Grant Writing Panel
Grant Writing When You Don’t Have a Grants Team
A panel discussion with tips, tricks and strategies to set your organization up for success
Grant writing can be a key element of every nonprofit’s fundraising strategy, but not every organization has the capacity to maintain a dedicated grant writer on staff. In this panel, moderator Thomas Vásquez, ArtsFund’s Vice President of Grantmaking, engages grant writers Cami Aurioles (CamiAurioles.com), Olivia Gattuso (Mission Forward Fundraising), and Kaleb Germinaro (Scandiuzzi Krebs) in a conversation about how to prioritize and set your organization up for grant writing success.
Topics include finding relevant opportunities, determining if you are ready to apply, how current technology such as A.I. impacts this work, and how to maintain your library of materials so you don’t have to start from scratch with each application.
This virtual webinar includes a moderated conversation, Q&A session, and ASL interpretation. A recording of the webinar can be found below and a PDF containing a summary of the event can be found here.
Meet the Panel
Tom Vásquez, Vice President of Grantmaking
Tom Vásquez has worked in the social justice world for over two decades and currently works as Vice President of Grantmaking at ArtsFund. Before moving into philanthropy, Tom worked for fourteen years with social justice nonprofits in the Seattle area as a canvasser, community organizer, fundraiser, grant writer, outreach director and social media manager. His work is informed by his early experience as an organizer, where he learned the importance of social justice work rooted in the stories and experiences of people directly impacted by poverty and inequity. The grandson of Mexican immigrants, Tom earned a degree in creative writing from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. He is raising three teenagers with his partner in Tacoma, Washington.
Cami Aurioles, Fundraising Consultant & Grant Writer
Cami Aurioles is a nonprofit fundraising consultant, grant writer, and storytelling coach. She works with community and BIPOC-led organizations to build sustainable giving programs and provides ethical storytelling workshops for organizations and institutions across the country to emphasize the importance of shifting power to community through actions and language. Her work is shaped by a commitment to equity and racial justice and focuses on strengthening community-centric analysis in the nonprofit sector and philanthropy.
Kaleb Germinaro, Scandiuzzi Krebs
Kaleb studied education and learning for spatial justice as he pursued his PhD. Through this, he had the opportunity to explore his passion for arts and culture based visioning work around cultivating belonging. Kaleb found his way to SK because he believes in supporting folks who are doing the work around spatial justice and allowing for more equitable learning and educational programming. Abolition followed by collective liberation is his vision for the kind of world he wants to live in. Kaleb enjoys working with nonprofits that help his community work towards the world he’d like to see, one that he’s creating collaboratively through grant writing and strategic thinking.
Olivia Gattuso, Founder & Principal Consultant
Olivia began her fundraising and grant writing career in NYC with a variety of arts and social service organizations. Since moving to the Pacific Northwest, she has provided grant consulting services to more than 40 nonprofits of all sizes and sectors, primarily within Washington State. This experience has helped Mission Forward crack the code on grants, refine strategies to unlock funders, and identify ways to best support nonprofits.
Olivia brings a collection of fine-tuned tools and strategies to each client, helping them increase organizational capacity and maximize funding opportunities. To date, she has helped nonprofits secure more than $15M in grant funding. She is passionate about supporting clients through daunting funding cliffs, significant campaigns, organizational shifts, and the launch of their grant funding journey. Throughout this work, she maintains a commitment to center community, apply anti-racist practices, and continue to learn to help accelerate equity and social justice.