Earlier this semester, Associate Director of the Center for Professional Development Quanisha Green, M.S.S. '15, and Director of Sponsored Research Sarah Robertson '97 teamed up to facilitate a three-day workshop, where Bryn Mawr graduate and undergraduate students learned about the nuts and bolts of grant writing.
As part of the workshop, Bryn Mawr alums, Sharon Bain, M.A. '99, Ph.D. '04; Wit L贸pez '15; and Susan Messina '86, M.S.S. '91, M.L.S.P. '92, returned to campus to share insights from their experiences and to offer advice about careers in grant writing.
As Bryn Mawr鈥檚 Director of Institutional Grants, Bain works with the College community to secure external funds to support curricular innovation, program development, renovation projects, scholarships, and emerging needs.
L贸pez, a freelance development consultant, has participated in and helped create grantmaking panels for numerous local organizations in and around Philadelphia.
Messina is the Vice President of Development at Blue Star Families, an organization serving active-duty military families. Before this role, she worked in the Washington, D.C. area for local and national nonprofits in health and human services, often in fundraising.
鈥淚 appreciated the alumnae/i talking about their experiences, which were very different from each other but showed the different routes grant writing can take you. They were also very eager to connect with and help attendees,鈥 says Leah Boris '26, a Literatures in English and creative writing double major who participated in the workshop. 鈥淎s someone experienced in writing and interested in nonprofit advocacy, I find grant writing appealing, and the workshop has inspired me to pursue further opportunities to develop my grant writing experience.鈥
In addition to the panel, the workshop included discussions on different types of grants, writing a proposal narrative, and budgets and financials. There were also hands-on sessions where students were able to use grant databases or practice with writing exercises. All participants received a certificate at the end of the three days for completing the intensive.