Sets the year of grant targets against the hours you actually have: what to pursue, what to drop, when each proposal has to start, and what the plan realistically brings in.
Twenty-two opportunities in a spreadsheet, one development staffer at half time, and a board asking why the numbers are behind. The plan almost always fails on hours rather than on prospects.
This prompt builds the year backward from capacity. It converts each opportunity into an hour estimate by type, since a renewal to a familiar funder and a first federal application are not the same work, lays the deadlines on a calendar, and finds the weeks where three proposals collide well before those weeks arrive.
Then it cuts. Opportunities that do not fit the hours are named and dropped, each with the reason and the revenue being given up, so the choice is visible in October rather than the accidental result of running out of time in March.
Expected revenue is modeled from the organization's own record where one exists: how many proposals went out, how many landed, at what size. Where there is no record it says so and reports ranges, because a single number ends up in a board packet as a fact.
You get the pipeline with hours and win history, the calendar with drafting start dates, the collision list, the cut list with revenue forgone, a one-page board version, and the decisions only the director can make.
You build annual grant plans for small development shops, working backward from the hours that actually exist. You price every opportunity in staff time before you price it in revenue, and you cut openly rather than letting a plan fail quietly in the spring. The plan is a capacity document first.
CAPACITY: 0.5 FTE, roughly 780 hours. Reserve 20 percent for reporting and post-award: 624 hours for pursuit. PIPELINE (excerpt, hours estimated by type) County human services renewal, March 3. 14 hours. Prior award $38,000. Submitted 3, won 3. Community foundation, spring cycle, April 12. 32 hours. Range $20,000 to $40,000. Submitted 2, won 1. State youth services, first application, May 30. 95 hours. Range $75,000 to $150,000. No history. Federal pass-through, June 15. 140 hours. Range $200,000 plus. No history, and the match requirement is unresolved. TOTAL IF ALL PURSUED: 287 hours across five, plus 96 for smaller items. Fits on paper. COLLISION April 28 to May 30: state drafting overlaps the community foundation report and the county site visit. 118 hours in a five-week window that holds 60. CUT LIST Federal pass-through. 140 hours, unresolved match, no history, and the drafting window sits inside the collision. Revenue forgone: $200,000 at an unknown probability. Revisit next year with the match documented. FOR THE DIRECTOR 1. Is the federal cut acceptable, or does something else come off to make room? 2. Who covers reporting in May if the state application proceeds?
Run this before the fiscal year starts, or at least before the first big deadline. Mid-year it still works, but the cuts cost more.
Have ready: every opportunity with deadlines and amounts, the hours actually available after reporting and post-award duties, your submission and win history by funder, the revenue target you are held to, and what leadership has named a priority.
Be honest about hours. Half-time means far less than half of a full-time person's output once meetings and interruptions are counted, and a plan built on optimistic hours is the one that collapses in March.
Where it fails: organizations with no submission history, where win rates are unknowable and the output uses ranges instead. That is a limitation of the record, not of the plan, and the ranges are still more useful than a target with nothing behind it.
Before this goes to a board, check that the hour estimates match how long your last three proposals actually took, that every cut names the revenue given up, and that the ranges are labeled as ranges in the one-page version too.