationships before you need something. Does the first meaningful interaction with a funder happen when you ask for money?
This applies beyond grant-seeking, too.
Trust is cumulative. It's built by the dozens of small interactions that occur before anyone signs a contract, awards a grant, makes a referral, or agrees to become a partner.
And perhaps that's why the relationships behind this work are what I'm most grateful for this month.
Funding matters. But trust is what makes the impact possible.
🧡 Grateful for a Great Partner? Send Them Our Way.
As you think about the organizations and leaders in your network, is there someone who could use stronger grant strategy and support heading into 2027?
Carinci Consulting will welcome a limited number of new Strategy Clients beginning January 1, and we’re looking for nonprofit and higher education organizations ready to take a more intentional, strategic approach to grants.
Through our referral program, you’ll receive $1,000 for each organization you refer that is a strong mutual fit and signs a 12-month Grants Strategy Partnership contract.
If someone comes to mind, fill out the referral form linked below. We’ll take it from there, make sure they know who connected us, and start with a conversation about whether a partnership makes sense.
No pressure. No complicated handoff. Just a thoughtful introduction between people who may be able to do great work together. 🧡
🍂 Know an organization we should know? Send them our way.
Carinci Consulting: Strategy, Funding, Coaching, and Evaluation Services to Advance Nonprofit Impact
Jennifer Carinci
As Founder and Principal Consultant of Carinci Consulting, I bring two decades of non-profit leadership launching national strategic and research initiatives, conceptualizing networked improvement communities, and forging diverse partnerships to address gaps and improve stakeholder outcomes. Since launching a grants agency in December of 2022, I have helped clients win over $200 million in grant funding. How could leveraging my expertise advance your mission and free up your time?
Read more from Carinci Consulting: Strategy, Funding, Coaching, and Evaluation Services to Advance Nonprofit Impact
October 2026 👻 Is Your 2027 Grant Strategy Ghosting You? January may feel far away, but in grant strategy terms, it’s right around the corner. If your organization wants to pursue funding more strategically in 2027, now is the time to start asking: Where are our best-fit funding opportunities? What belongs on our 12-month grants calendar? Which opportunities deserve our limited time—and which do not? Which funder relationships should we begin building now? What proposals, concepts, and...
September 2026 🎒 What’s In Your Grants Backpack? September brings a familiar sense of possibility. Students return to school with freshly sharpened pencils, carefully organized notebooks, and backpacks packed for the year ahead. For nonprofits and higher education institutions, it is also the start of one of the busiest grant seasons—and a good time to ask: Is your organization equipped for the opportunities ahead? A strong grants backpack is not filled with more funding opportunities than...
Hi Reader Back-to-school season always brings a certain energy: sharpen the pencils, clean out the backpack, get a little more organized than we were in July, and brace ourselves for the return of deadlines (although in the grant world it’s like finals week every week😉). For nonprofits, it is also the perfect time to do a little grant strategy reset. This summer on the Carinci Consulting blog, we explored three big shifts in the current funding landscape: federal grants, foundation grants,...
