The Rash

There are moments in this work when you stop being a consultant and become something closer to an advocate. This is a story about one of those moments — and what it cost to show up for a client when the stakes could not have been higher.

The nonprofit had been doing the work for years. Tucked into an inner-city neighborhood, small in staff but not in impact, they had built something real — the kind of organization that becomes part of the fabric of a community without anyone making much noise about it. For years, a quasi-governmental funder had recognized that. The relationship was solid. The grants came. The work continued.

Then one year, without warning, the answer was no.

Not a smaller award. Not a request for more information. A denial — full, final, and unexplained enough to be devastating. For an organization this size, operating in a community this underserved, losing this funding wasn’t a setback. It was potentially the end.

I had never suggested an appeal before. Not once in my career. Appeals are complicated — politically, relationally, professionally. You are essentially telling a funder they got it wrong, and funders have long memories. It is not a decision any grant professional takes lightly.

But I looked at this situation and I could not recommend anything else. The denial didn’t add up. The relationship had been strong. The work hadn’t changed. Something had gone sideways in the review process, and this organization deserved the chance to find out what.

So I said: I think we should appeal.

What I didn’t say out loud — what I carried into every conversation in the days that followed — was that some of my esteemed colleagues worked for that funder. People I respected. People whose opinions of me mattered. Walking into that room meant walking into a professional and personal quagmire, and I knew it.

The day of the meeting arrived.

I remember the room. I remember the tension the moment we sat down — the kind that doesn’t need words to announce itself. The funder’s attorney was present. That detail alone told you everything about how they had decided to frame what was happening.

It was adversarial in a way I had not anticipated and could not fully prepare for. Every question felt like a test. Every answer felt scrutinized. I was there to advocate, and I did — but I will tell you honestly that my body had its own response to what my mind was trying to manage with professionalism.

| I broke out in a stress rash.

I have no idea what my blood pressure was that day. I did not want to know.

The funder’s stated reasons for the denial centered on two things: questions about the organization’s board, and concerns about a recent change in the nonprofit’s leadership. Both were arguable. We argued them. Calmly, factually, and with documentation. But in that room, with that attorney, calm and factual felt like bringing a candle into a cold wind.

We made our case. We left.

And then we waited.

When word came, it took a moment to fully register.

| The denial had been overturned. The funding would continue.

I have thought about that day many times since. Not with pride, exactly — more with a kind of quiet gratitude that we did not let fear make the decision. The rash faded. The relationship with my colleagues, though tested, survived. The organization continued serving its community.

But what stays with me most is the question underneath the whole experience:

| When a client is facing a door that has been closed — possibly wrongly, possibly permanently — are you the person who looks for another way in?

Not every appeal succeeds. Not every closed door opens. But there are moments when the most important thing a grant professional can do is refuse to accept a verdict without examination — even when it costs something personally, professionally, physically.

The four friends in the Gospel of Mark didn’t find a polite way around the crowd blocking the door. They went through the roof. You can find that powerful story in Mark 2:1-12.

Sometimes that’s what advocacy actually looks like.

Pathways to Growth has been walking alongside nonprofits for over 20 years — through the wins, the losses, and everything in between. This series is drawn from those years: real situations, real stakes, real lessons.