How to Build a Winning Grants Culture in Higher Education

As featured in a conversation with Instrumentl, this article summarizes a full-length interview with Monica Coleman, Director of Foundation Relations and Grant Writing at Eureka College.

In higher education, building a “grants culture” is less about one blockbuster award and more about systems, alignment, and follow‑through. Monica Coleman stepped into Eureka College in 2021 with a blank slate—no active portfolio, scattered records, and a need to define what success could look like. Within her first two years, she raised over $7 million and established a durable pipeline to serve campus priorities.

Coleman’s approach is refreshingly practical: 

1. audit what exists, 
2. align people around clear goals, and 
3. Use data and tools to focus effort. 

Along the way, she demystifies success rates, shares how she educates colleagues and board members, and shows how she uses Instrumentl to streamline prospecting, tracking, and follow‑up.

Key insights below distill the principles she relies on to build a winning grants culture on your campus, especially when you’re the one-person grants shop.

Start with an audit and campus-wide alignment 

Coleman’s first move was a landscape scan—of history, systems, and people—to determine what could be salvaged and where to focus.

• Inventory what’s in place (CRM data, paper files, prior funders, processes)
• Clarify who sets institutional priorities
• Build relationships with faculty and staff most likely to partner on proposals

As she puts it: 

“You need to know where you've been, and not even you specifically, but your organization. Where have you been to know where you want to be?”

That audit quickly blends into outreach. Coleman literally walked the halls to meet collaborators and set expectations across campus. 

“I did a person tour when I started at Eureka.” 

From there, she established light governance—others can apply for grants, but proposals route through her office to avoid duplication, coordinate asks, and ensure tracking.

Collaboration is her north star: 

“One of the key things for all of this, by the way, is collaboration. It is the number one thing.” 

When resources are lean, that also means level-setting. She helps colleagues with smaller needs where possible, while prioritizing proposals aligned to institutional strategic goals.

Build a realistic, data-informed pipeline 

Coleman is candid about how long it takes to construct a reliable pipeline. Early on, her confidence was low: “When I started, the answer was one [grant].” But the process gets easier and more targeted each year with clear goals and a shared understanding of the odds.

Two practices stand out:

• Educate your campus on success rates. “Industry-wide, [grant success rates] were between 10 and 30%.” Framing this early helps leadership and departments grasp why a healthy pipeline requires volume and persistence, even when proposals are strong.
• Use SMART goals and simple logic models. Coleman sets annual targets for the number of applications, total ask amounts, and expected win rates, then calibrates based on results. That structure helps colleagues see how their requests fit into a bigger picture.

This mindset turns “spray and pray” into a strategy: right funders, right timing, right scope. As Coleman notes, 

“I built a multi-million dollar pipeline and you can too.” 

Tools like Instrumentl reinforce this discipline by consolidating your prospect list, deadlines, and collaboration into one place, so your energy goes where it counts most.

Use data and relationships to prioritize and let technology amplify you 

What separates efficient pipelines from busy ones is the quality of fit. Coleman leans on funder data and relationship pathways to decide where to focus.

On using 990 insights, she shared: 

“I like to see if they fund new grantees if we've never been funded before.” 

She also checks giving ranges, geography, and purpose areas, then looks for board or leadership connections that can open doors. For invite-only or closed programs, she asks campus leaders and trustees for warm introductions: 

“We need their help to get introduced to some of these foundations we might not have a relationship with.”

Coleman also manages time by dropping unresponsive funders after a couple of attempts and by standardizing stewardship—even when declined—to build goodwill for future cycles.

Where technology comes in: the right platform can multiply a lean team’s output. Coleman’s reaction to discovering Instrumentl is telling: 

“Oh my gosh, this is like grant prospecting except on steroids. It's amazing. There's the list of funders and the list of grants at the same time, and I can take better notes and track it better.” 

In practice, she uses Instrumentl to:

• Generate custom-matched opportunities across foundation, corporate, and government sources
• Evaluate fit via eligibility, funder profiles, and mapped giving trends
• Save and annotate prospects, assign tasks, and receive deadline reminders by email
• Centralize pipeline tracking and reduce duplicative data entry (with integrations available)

The result is a single source of truth for prospecting and coordination, especially powerful for higher ed teams wrangling multiple departments and timelines.

Key takeaways

• Audit before you act: Gather what exists (CRM entries, paper files, past funders) and meet priority partners across campus to align on the year’s top goals.
• Normalize the numbers: Educate colleagues and boards that “industrywide it was between 10 and 30%,” then set SMART targets for volume, ask amounts, and win rates.
• Prioritize fit with data: Use 990 insights to assess giving ranges, geography, purpose areas, and openness to new grantees; de‑prioritize poor fits quickly.
• Activate relationship pathways: Ask leadership and trustees for warm introductions to funders—especially invite-only programs—to shorten the path to “yes.”
• Centralize your pipeline: Use a single platform like Instrumentl to discover matched opportunities, capture notes, assign tasks, and track deadlines with automated reminders.

Final Thought

Building a grants culture is an ongoing practice, not a one-time project. Monica’s story shows that starting small, communicating often, and using the right tools can move the needle, no matter your institution’s size or starting point. If you’re ready to take that next step, even a little more clarity and alignment across your team can go a long way.