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Quit your toxic nonprofit job and replace your full-time income while writing grants part-time, from home! Join our students in the Freelance Grant Writer Academy to create Financial Stability and Flexibility through writing grants for causes you are passionate about: https://grantwritingandfunding.com/freelance-grant-writer-academy
World-renowned grant writing expert and Amazon bestselling author Holly Rustick provides coaching that helps new and experienced grant writers replace their full-time income while writing grants part-time from home (or anywhere they want to live or travel in the world).
She coaches changemakers to master grant writing and start to grow 6-figure+ grant writing businesses on part-time hours via her signature group program, “Freelance Grant Writer Academy."
As an unapologetic feminist, Holly’s work in coaching female grant writers to master grant writing, find their cause-area niche, and navigate value-based pricing and nonprofit sales is breaking glass ceilings for women all over the world.
Every week, she coaches thousands of people through the top-ranking podcast, Grant Writing & Funding, books on grant writing, and inside the Freelance Grant Writer Academy.
Holly has 20 years of experience in grant writing, and began her freelance grant writing journey back in 2005. While teaching in Kuwait and Indonesia, and then earning a Master’s Degree in International Political Economy in Belgium, Holly saw the light of setting up a virtual-based business in grant writing back in the mid-2000s. Having secured more than $45 million of dollars for nonprofit organizations, and then setting up a multi 6-figure freelance business, Holly has a mission to help female grant writers break out of toxic nonprofit J-O-B-S and create high-level income while freelance grant writing.
Inside the Freelance Grant Writer Academy, students have secured more than $225+ million in grant funding and $4+ million in revenue in their grant writing businesses within two years.
To amplify this work, she is past-president of the Guam Women’s Chamber of Commerce and was appointed to the Guam Business Advisory Task Force as an advisor to the first female governor of Guam. Holly lives on the island of Guam with her beautiful daughter, Isabella.
If you are interested in replacing your full-time income while writing grants part-time from home (or from anywhere in the world!) join the Freelance Grant Writer Academy!
Hello, hello, hello and welcome to the Grant Writing and Funding Podcast where we help passionate people create stable income with flexible schedules by getting ideal clients with the best grant writing and nonprofit sales strategies in the industry. My name is Holly Rustic, and I went from working fifty plus hours per week as a grant writer inside a nonprofit living paycheck to paycheck, to opening my own freelance grant writing business and only working part time hours earning more than I ever had before. Inside our programs, the Freelance Grant Writer Academy and the Grant Professional Mentorship, I have helped more than 100 changemakers get out of toxic nine to five jobs and replace their full time incomes while working part time as a grant writer from home and around the world, simply by learning how to write grants through our grants writing formula and implementing our unique approach to nonprofit sales. Join these aspiring and seasoned grant writers so you too can secure ideal nonprofit clients with cause areas that you fully believe in, get them massive funding, and be able to set your own schedule and revenue goals. Be sure to join our weekly email newsletter, The Freelance Grant Writer Hubhaven, where you get stress free nuggets on the financial stability components and skills of being a freelance grant writer.
Holly Rustick:Plus, you get updates about the freelance grant writer academy. Just go to grantwritingandfunding.com to subscribe. And now let's get ready for the most bold, empowering, and approachable coaching and conversations you've ever heard. Let's create a higher standard of stability, freedom, and legacy together. Hello.
Holly Rustick:Hello. Hello. It's Holly Rustic here with Grant Writing and Funding, and we have a wonderful episode for you today. Super excited. We're gonna be talking about why it's not hard to get nonprofit clients as a freelance grant writer.
Holly Rustick:And we're all gonna spill a little tea about why it's not hard to write a grant. So you are definitely gonna wanna stay tuned today so you can hear more about this. And to go into even deeper strategies because I'm spilling some major tea, definitely join my new webinar, which is completely free on Tuesday, April 30 at 4PM Eastern Standard. This is replace your full time income on flexible hours by writing high quality grants fast. So join if you are a new grant writer or even if you are a seasoned grant writer, and you can also join if you already have a freelance grant writing business, but it is a hot mess.
