By Riley Kaminer
Teresa “Terry” Grandal cut her teeth deep in the Microsoft Word Doc mines, so to speak. She spent years helping a wide range of South Florida institutions – the City of Doral Police Department, Miami Dade College, and most recently the Levan Center – to unlock the financial firepower that is grant funding.
“Grants are a great resource when you’re starting out,” Grandal told Refresh Miami. “That’s especially true when you’re at an early stage, as you may not yet qualify for loans and you might not be ready – or want – to take on an investment round.”
She added that not all grants are huge in value. “They can range anywhere between $1,000 and $500,000,” she explained, urging early-stage companies not to shy away from this funding option. Grandal suggests that startups focus on smaller pockets of money at first, since the grant processes for bigger buckets of money can be significantly more competitive.
“Grant money is free money in the sense that you’re not giving away equity, but it’s not free money in the sense that there are strings attached,” noted Grandal. “There are expectations, you have to comply with their terms, and you often have to meet deliverable deadlines.”
One major hurdle Grandal sees novice grant winners face is data tracking. “A lot of us at the startup and early stage are not thinking about data: who we are serving, who is our target audience. Developing those kinds of personas is very important when it comes to grant funding because that’s going to show you impact. It shows you’re able to tell a story with the data. So it’s better to over collect.”
At the Levan Center, the innovation hub located within Nova Southeastern University where Grandal was Assistant Executive Director from inception until this past January, Grandal helped to source major grant funding, including a $742,787 grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration.
You might even call her a grant writing whisperer, with a success rate at 51% – impressive in comparison to the average of around 30%. “The key is to be very strategic,” she said. “Don’t just apply for every grant.” On April 3rd at 5:30pm, Grandal is hosting a live online training session about grant writing, hosted by Broward-based leadership organization United Latinas. Learn more here and join for $30.
Since leaving the Levan Center, Grandal has launched IMPACTIFY, a firm dedicated to helping startups and SMBs with their operational needs. On top of a grant writing offering, Grandal helps companies internationalize, especially through South Florida; organize events; find and implement the most intelligent tech solutions to enable growth; and develop their operational systems with Grandal as their fractional COO.
Our community is at the core of all these activities, according to Grandal. “The South Florida tech ecosystem is better now than it has ever been,” she said. “We’ve been building towards this for years, and we’re not quite where we could be yet. But it’s been great to see the growth already, as we’re still in the infancy stages.”
Grandal is hoping to play her part in this growth. “Those that know me know that my passion is in helping people: thinking about how we can get things done and make an impact.” From South Florida to the world.
READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:
- Levan Center adds volumetric capture studio to list of tech making this hub the ‘World’s First Theme Park for Entrepreneurs’
- Seaworthy Collective launches its fourth BlueTech cohort. Let’s meet them.
- Chilean-born EdTech expands to the US with Mati Barbero at the helm
- UK-born Connectd brings startup networking platform stateside, with Miami as hub
