“We hired Gretchen to help us fundraise for our national gathering of food policy councils, scheduled to be held in Kansas City in September of 2021. Gretchen is the consummate professional who takes her assignments seriously and works great on a team. She is an excellent writer, builds strong, trusting relationships with funders, and is highly organized. She raised more money from funders in the region than we could raise nationally. Without her support, we would have struggled to pull it off. I will add that we rescheduled twice due to COVID and then ended up holding it virtually. None of our funders pulled out after moving to a virtual event. I believe that is primarily due to their trust in Gretchen. Finally, you can imagine how important it is to have a sense of humor, especially with all the unknown factors at play. It was a great two years, and we wouldn’t hesitate to hire her again!”

“We have worked with Gretchen for evaluation, grant writing, reporting, strategic visioning, and general consulting. Gretchen is professional, detail oriented, timely, and organized. She asks great questions and provides structure and insights that make us better leaders and our organization stronger.”

“I am confident that our proposal is in good hands working with Gretchen. Not only is she incredibly knowledgeable but she is a joy to work with. Gretchen worked with us to make sure that we were putting together a strong proposal and handled constantly changing guidance incredibly well. When hiring a grant writer, Gretchen will always be my first call. ”

“Gretchen Kunkel does executive searches for the Moran Company. The Moran Company conducts national searches for nonprofit executive directors and fundraising staff. Gretchen is one of our strongest search consultants. She has 25 years nonprofit sector including 10 years as an executive director. She is smart and strategic. She is highly efficient. She’s able to see the “big picture” but also implement. Finally, Gretchen is collaborative and easy to work with. She fits well into our culture of service to nonprofits. I highly recommend her.”

“I have had the privilege of knowing Gretchen for nearly 20 years and the unique opportunity to work with her in three different capacities. My first opportunity was when I was a CEO of a large child and family services nonprofit in Kansas City and we contracted with Gretchen to lead us in strategic planning. Later in my retirement, we “teamed up” to provide consultation services to the nonprofit community. These services included strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, and transition planning. Finally, when Gretchen became the CEO of KC Healthy Kids, I served as a member of the Board of Directors.

In all of these interactions, I found Gretchen to be a tireless dedicated worker. She is very bright, talented, and has that special skill of “thinking outside of the box”. She is structured and strategic in her thinking and easily articulates her thoughts and ideas. She is very approachable and gifted in establishing positive lasting relationships.
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“Gretchen Kunkel has worked with After the Harvest, a nonprofit in Kansas City MO where I serve as a member of the Board of Directors, during two strategic planning initiatives in 2015 and 2018. As a new organization in 2014, we were fortunate to have her expertise and guidance to enable us to formulate and articulate our mission, vision, guiding principles and three year objectives and goals. Her process and follow through were efficient and timely. Her communication style is cordial yet professional and her facilitation was effective and thorough. The reports and documents she provided to wrap up the project were exactly what was expected and needed to guide our organization through its first several years.

Gretchen is extremely talented, easy to work with, and effective in her results. I would highly recommend her for strategic planning and other consultation.
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