Holly Rustick:Right? You know, you're not sure if you have the right systems in place. It's kind of out of control, we want you there. But even if you're just thinking about opening a freelance grant writing business, maybe you're coming up to retire soon or you wanna quit that toxic nonprofit job job or maybe your spouse has a new job and you're having to move across the country or across the world and you need something that can be sustainable or if you're a new mom like there's so many reasons of why you might want to work from home or why you might need flexible hours and you want to increase or at least replace your revenue. So join us there by going to grantwritingandfunding.com/321 or grantwritingandfunding.com/freelance-webinar.
Holly Rustick:So we're going to be talking about how it's not hard to get nonprofit clients today. One more shout out before we get started. Thank you to GEMS, Grant Easy Management Software for sponsoring today's episode. If you never wanna miss a grant deadline again and you want to actually streamline some of your grant management, definitely go to grantratingandfunding.com/321 today because you'll be able to set up a free demo with GrantEasy management software with Rachel and her team so you can see how gems would help you, especially if you have more than one client or you're managing more than one grant. You're gonna be ready to get some software that can help you so you don't wake up in the middle of the night
Holly Rustick:going, oh my gosh. Did I
Holly Rustick:miss a deadline? We don't want that to happen. We now have software that helps you put all of your grant stuff in one area, helps you never miss a grant deadline again, and it'll just take this stress off your plate. So thank you gems for sponsoring today's episode and make sure you schedule a free demo and let her know that you came from Grant Writing and Funding Podcast so you can save $50 off your subscription. Alright.
Holly Rustick:Back to today's episode. So what are we talking about? It's not hard to get nonprofit clients as freelance grant writer. What, Holly? Are you serious?
Holly Rustick:I've been in business for a decade. We're actually celebrating our tenth year in 2024. Super excited. And I've been in the nonprofit space for more than twenty years now. So definitely been a grant writer, been in the nonprofit space.
Holly Rustick:I get the ins and outs like of nonprofit. And I also understand a lot about businesses because I am in a lot of different master minds and business groups with people with different industries than grant writing as well. And it's interesting because I know for a fact for the research that I've done and the hundreds of students that I work with that I understand that there's more than enough work. Very rapidly inside or even on the freelance grant writer academy or a mentorship, they're putting out notices of subcontracting people within the group because they get work so quickly. It's amazing.
Holly Rustick:Even people new to grant writing they start their businesses. It is amazing how much need there is for grant writers in the world. And just a little side note story is one of my good friends, she lives in Spain and she's Canadian but her husband is Spanish. And for her, she's like, I just want, like, a little bit of side income. My kid's, like, five now and going to kindergarten and all of that, so I have a little time.
Holly Rustick:So she was like, would grant writing be something for me? I'm like, yes. I have people living internationally that are in my program, and they love it. They love to be able to have these flexible hours and to have clients around the world and that sort of thing. But then she kinda threw at me sideways too.
Holly Rustick:She said, well, you know, I was also thinking about being a virtual assistant or maybe I could be, like, a social media manager. And she was kind of like throwing these other things at me and I was like, that's great. It's another skill to learn? Yes. Can it be learned?
Holly Rustick:Absolutely. But is there gonna be a lot of competition? Is the industry saturated? A bit. I say maybe not as much for virtual assistance because that whole industry is blowing up, but definitely social media managing and even virtual assistance is there's a lot of competition now because people just like her are realizing they can work anywhere in the world.
Holly Rustick:But what she's gonna have to deal with is other people's currency rates then, so undercharging and all that. And because of the undercharging, are those being a virtual assistant, being a social media manager, can you typically charge as much as being a freelance grant writer? No. So there's a lot of competition in there and the there's also, like, it's a it's a race to the bottom for a lot of those industries as well. So for me, I'm like, if you just learn the skills of grant writing, just like you'd have to learn the skills of doing either one of those, it would actually put you in a higher position where the industry isn't as saturated and you can earn a lot more money by working fewer hours.
