Proposal Writing and fundraising testimonials
"I had the great opportunity to work with Mara at Phoenix Art Museum where she served as the grant writer/administrator on my staff. Her expertise and level of professionalism was outstanding. Her writing was excellent and the result was an increase in funding of grant requests to the organization. She also managed the reporting of grants which is a very time consuming process and I always received compliments about her attention to detail from our funding partners. Excellent work by a great professional." - Ron Miller, Chief Development Officer, New York Restoration Project
"I was newly hired as a DOD at an arts organization when Mara came in to interview for the grant writer position we desperately needed. Mara is experienced, knowledgeable and extremely productive. She always leaned in with program staff to learn about current funding challenges and provided ideas for opportunities to grow. I've been impressed with Mara since day 1 and would HIGHLY recommend her services to anyone looking for assistance in grants management, writing and stewardship." - Darcy Hill, Senior Director of Development, Sonoran Institute
"I have worked with Mara both as a fellow employee and as a client. Mara is not only a wonderful writer but she excels at relationship building with funders. Mara understands the importance of presenting a fully thought out proposal and consistently takes the time and effort to discuss programs and projects with everyone involved in order to pull together the best proposal possible. " - Tammy Stewart, Chief Development Officer, Arizona Science Center
"I have known Mara Gerst for about ten years and worked directly with her on preparing grants for Phoenix Art Museum in my capacity as Curator of Asian Art. She is very skilled at keeping many people working together as a team and making sure all of the details are tailored to each potential grantor. I find it a pleasure to work with someone so competent and positive in her work ethic. " - Dr. Janet Baker, Curator of Asian Art, Phoenix Art Museum
"Mara is wonderful to work with and has outstanding expertise in all aspects of fundraising and grant writing. I’ve known her for more than a decade through our affiliation with the Grant Professionals Association. This year, I have had the great pleasure of working with Mara. She is a consummate professional, always willing to go the extra mile for her clients. Mara met numerous deadlines and worked with our organization to secure multiple five- and six-figure funding awards. Strategic and thoughtful, organized and helpful, Mara is the perfect consultant for our organization!" - Elizabeth Wilkinson, Senior Philanthropy Officer, Grand Canyon Conservancy
"I highly recommend Mara Gerst for your go to person when it comes to grant application opportunities. We attempted to complete our first grant for a major community project and received a very kind rejection letter. It was apparent at that point we really needed to have some help from an expert. Mara fit that bill! She is so knowledgeable about the kinds of information necessary when applying for grants. She knew exactly how to word the narratives, ensuring the information was sufficient, including the appropriate documentation and making sure the overall application was complete. Most impressive, however, was Mara's truly genuine interest in our project. She really believed that we should be awarded the specified grant monies due to the importance of our community project. And.. to our delight, we were awarded the grant monies, making for a wonderful holiday surprise! We are excited to continue our working relationship with Mara. - Beth Ferry. Board Treasurer, Kingman Main Street
"I want to highly recommend the services of Mara Gerst as a grant writing expert. I have worked with her as both a co-worker and contractor for hire, and she has written many successful grant proposals to help further the cause of the organization we worked for. Mara understands all aspects of writing a great proposal - she listens well, asks the right questions, gently prods you for the information she needs but in a timely way, and has a great writing style. Her proposals are easy to read, make sense, and are typically well received by granting authorities. She was consistently able to make her annual budget goals for foundation gifts and usually exceeded the annual goal by a large amount. She is friendly, professional, and a joy to work with. Please feel free to contact me directly regarding her vast talents, and thank you for reading my recommendation of an outstanding fundraising professional." - Scott McDaniel, CPA, Director of Finance and Administration, Scottsdale Arts
"The grant committee of Fountain Hills Theater had the pleasure of working with Mara Gerst a few years ago and we were delighted with her results. She took the time to listen to our story and crafted an amazing grant application that produced fabulous results for us over the past three years. Several judges of the panel evaluating our application commented how well the grant narratives were written. All I can saw is we should have contacted Mara long before we did! She turned things around for us and got us the results we so urgently needed. Her writing style and descriptions of our programs and services continue to service us with other applications as well. Thank you Mara Gerst! You truly are amazing! " - Pat Druckman, Board of Directors, Fountain Hills Theater
" When I moved to Arizona in 1995, Mara was my first grant writing intern. She was eager to learn and quickly develop acumen for researching grant funding and writing grant proposals. Mara was my star intern. Today, she is one of the most qualified grant writers, fundraisers, and thought leaders that I know in the grants industry. Mara is Arizona's hidden gem for nonprofit capacity building. - Dr. Bev Browning, CEO and Senior Consultant, Bev Browning, LLC
" I worked with Mara at the Phoenix Art Museum where she handled institutional giving. She is a great project manager, as well as writer, successfully growing support for the Museum for both general operating and restricted projects. In addition to being a knowledgeable and valuable colleague, she was a joy to work with on a personal level. " - Katie Patrykus, Nonprofit Fundraising Consultant
"Mara is a delight to work with. She's a skilled and effective grant writer, plus she is flexible and quite good at working with the different artistic personalities we have on our board. She's a favorite of ours to work with and I can highly recommend her services." - Barbara Moss, Development Director, Scottsdale Philharmonic
" Mara Gerst's genuine passion to help non-profits succeed is at the core of her practice. She combines professionalism, reliability, and a strong knowledge of grant-writing to ensure positive outcomes. Having "been in the trenches" with Mara on a number of grants that require superb writing skills, spreadsheet smarts, organization, accuracy, and the ability to balance many moving parts and people, I can whole-heartedly recommend Mara as the person you want on your team. " - Kaela Saenz Oriti, The Gerry Grout Education Director, Phoenix Art Museum
Prospect research, assessment, Transitional Staff, Start-UP
"The Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego California was looking for a grant writer. What we found in Mara was so much more. We immediately recognized her diverse talents and expertise and hired her as interim Development Director for three months in addition to her 6 months of grant writing. She was a calm, engaging , thoughtful, highly skilled presence in a tumultuous time and I am so grateful I found her. I would recommend her without hesitation." - Vivienne Esrig, Deputy Director, Museum of Photographic Arts
"Mara is fantastic! I am very grateful to Mara (and Kristin Latham) for working with us on a Grants Assessment project to help my organization evaluate our grants activities and areas of possible improvement. Mara is a great resource and was incredibly responsive and supportive throughout the project. I highly recommend her to any organization wanting to do a deeper dive into the results of their grants program. Thanks Mara!" - Dayna Gabler, Chief Development Officer, Arizona's Children Association
"I contracted with Mara to do grant research for IMPACT Phoenix so we could focus our time on viable opportunities. Mara prepared a very exhaustive spreadsheet of matches with organizations that fund like missions of IMPACT Phoenix. She followed up the formal report with a phone meeting to further explain her work. I was also able to seek counsel on questions generated from the report. Overall, Mara completed her engagement according to the engagement letter I signed. I look forward to having the necessary funds to contract with her to write more complex grants." - Jim Welter, Executive Director, IMPACT Phoenix
"Mara has been an asset to the start up of our nonprofit. She is knowledgeable, dependable and great to work with! She really moved us in the right direction." - Heather Wall, Cofounder of Ground Work