Over her 20+-year career in the nonprofit world, Maryn has been an on-staff program developer and grantwriter; a independent grants consultant (winning more than $42 million for her clients over 10 years); a grants project manager; a grants trainer; a grants reviewer, author, speaker, mentor and coach; and — for the past 10 years — even a grantmaker.
This done-it-all background gives her the unique 3-D "insider's" perspective she brings to the practical and inspiring trainings on healthy, successful grantsmanship that she has been blessed to share with thousands of nonprofits of every size, nationally and internationally as well.
GrantsMagic U, launched in fall 2015, is the "virtual academy" she created to make her extensive portfolio of grantsmanship trainings available (and affordable!) for anyone, anytime, anywhere.
GrantsMagic U is an Approved Continuing Education Provider for both the Grant Professionals Certification (GPC) and Certified Fund-Raising Executive (CFRE) credentials.
Since 2006 Maryn has also been “in the grantmaker’s chair,” managing up to $2 million annually in grantmaking for K-12 education in the Southwest.
She considers herself a dual citizen in the grants world, and may be the only person currently holding membership in both GPA (Grant Professionals Association, for grantseekers) and GEO (Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, for grantmakers).
Browse Articles by Maryn Boess
Creative Collaborations: Add Spice to Your Proposals By Thinking Outside the Partnership Box
So just how important is collaboration to successful grantseeking? It’s a question that comes up time and time again among grant practitioners, veteran and rookie alike. The answer I always share is one I heard a number of years ago at a presentation featuring several program officers from grantmaking organizations in both the private and…
Message To a New Would-Be Grantseeker
From: Janice Jones Date: Mar. 30, 2006 To: Maryn Boess Subject: About Grants Hello, Ms. Boess. My name is Janice Jones. I am assistant to the pastor of First Light Mission. We are a new faith-based organization that would like to start a senior center, youth center, and child care center in a targeted area…
Is This Funding Opportunity Right For Us? - An Agency Assessment Checklist
A wise young person I know once said: “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” Certainly truer words were never spoken in the context of grantseeking and grantsmanship: Just because you have the ability to seek grant funding from a specific foundation, corporation, or government funder doesn’t mean the opportunity is a good fit…
SMART? Targets: A Fill-in-the-Blanks Model for Crafting Unbeatable Outcome Measures
Like many grant professionals, I do a lot of teaching and coaching on grants-related topics, and in working with both grants rookies and seasoned veterans I’m always looking for tools and models to help make life simpler – to clarify issues, articulate vision, organize our thoughts, and manage the details of the proposal planning and…
The Five Whys: Digging Deep to Rediscover Your Passion
The poor fellow just wasn’t getting it. A volunteer with a rural fire department, he’d come to my two-day class, “The Grantsmanship Game: Playing to Win,” with a clear purpose in mind: To get funding for his fire department to complete a national accreditation process. Now, I was using him as an example in a…
Lifecycle-Stage Funding: What Is It? What Does It Mean? And Why Should Grantmakers Pay Attention?
Let's take a quick peek at this morning's business news, shall we? Here's a feature about a small-business entrepreneur who "bootstrapped" her startup with personal credit and loans from family and friends. Look - a young, fast-growing technology firm seeking to fuel expansion into new product lines just attracted millions in venture-capital funding. A first-time…