Holly Rustick:So and this is something I can say almost with any industry that people kind of throw at me. I'm like, here's the thing. If you're looking for something new because you're like, okay. I need something. Like, I just wanna learn something easy to do that I can work from home and I can do.
Holly Rustick:That's amazing, and I love that for you. But here the here's the thing. Why not choose something that you know you're gonna be able to charge higher rates and you're gonna be more in demand for and have less competition. Right? Because any of these things you're gonna have to learn the skill.
Holly Rustick:You're gonna have to learn how to market the skill. You're gonna have to learn how to get clients. Any of these things you're gonna have to do, right? These different steps. So why not learn the thing that will be the best ROI for you?
Holly Rustick:And there are enough hard things to do in life. Doing work that is meaningful and paying your bills shouldn't be some of them, Right? So you wanna do work that's meaningful. You wanna do work that you can do anywhere on flexible hours, still have a good income, but you also might wanna find something that's not super saturated. Right?
Holly Rustick:So freelance grant writing is not saturated industry by any means. And in fact, it is easy to succeed as a freelance grant writer. So now you might be going, aren't you supposed to say simple, Holly, and not easy? Because nothing's easy. Right?
Holly Rustick:No. Being a freelance grant writer can be very easy to succeed. So let me just show you a share a couple of stories with you about some of my students in the academy so you can see how easy this is. Tiffany was able to quit her job early because of utilizing our master grant template and ethical nonprofit sales strategy. She was able to like, oh, now I have a system to write grants with the thirty day master grant template challenge And now I know also how to do converting sales that are ethical and feel good.
Holly Rustick:So because of that, within a few months, she was able to quit her full time job early. And Lauren, within three months she secured nearly $500,000 in grant funding, she doubled her clients, and has clarity on her services because of that thirty day master grant template challenge and the ethical nonprofit sales strategy because she's confident in the grant writing system and she's confident in sales. Like, those are two main things that I see a lot of people in any industry that they're doing. Right? If you're doing freelance writing just in general or if you're doing blogging or that social media managing or the virtual assistant or whatever it is that you wanna do, you know, to make money.
Holly Rustick:Right? The reason it feels hard is because you don't get confident in the skill and you don't get confident in sales. Those two reasons, that's it. That's it. So how you get confident in those two things, skill and sales, is to have processes around them.
Holly Rustick:And when you're confident in those two things, the market's not saturated, there's not a race to the bottom, that's when you can do very, very well. And that's why I know freelance grant writers, it's easy to get nonprofit clients when you have these two things. Skill sales. Right? Holly, how do I get good skills then?
Holly Rustick:Well, in anything and in freelance grant writing specifically, you need to know how to write grants. That's one of your major skills, how to do that. So whether you take an online course, whether you read a book, whether you listen to podcasts about grant writing, and we have a bunch in our beginning episodes too. And even last, a couple of weeks ago, we did our master grant template podcast episodes. You're definitely gonna wanna jump over to that one.
Holly Rustick:You need to learn the skill. And even in our academy, what we have found is that not only do we teach you this skill through our thirty day master grant template challenge and our on demand grant writing course, but then we have unlimited grant reviews so you can get feedback on your grant writing. That is huge. That's something I learned when I first opened my business. And even before I opened my business, I believe I started doing this was I started to be a grant reviewer.
Holly Rustick:So I started to be a grant reviewer in different federal agencies where I was familiar with those grants. And that helped me because now I'm reviewing grants to really look at it from the side of the grant reviewer. And what that helped me as a grant writer then, so when I put the hat of grant writer back on, was I knew exactly how and what the grant reviewers were looking for. I understood what the process of it is. It's usually seven to ten days, very intense, right?
Holly Rustick:They're tired, all of the things. I understood like, I need to make this as easy as possible and take out all the fluff. Right? If I want my grants to stand out, I need to understand how they're reviewed. And I would also submit I would go to different working groups where I would submit my grants for review so I could get feedback before I submitted them, like officially for the application.
