A food bank writes its first federal grant

This example is fictional — an invented organization in a situation the sector will recognize. The skills it names are real library skills; the people and the organization are not.

Who: A four-person rural food bank that has lived on local donations for 20 years. The director just found a USDA-supported RFP and has never written a grant.

Skills: Grant research to size up the opportunity, then Grant writing to write it.

Each example shows one or two skills at three depths: beginner (one deliverable, one sitting), intermediate (a repeatable rhythm), and advanced (a system that compounds). The steps stay plain and few — long enough to be complete, never a wall of twenty-five.

Beginner — one application, one sitting

Use the grant-writing skill as a drafting partner for a single letter of inquiry. You bring the program details; the skill brings the structure, funder language, and common failure modes to avoid.

1. Install the grant-writing skill and paste in the funder's guidelines or RFP summary.
2. Answer the skill's intake questions: need, program design, budget, outcomes.
3. Ask for a draft letter of inquiry, organized under the funder's stated priorities.
4. Edit for local detail and the director's own voice.
5. Have a knowledgeable staff member or board member review before submitting.

Intermediate — a reusable proposal library

Before the next application, build once, reuse forever: a single source of truth for the boilerplate every funder asks for.

1. Ask the skill to interview you and assemble an organizational profile: mission, history, programs, board, financials.
2. Generate the standard narratives funders ask for — statement of need, program descriptions, evaluation approach, sustainability.
3. Store the pieces where your agent can reach them: a folder, a doc, or your project files.
4. For each new opportunity, pull the matching pieces and tailor them to the funder.
5. Update the library whenever facts change, not whenever a deadline looms.

Advanced — a managed grants pipeline

Combine grant research and grant writing into one system: qualify funders before writing, and never miss a renewal.

1. Use the grant-research skill to score a list of funders for mission fit, capacity, and timing.
2. Build a grants calendar with deadlines, renewal dates, and report dates.
3. Run each qualified opportunity through the intermediate proposal library.
4. Log every decision — funded, declined, deferred — and why.
5. Review the pipeline quarterly: apply to the best three, retire the rest.