NORTHPORT, NY Hours: By appointment — book a call
00 Grant & proposal writing — Northport, NY
Not the treasurer. She’s out on the harbor taking the June water samples.
Kelpwood Ledger researches, writes, and submits federal and foundation grant packages for small nonprofits and coastal conservation groups. One price per package. The budget narrative and the compliance review are already in it.
Northport Harbor, 6:10 a.m.
01 Packages
One price covers the research, the writing, the budget narrative, the compliance review, and the click on Submit. You get the number in writing before we read the funding notice a second time.
Federal · 25–60 pages
$5,350 per application
For federal notices from agencies like NOAA and EPA — the ones that want a logic model, a data management plan, and forms whose names are mostly numbers.
Foundation · 8–15 pages
$2,640 per application
For community and family foundations that read every page and remember who forgot the board list.
First contact · 2 pages
$1,180
Two pages that decide whether you get invited to write twenty. Includes a funder fit note and a one-table budget summary.
Draft my letter of inquiryNot sure which folder
Usually settles it. No charge. If the grant isn’t worth your board’s Tuesday nights, we’ll say so on the call.
(631) 988-1482 Book the 20-minute callRead-only · 72 hours
$685
You wrote it. We read it against the funding notice line by line — margins, page caps, attachment file names — and return a marked-up PDF within 72 hours.
Send us your draftBefore you apply
$415
Twelve funders whose recent giving includes shoreline, estuary, or watershed work on Long Island — each with a deadline, an ask range, and one sentence on fit.
Order a memoMonth eleven
$760
The interim or final report the program officer emails about in month eleven, written from your field logs and a shoebox of receipts.
Hand us the logs02 Lead time
Kelpwood Ledger started at 18 Conifer Ct after a Northport shoreline group lost a full foundation cycle over a missing board roster. One page. Twelve months of waiting. We have been writing checklists ever since.
45 days
The lead time we ask for on a federal package. A lapsed SAM.gov registration can take two weeks to sort out on its own, and we would rather find it on day 3 than day 44.
Groups with fewer than five paid staff — where the executive director is also the volunteer coordinator and the person with the boathouse key. Foundation proposals need 21 days. Letters of inquiry, 10.
Check the calendar with us03 The folder
Good projects lose on a page limit, a budget that disagrees with its own narrative, or a file named final_FINAL2.pdf. These three stop that.
03.1 Days 1 to 5
Before anyone writes a sentence, we read the entire funding notice — appendices included, including the one about font size — and send you a single page: eligible or not, match required or not, the page cap, and the three scoring criteria worth the most points.
03.2 Days 6 to 30
Every line of your budget gets a sentence saying why it costs what it costs. Reviewers score this section, and they notice when the narrative mentions four volunteers and the budget buys six pairs of boots.
Chest waders, $189 × 4. Volunteers do not share sizes. Sample line, budget narrative, page 3
03.3 Days 31 to 42
A separate pass, a full day after the last edit, with the funder’s own checklist open in the other window. Then we submit — no later than 72 hours before the portal closes, because portals have opinions on deadline day.
Read the full package list04 House rules
05 Questions
No, and be wary of anyone who does. We guarantee a complete, compliant submission, filed at least 72 hours early, that describes what your project will actually do.
Because you are budgeting too. The quoted price is the invoiced price — half at kickoff, half before submission. If a funder invites a second round, we quote that separately before starting it.
No. We don’t work on commission or contingency. It is discouraged across the grant profession, and most funders won’t let proposal-writing costs be charged to the award you are applying for.
With a UEI and an active SAM.gov registration. Both are free, and you should never pay anyone to get them. On the 20-minute call we check where you stand and tell you whether the deadline you are eyeing is realistic.
Your most recent 990 or audit, a current board list, a draft budget if one exists, and one person who answers email within two business days. Photos of the site help. A field log helps more.
Coastal and environmental work fills most of the desk. We also write for small nonprofits of other kinds, as long as the project has a real budget and someone who can answer a question on a Thursday.
06 The desk
A proposal is a receipt for work you haven’t done yet. Write it so the reviewer believes you’ll do it.
Calls are by appointment. Tell us the funder, the deadline, and the dollar amount, and we will tell you which folder it needs and what it costs.
Replies come from info@kelpwoodledger.com within two business days. If the deadline is under three weeks away, call (631) 988-1482 instead.
