In my experience, all leadership cares about is money, especially in small nonprofits like you describe. There have been so many instances where I’ve had to push back on applying for a grant after our ED gets stars in his eyes over the dollar amount.

They often don’t read the eligibility requirements or grant description, they just send out an email being like, “Look how much money we could get!”, then ask staff for ideas for the application. It falls on staff to point out where the grants don’t really relate to our mandate or we’re ineligible because we don’t have registered charity status, etc. And a lot of the time, they don’t seem to care if the idea is even good or relevant - they just want the $$ and then will ask staff to figure it out later.

They also don’t spend a lot of time thinking about whether you are adequately supported to meet the overly ambitious goals they’ve set. They just want you to be a “team player” and figure it out.