Holly Rustick:Right? And that helped too because oftentimes as a freelance grant writer or just a grant writer in a nonprofit, you really do operate in a silo. Right? You operate in a place where you're kind of like, even if you're in a nonprofit, you're kinda like in your own little cubicle or your own little area. Nobody really understands what you're doing.
Holly Rustick:It seems very complicated, right, and they're on the outside because they just don't get it, they don't want to open their minds to it, they're like no, you do you, all of that. So to get anyone to even review your grants is usually very difficult, or it could be a board member that would be great to review your grants, but they're very busy, they don't get back to you on time, all of that. So you don't really get any opportunity to get feedback from an expert grant writer before you even submit your application. So all of that work that you do in preparing for a grant, you could just with one review, you could elevate your grant so much, but you just don't have access to that. Right?
Holly Rustick:So that is why inside the academy, we put unlimited grant reviews because we know the power of you now having a place to have your grant reviewed before you submit it for your nonprofit or before you submit it for your clients. Like, you're like, oh, maybe you're you're having some impostor syndrome and you're like, oh, on their board of directors, they actually have grant writers there, but they've hired me because they don't have time. But I know when they look at this grant, they're really gonna be looking at it through the lens of understanding how to write a grant and maybe I didn't do it right, maybe it's not good, like all of that. You might not even try to get a certain nonprofit as a client because you're too worried about that and have a lot of imposter syndrome with your skill. So that's why we put unlimited grant reviews inside our Freelance Grant Writer Academy.
Holly Rustick:Even if you want to submit a two page letter of inquiry, federal grant, a state grant, a foundation grant, or even if you want to go through our thirty day master grant template challenge and you want to submit your template for review, we review it all because once again, I understand the power of that and how that is going to increase your confidence and how it's going to make you a better grant writer, win more grants for your clients, your nonprofit, and then you're gonna start charging more. You're gonna be more confident. You're gonna be able to lift the industry up. So very important. I know skill is important to know.
Holly Rustick:But I also know that why it's not hard to get nonprofit clients is also when you are confident in your sales. And sales doesn't have to be hard. How you can make it so sales aren't hard, and you probably already like, oh my gosh, there's no way, Holly. Sales are so hard. I feel like so, like, nervous before I go on a call and all of that.
Holly Rustick:I understand. I understand how you feel. I used to feel the same way and that's why
Holly Rustick:I did a lot of
Holly Rustick:work and I put together a lot of different things so I could make it easy because I knew that was going to be I had the skills. I had the skills. I had that part y'all. What I didn't have was the confidence in sales before. So I was like, if I wanna make my freelance grant writing business sustainable and be able to get income, I need to be confident in sales.
Holly Rustick:So I'm gonna give you guys some pointers here on how we do this in the academy so you know. And part of doing sales is what you need to do is you need to understand what your services and pricing are. So important. A lot of you are just customizing every little thing that a nonprofit will come to you for. Can you do this?
Holly Rustick:Sure. Can you do that? Sure. And it's completely outside of your wheel house and you're just throwing it in because you're like, oh, somebody's asking for it, so there must be a market there. Well, maybe, but it doesn't mean that you need to do up all of that.
Holly Rustick:What your main market should be as a freelance grant writer is guess what? Write grants. Right? So understanding who you're going to serve, what your prices are, and what your services are, really important. But also as part of that going into a sales call is you wanna make sure that when you schedule out a sales call that you're actually calling it something that has sales in it.
Holly Rustick:Right? I've been talking about this a lot on Instagram and LinkedIn lately, but you're just calling it discovery call or consultation or something like that. It doesn't really sound like we're gonna it just sounds like, okay, we're gonna have a fifteen minute chat and maybe I could pick your brain for free. So we need to change and then you come to me and you say, Holly, no one's booking my services. They're saying it's too expensive.
Holly Rustick:They're saying it's this and that. You know, they just wanna pick my brain, they're not there's no conversions. And a lot of that is as simple as then calling it, what we like to call it is a discovery sales call. So there's at least the word sales in there somewhere so they know what they're getting into. And then you put policies around that.
