When I was working in-house, I dreamt about meeting certain foundation leaders. It seemed nearly as exciting to engage with those luminaries as winning a grant from their philanthropies. One rookie mistake still sticks with me. I once poured significant energy into securing a funder meeting and planning my request. I failed to prepare as fully for the gathering itself. Mid-meeting, I wondered: Was it my goal to educate the funder, or vice versa? As the conversation ended, the invitation to submit a proposal felt like sheer luck.
I can't thank you enough for this post! I am in the process of helping a colleague prepare for a meeting with a funder (a task that's relatively new to me), and I am going to follow your suggestions as closely as possible! Thank you!
An architect friend of mine has an undergraduate degree in literature. She jokes, "You'd think I'd be good a reading a room, but I'm not."
I love how you frame the preparation, opening, and closing for meetings. Good guidance for just about any meeting. And I was left wanting to know more about the middle. That's where I get stuck. In your experience, what are some ways you've prepared for the unexpected? What do you have ready that helps you adapt when you prepared for a Shakespearian sonnet but after reading the room you need Homer's Iliad (picking extremes to illustrate.)
I can't thank you enough for this post! I am in the process of helping a colleague prepare for a meeting with a funder (a task that's relatively new to me), and I am going to follow your suggestions as closely as possible! Thank you!
An architect friend of mine has an undergraduate degree in literature. She jokes, "You'd think I'd be good a reading a room, but I'm not."
I love how you frame the preparation, opening, and closing for meetings. Good guidance for just about any meeting. And I was left wanting to know more about the middle. That's where I get stuck. In your experience, what are some ways you've prepared for the unexpected? What do you have ready that helps you adapt when you prepared for a Shakespearian sonnet but after reading the room you need Homer's Iliad (picking extremes to illustrate.)