How We Won the Oregon Community Foundation Grant
In 2025, my client INCIGHT won a grant from the Oregon Community Foundation, securing the maximum funding amount of $40,000.
INCIGHT is a nonprofit that’s been around for 20 years helping people experiencing disabilities unlock their fullest potential.
I want to share the step-by-step process we used not just to highlight the preparation, collaboration, and care that made it possible.
Outreach
The process began the moment we saw OCF’s open call.
After reviewing their funding priorities and believing that INCIGHT was a strong fit, we reached out to the program officers to start a conversation.
Within a week of sending our outreach email, OCF replied, opening the door to the next stage.
Meeting with Coua.
At its core, this meeting was a marketing conversation.
The relationship mattered but both sides knew this was about more than introductions. There was money and opportunity on the table.
Before our meeting, I worked closely with Scott during our weekly check-ins to plan our approach.
We went over questions, points to highlight, and what we were hoping the funder to feel before, during, and after the conversation.
At the end of our meeting, Coua gave us three key insights on how to best prepare our grant application:
Show how the community shapes your decisions, leadership, programs, and include concrete stats.
Show how you have the capacity and knowledge to respond to specific community needs.
Be specific about geography and partnerships. Don’t lean on vague statements like “statewide” reach.
Writing the grant.
After the conversation with Coua, I transferred all the application questions into a Google document.
This created a stable, editable copy that did not rely on a grant portal that might glitch or time out.
We added the funder’s priorities at the top so the Scott, INCIGHT’s executive director, could stay oriented throughout the process.
Then we arrived at the heart of it.
Instead of filling out each question alone, we reviewed them together. I would read a question aloud and Scott would respond verbally.
Stories emerged naturally, without worrying about character counts or formatting.
This approach is designed for executive directors.
They speak freely, while I capture and shape their responses into a compelling story.
AI note-taking tools helped record Scott’s words accurately, keeping the application connected to INCIGHT’s work.
If a question stumped us, Scott would leave one or two sentences of guidance in the application and I would spend the week building from there.
“Submit and Forget”
Once the grant was submitted, we stopped talking about it.
No refreshing inboxes, no decoding silence, no extra nudges to program officers.
We logged it in INCIGHT’s grant tracker, noted the decision date, and closed the tab.
A few month went by and we heard back from OCF.
INCIGHT was awarded $40,000, the maximum award amount.
We had a lot of fun throughout the process, and it was deeply rewarding to know that this win would benefit INCIGHT’s mission.