Grant Management Associates — Funding Intelligence. Winning Strategy.

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KRISTIN COOPER Founder & CEO

Kristin Cooper

Founder and CEO

Kristin Cooper is a funding strategist and government affairs expert with over 30 years of experience helping organizations compete for and win federal, state, and foundation funding. She founded Grant Management Associates in 2009 with a clear mission: bring strategic intelligence to the grant funding process — not just good writing, but the analytical rigor to know which opportunities are worth pursuing and the methodology to win them.

Under Kristin's leadership, GMA has secured over $2.5 billion in funding for clients with a 90.2% win rate — one of the highest in the industry. She developed GMA's proprietary Key Considerations Analysis (KCA) methodology, which evaluates competitive positioning, organizational fit, and scoring criteria before a single word of a proposal is written. This "Go/No-Go" approach is why GMA's clients don't waste resources on lost causes — and why they win at an extraordinary rate when they do pursue.

Before founding GMA, Kristin served as a Full Professor at California State University, Chico's College of Engineering, where she directed grant-funded programs across five colleges. She was the founding director of CSU Chico's Environmental Resource Program and the Concrete Management Program. Kristin also served as a registered federal lobbyist, where she was instrumental in securing a $100 million line item in the Department of Energy budget.

Today, Kristin leads GMA's evolution into a funding intelligence platform — integrating AI-powered grant matching with decades of human strategic judgment. She oversees a team that spans defense, energy, infrastructure, agriculture, and workforce development — the sectors where federal dollars are flowing and where GMA's clients are winning.

By the Numbers

$2.5 Billion in funding secured for clients

90.2% win rate on grant applications since 2009

500+ client organizations served

30+ years of funding strategy experience

Pioneered the AI Grant Matching Engine for systematic opportunity identification

Kristin's Certifications

Professional Credentials

Certified Sustainable Development Practitioner

Association of Energy Engineers

Certified Professional Contracts Manager (CPCM)

Master Certificate in Concrete Fundamentals

Hanley Wood, World of Concrete

Green Building and Sustainable Design Certificate Program

UC Davis; Land Use and Natural Resources, and Business and Technology coordinated with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)

Sustainability Performance Metrics

Natural Logic, Short Course Certification on the selection and use sustainability performance metrics and incentives.

Special Certification in Environmental Justice (Train the Trainer), United States Environmental Protection Agency

Certified Professional Contracts Manager (CPCM)

Meet the GMA Team

Meet the experts behind Grant Management Associates. Our team combines grant funding expertise and strategic insight to help organizations identify opportunities, develop winning proposals, and secure the funding they need to succeed.

Danielle Sotelo

Chief of Staff

Danielle has sixteen years of grant experience and won over $300M in grants in a number of different areas, including infrastructure, transportation, housing, public safety, natural disaster funding, education, alternative fuels, and others. She manages GMA’s grant teams and draws from our 58 grant specialists, including fourteen Ph.D.s. Danielle is also a project manager on many of GMA’s most difficult grant applications. Ms. Sotelo holds a BA in International Studies with an emphasis in Political Science and a certificate in Dispute Resolution from Pepperdine University.

Sarthak Tandon

Executive Assistant to the CEO

Sarthak Tandon is a highly experienced operations and business support professional with experience in administrative coordination, client communication, workflow management, and executive support. At Grant Management Associates, Sarthak supports operational coordination and client-facing processes while contributing to efficient workflow management and team collaboration. He has worked

extensively in process-driven environments, supporting day-to-day operations through structured systems, proactive communication, and detail-oriented execution.

Brad Zerbe

Senior Funding Strategist

Brad Zerbe has over thirty years of experience in grant writing, fundraising, lending, and business consulting. He is the former political director for the nation’s largest PAC, and finance director for the chairman of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee. He is a former registered federal,

state, and state procurement lobbyist. He has worked for three of the nation’s five largest financial institutions in securities and

banking compliance.

Brad has graded grants in national competitions and served as Chairman and CEO of nonprofit organizations and won over $400 million in grants. In college, he competed in debate, finishing second in the nation, and won his school’s highest scholarship for leadership.

Sonia Vohnout

DOW National Security Expert

A nationally recognized expert in SBIR/STTR programs, commercialization strategy, and non-dilutive funding. With more than 30 years of experience and a strong technical background in systems engineering, she has helped clients secure tens of millions in funding from DOW, Navy, DARPA, NASA, NIH, and other federal agencies. Sonia has assisted more than fifty companies in bringing their technology innovations into the commercial marketplace.

Work with Kristin and the GMA Team

Ready to bring strategic intelligence to your next funding opportunity?

SCHEDULE A STRATEGY CALL

SEE OUR RESULTS

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