Holly Rustick:Right? You gotta show up. And if you don't, if you're ten minutes late or five minutes late, however much you wanna make it, then the call is gonna be canceled. You won't be able to schedule again. Like, get clear on some boundaries.
Holly Rustick:This is your time. And then you can also just have it clear to say, if you need to reschedule, you need to do that at least within twenty four hours. So you can give them, yeah, some time to reschedule, but we wanna have some clear boundaries. We also don't want a super long sales call. Thirty minutes.
Holly Rustick:That's it. And yes, this can be completely free, but remember, this is a discovery sales call, thirty minutes, and you're just really getting to discover if 's going to be sales. Another thing we recommend is when people schedule out your sales call, your discovery sales call, you have your policies there, but then you also have some specific questions that you ask that are required, right, for them to fill out before they can even book the time. So, of course, we recommend using some kind of like Calendly or something like that where you can ask questions and it can go to an automated booking time. And this is really gonna help with your conversions too because you're not going and forth with email threads.
Holly Rustick:When can you get together? When can you get together? And your policies aren't there. They get lost in the threads. Like it's nice to have just a place where they can sign up and your calendar is there and it's linked to your zoom and all of that.
Holly Rustick:You can ask questions. We definitely give you all of the questions to ask inside the academy but some of those can include just simple things like is your nonprofit a five zero one(three)? What type of incorporation are you? When were you founded? Right?
Holly Rustick:What is your annual operating budget? Do you have a budget range to hire a freelance grant writer? Right? We wanna ask specific questions in there too. And what that does is it makes the nonprofit actually step up, put some time into the game.
Holly Rustick:Not a lot. We don't want them spend too much time, but we want to get some specific questions. So when you go to the call, you already have a lot of information and you'd be like, okay. I already know this nonprofit. They could have this package or this retainer that I I offer.
Holly Rustick:This is the one I'm going to pitch to them because it makes sense for where they are, etcetera. So it just makes the whole thing a lot more efficient, the whole sales call a lot more efficient. It also helps you be more confident and you get fewer people ghosting you, right? Because you're putting in these stronger policies, they have to take a few minutes of their time just to answer questions, so they're more invested as well. And of course, like I mentioned before, before you go to the sales call you figure out who your ideal nonprofit client is, what services you're going to offer, and what prices they are.
Holly Rustick:And by having all of this and by having this way of them to be able to book a discovery sales call, that you have policies in place and you already have questions in place, those sales calls are gonna be higher converting and you're gonna be more confident. So very easy. All you need to do, learn your skill once again and learn sales. It doesn't have to be hard. There are over 1,500,000 nonprofits in The United States alone.
Holly Rustick:The market is not saturated and it is a professional skill that you can charge at higher rates than a lot of other industry out there because there's not a race to the bottom. That nonprofit needs your service already. They already know they need grant writing. They're reaching out to you because they need grant writing. A lot of times you don't even have to do lead generation because people are coming to you.
Holly Rustick:Once they find out you're a grant writer, they want to have your services. So it's just understanding how to position yourself, once again getting confident in your skills and getting confident in your sales. And if you want to find out more, once again, go to grantwritingandfunding.com, join the upcoming webinar on April 30, and be sure to pay attention when the doors open to our freelance grant writer academy if you still want to increase your skills in grant writing and your sales strategy in grant writing even more so you can replace your full time income on flexible hours while working part time from home writing grants. So jump over to grantwriting and funding.com/freelance-webinar or grantwritingandfunding.com/320one. And if you love this podcast episode, please do me a favor and subscribe to our podcast.
Holly Rustick:And also leave a review. We love to read each and every one of our reviews and hear back from all of the listeners out there. Of course, we also wanna make sure that you join our hub haven weekly newsletter series as well, where we release a stress free grant writing nugget every single week. So make sure you sign up for that at gruntwritingandfunny.com. Alright, changemakers.
Holly Rustick:We'll see you soon. Keep on writing grants.