About Spekola
There is no shortage of good projects in the world.
There is a shortage of proposals that make the case for them.
Spekola was founded to close that gap — bringing the technical rigor that donors require to the organizations doing work worth funding.
The Origin
I kept watching capable field teams lose funding for reasons that had nothing to do with the quality of their work.
The proposal lacked a logical framework and a budget narrative that matched what the funder required. The M&E plan was built after approval rather than before submission.
Not once did I see a project lose funding because the work itself was not worth doing.
I came to this work through medicine — having practiced in underserved and indigenous communities across Mexico and Central America before moving into project design, grant writing, and evaluation. That clinical background shaped the way I read a proposal: not as a document, but as a commitment that either holds up under scrutiny or does not — and increasingly, the same question applies to the systems and tools organizations adopt, long before anyone thinks to ask it.
My name is Raquel D’Garay-Juncal. I founded Spekola because that gap — between good work and funded work — was too consequential to leave unaddressed.
What Drives The Work
A proposal is not paperwork. It is the mechanism by which a commitment reaches a real person.
I know what it looks like when a project arrives fully resourced — and what it looks like when it does not. The gap between the two is rarely the mission. It is almost always the mechanism.
What drives this work is not the documents. It is the people behind them — the team in the field designing something they believe in, the community that was promised something worth having, the project coordinator who has submitted three proposals and cannot understand why none of them scored.
I care whether the project succeeds, not just whether the proposal passes review.
Spekola works directly with you at every stage. On select projects, we bring in trusted professionals with complementary expertise — so your project has what it needs, without layers it does not.
Let’s see if I can strengthen your next proposal.
The first conversation is 30 minutes and free.
Tell me about your project and your funder.
I will tell you what I see — and whether I am the right person to help.