Worked example: grant development
A grant analysis for the South Plains Wildlife Rehabilitation Center
In September 2026 I wrote a grant analysis for the South Plains Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, a licensed wildlife hospital in Lubbock that has cared for orphaned, injured, and displaced wildlife since 1988. Sarah Hollers, its Executive Director and my former student, asked me to assist, and I did the work free of charge as a thank-you for her efforts as President of the student chapter of The Wildlife Society at Texas Tech.

The letter
Sarah,
Here’s the grant search you asked for. Two things are attached.
The first is the full report. It’s long on purpose. It covers 86 funding routes. Every entry has the same fields: whether you’re eligible and why, what it funds and whether that includes buildings and enclosures, typical award, typical timing, how to apply, the link, and how confident I am in the facts. Every one was checked against the funder’s own site or filings, and each section ends with the names from your old spreadsheet that are closed, invitation-only, or don’t reach Lubbock, and why.
The second is a set of nine one-page briefs, one per grant type, with a short summary, the ranked opportunities, a strip showing when each one typically falls in the year, and links. Those are for your desk and your board; the report is for when you want the whole story on one.
Since you’re planning ahead rather than applying this season, I wrote it for planning rather than for a deadline. The calendar at the back is a typical year, not a countdown, drawn from each program’s recent cycles. Programs change, so when you pick your year, we’ll re-check every target against the funder’s site before any work starts.
The short version: nobody in government funds rehabilitation, federal or state, and the report says that plainly. The building money is private.
No rush on any of it. When you’ve read enough to know which direction you like, we’ll sit down and work out which year and which targets, and the logistics from there.
Blake

To learn about the Center or support its work, visit the South Plains Wildlife Rehabilitation Center’s website or its Donate page.
To discuss a project, write to me at grishamfieldandfeather@gmail.com.