Confessions of a Grant Writer 

The nitty-gritty of finding, writing, and managing grants. Join us on Thursday, January 18th for our first educational luncheon of the year. And we're starting off with a hot one!

Our Panel:

Stacy Fitzsimmons, MBA of SNF Writing Solutions

Stacy Fitzsimmons is a creative and analytical self-starter. She is a respected leader able to build highly successful programs and teams focused on organizational mission and goals, performance metrics, and customer satisfaction. Ms.Fitzsimmons is an established project management and grant- writing professional with expertise in federal and stateproposal writing.

Ms. Fitzsimmons formerly served as the Director of the Office of Grants Management for the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) with the directive to bring more funding to the State for Public Health initiatives. She managed a portfolio of over $200 million in awards while streamlining and centralizing the grant submission and management processes, policies, and procedures into a central grant management office. She also served as the agency authorizing official and Federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular reference aiding programs with complex compliance requirements.

Stacy Fitzsimmons holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Indiana Wesleyan University where her thesis focused on strategic planning and culture change and a BA in Communication from DePauw University. She subscribes to the Grant Professional Association (GPA) code of ethics and servesas the Chair for the GPA National Strategic Planning Committee.

Amy Lazoff, Director of Development at Fort Wayne Children's Zoo

With over a dozen years of fundraising experience, Amy has served as both a fundraising generalist and specialist for political campaigns and nonprofit organizations.

She has experience in the areas of annual campaigns, employee giving, corporate giving,foundation relations, stewardship, major gifts, and capital campaigns as well as how to build andmanage a development department.  Between her professional positions and consulting work, she has helped to raise and steward more than $35 million dollars in gifts. 

Her experience in the grants world is extensive, spreading through both foundation and federal grants development and management, helping to build a grants office for a multi-hospital health system.  She has conducted workshops and presentations on event management, corporate sponsorships, building a logic model, and building a grants office, including presenting at GPA's International Grants Conference.  She is or has been a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, the Grant Professionals Association, the Association of Donor Relations Professionals, the National Grants Management Association.

Currently she serves as the Director of Development at the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo, and is also honored to serve as the President of the Northeast Indiana Chapter of AFP for 2018.

Candace Schuler, Freelance Writer

Candace Schuler is a freelance writer with multiple personalities. In her 30+ year career, she has written software user guides, various types of instruction manuals, marketing collateral, casestatements, case studies, business profiles, white papers, website and newsletter content, acookbook, 26 romance novels, and, hundreds of grant proposals – which have resulted in over $100 million in funding for her clients.

Candace holds a Certificate of Fund Raising Management from The Fundraising School at Indiana University’s Center on Philanthropy.

She is a past president of the Northeast Indiana Chapter of the Association of FundraisingProfessionals and served as the chair of the 2008, 2009, and 2010 National Philanthropy Day®committees. She is a member of the Grant Professionals Association, Novelists, Inc., and the Fort Wayne Rotary Club, where she served as president in 2016. She has been a featured speaker at the Fort Wayne Rotary Club, IPFW, and many regional writers’ conferences, including the Grant Professionals Association annual conference.

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