Winning Proposals — Writing to Secure Funding
NRTG’s MicroCourses offer a dynamic training pathway that’s as flexible as it is enriching to build expertise. Our Winning Proposals MicroCourse, spanning four hours, delivers in-depth training in an easily digestible format. It’s designed to maximize your skills for immediate application.
Writing persuasive proposals is a key skill for people working in consulting, for students in academia, for non-profit organizations seeking funding, and for Indigenous agencies looking to do some work on their land. Winning Proposals is a MicroCourse dedicated to helping those responsible for responding to requests for proposals or grant applications achieve greater success in their efforts. Successful proposal writing requires understanding the value of persuasion, knowing what to include to be competitive, appreciating what not to include, and striking the correct tone to inspire confidence by the reader. In this course, the instructor(s) will share tactics and techniques they have learned over decades of writing proposals and grant applications, and strategies and considerations that will allow your writing to rise to the top of the candidate pile.
Some of the topics to be explored include:
- understanding what the RFP is asking for
- techniques for persuasive writing
- what a successful proposal looks like
- specific requirements of grant writing
The student will learn effective presentation of their scope of work to the reader, thereby providing confidence that they are the appropriate choice for the work or funding.
The proposal lies alongside your personal resume as among the most important documents you will write in the working world. With skills in this, and practice, you will be drawing in work for your company to do, accessing funding to further yourself in school, enabling the non-profit to do the important local works that they do, or creating opportunities for Indigenous peoples to pursue the work they need within their homeland.
Whatever line of work you are in, honing your ability to craft a persuasive proposal allows you to play a key role in developing important projects.
Course will be 4 hours long.
Instructor Profiles
Sean Mitchell, PhD, RP Bio
NRTG Program Manager and Writer
Sean has been writing or reviewing proposals since his first successful one in 1995. Since that time he has written grant applications for non-profit organizations, academic proposals for funding of graduate research work, and many proposals for ecological and environmental work. Sean has been a consultant since 1997 and the consultant’s world is driven by writing proposals to bring work in; thus, he has a breadth of knowledge, and decades of experience with this. Sean also teaches the NRTG technical writing course Technical Writing for Professionals, and has written a book on this very topic which is available on Amazon. It is this career of experience, and distillation of this to some basic guidelines, that Sean draws on to provide valuable and practical information on how you may improve your proposal writing skills.
Josie Vayro, PhD, RPBio
Josie Vayro is a behavioural ecologist and interdisciplinary consultant with over 20 years of international experience in environmental research and management. She holds a Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology and works across academic, industry, and Indigenous-led research settings. As a Human Environment Specialist at Bailey Environmental Consulting Inc., she leads and authors projects ranging from wildlife and habitat assessments to Traditional Land Use and Occupancy Studies and management plans. Josie brings project management experience across all stages of environmental work—from field program design and implementation to technical reporting and regulatory documentation. She specializes in integrating Indigenous knowledge, scientific data, and stakeholder perspectives to support conservation, sustainable resource management, and informed policy. She is committed to producing work that is scientifically rigorous, culturally respectful, and grounded in community and industry needs.