This reflection is inspired by Professor Ant\u00f3nio Palmeira's insightful publication, which introduces the metaphor of a perpetual "season" of applications and the figures of the Sprinter, the Planner, and the Guardian to describe how research leaders navigate virtually continuous funding cycles. His framework, rooted in the reality of European research ecosystems, speaks directly to the experience of non-profit organizations and civil society actors, who also operate under constant funding pressure, managing multiple deadlines and competing priorities. Instead of treating project writing as a technical and episodic exercise, his typology invites us to reflect on how response patterns to this perpetual season shape not only institutional performance but also the well-being and sustainability of the teams involved (Mashamba-Thompson, 2025).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Sprinter model, as articulated in Professor Palmeira's publication, mirrors organizations that attempt to respond in real time to all suitable calls for proposals, guided by the logic that increasing the volume of applications can compensate for reduced success rates in highly competitive contexts (Palmeira, 2026). However, evidence from both research and practice in the third sector shows that this reactive intensity can exacerbate workload stress, divert attention from strategic priorities, and reinforce short-termism in program design (Kazanskaia, 2025; Mashamba-Thompson, 2025). In contrast, the Planner model aligns proposal development with the funding lifecycle, seeking to avoid funding "holes" by anticipating renewals and transition phases; this approach is consistent with studies demonstrating that delays or interruptions in funding create significant shocks to expenditure, teams, and project continuity when renewal is uncertain (Azoulay, 2023). The Guardian, finally, introduces a deliberate limit on the number of applications, recognizing human limitations and the need to protect teams from burnout often associated with excessively funder-driven agendas (Mashamba-Thompson, 2025).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While these three options describe how organizations handle the flow of opportunities, they say less about how project writing can be leveraged as a strategic tool for capacity building and long-term impact. Recent work argues that project writing is more than a technical task; it is a strategic competency that can strengthen organizational sustainability, credibility, and alignment between mission and funder priorities when integrated into a broader institutional development agenda (Kazanskaia, 2025). In the field of nonprofit organizations, application writing has been framed as a critical pathway to securing sustainable resources and cultivating long-term funder relationships, especially when proposals explicitly incorporate post-funding continuity planning and organizational learning (Neya Global Editorial Board, 2025). Complementary recommendations underscore that the sustainability of project-funded programs depends on intentional "post-project" planning, including diversification of revenue sources, partnerships, and a clear strategy for scaling or institutionalizing successful initiatives (Grant Professionals Association, 2023; Grant Writing Academy, 2023). Together, these perspectives support the idea that the real strategic question is not just how many projects we submit, but how each project contributes to a cumulative trajectory of capacity, resilience, and legacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anchored in the conceptual framework launched by Professor Palmeira, an \u201cOption D\u201d can thus be understood as a shift in focus: from managing a perpetual era to designing a financing architecture oriented towards scale-up and legacy. Instead of pursuing every opportunity or merely protecting the workload, organizations adopting Option D would systematically map financing ecosystems based on a long-term theory of change, identifying which lines allow them to consolidate core capabilities, expand impact, and build lasting infrastructure over time (Kazanskaia, 2025; Neya Global Editorial Board, 2025). This requires selectivity\u2014prioritizing programs that include capacity-building components, multi-year horizons, or explicit sustainability expectations\u2014and internal readiness, in the form of governance, data systems, and monitoring and evaluation frameworks capable of supporting larger and more complex initiatives without overburdening teams (Grant Writing Academy, 2023; Grant Professionals Association, 2023). In this sense, project writing becomes an instrument of organizational design: each proposal is conceived as a building block in a long-term scale-up trajectory, and not as a one-off survival response to a context of scarcity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Responding explicitly to the question posed by Professor Ant\u00f3nio Palmeira \u2014 \u201cWhat is your strategy, or do you have a different 'Option D'?\u201d \u2014 I propose that, for civil society organizations, social entrepreneurs, and research centers, Option D could be formulated as follows: Option D \u2013 Develop a strategic approach to funding opportunities in a scale-up process, ensuring the legacy and continuity of programs. This means using projects to strengthen institutional capacity and long-term impact, and not just to fill immediate budget gaps, ensuring that each funded cycle leaves the organization better prepared \u2014 structurally, relationally, and financially \u2014 for the next stage of its mission (Kazanskaia, 2025; Grant Writing Academy, 2023). In a context where the application \u201cseason\u201d may never truly close, this strategic and legacy-oriented Option D is the path that simultaneously makes sense intellectually and pragmatically, and which, for me, works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Azoulay, P. (2023). Science, interrupted: Funding delays reduce research activity. PLOS ONE, 18(4), e0284539. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0284539<\/a><\/a>\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n Grant Professionals Association. (2023). The top strategies for achieving sustainability in grant-funded programs. Grant Writing Academy. Retrieved from https:\/\/grantwritingacad.org\/the-top-strategies-for-achieving-sustainability-in-grant-funded-programs\/<\/a><\/a>\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kazanskaia, A. N. (2025). Grant writing as a strategic tool for non-profit capacity building. NEYA Global Journal of Non-Profit Studies. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.64357\/neya-gjnps-gr\u2014wr\u2014ms-01<\/a><\/a>\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mashamba\u2011Thompson, TP (2025, January 22). Pitfalls of funder-driven research careers: How to build a sustainable career path. LinkedIn. Retrieved from https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/<\/a><\/a>\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neya Global Editorial Board. (2025). Grant writing for non-profits: Strategies for securing sustainable funding. NEYA Global Journal of Non-Profit Studies. Retrieved from https:\/\/neyaglobal.com\/journal-nonprofit\/grant-writing-for-non-profits-strategies-for-securing-sustainable-funding\/<\/a><\/a>\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n Palmeira, A. (2026, February 8). Navigating the \u201cPerpetual\u201d Grant Season. LinkedIn. Retrieved from https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/posts\/antoniopalmeira_researchmanagement-grantwriting-sciencestrategy-activity-7426663677803716608-M40u<\/a><\/a>\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n fundsforNGOs. (2025, January 19). How to write grants that support nonprofit capacity building. Retrieved from https:\/\/us.fundsforngos.org\/articles\/how-to-write-grants-that-support-nonprofit-capacity-building\/<\/a><\/a>\u200b<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Esta reflex\u00e3o \u00e9 inspirada na publica\u00e7\u00e3o perspicaz do Professor Ant\u00f3nio Palmeira, que introduz a met\u00e1fora de uma \u201c\u00e9poca\u201d de candidaturas permanente e as figuras do Sprinter, do Planner e do Guardian para descrever como l\u00edderes de investiga\u00e7\u00e3o navegam ciclos de financiamento praticamente cont\u00ednuos. O seu enquadramento, enraizado na realidade dos ecossistemas de investiga\u00e7\u00e3o europeus, fala […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15583,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-noticias"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wecare.center\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Strategic-Grant-Writing-in-a-Perpetual-Funding-Season.jpg?fit=1600%2C896&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wecare.center\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wecare.center\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wecare.center\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wecare.center\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wecare.center\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15581"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wecare.center\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15584,"href":"https:\/\/wecare.center\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15581\/revisions\/15584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wecare.center\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wecare.center\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wecare.center\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wecare.center\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}