Welcome to the grant writing and funding podcast, the world's top ranked podcast since 2017 on grant writing and, you guessed it, funding. I'm your host, Holly Rustic. And here at GWF, we have a movement for grant writers to secure $1,000,000,000 in grants for amazing causes in the world and 25 to $30,000,000 in their grant writing businesses. We are well on our way there with hundreds of millions of dollars of grants already secured and millions of dollars secured in client contracts through our two signature programs, the freelance grant writer academy and the grant professional mentorship, where hundreds of students at any given time are working on replacing their full time income on flexible hours, writing grants from home for causes and missions they are passionate about. To learn more about our movement, be sure to check out our newsletter, write grants, get paid, and go to grantwritingandfunding.com to check out our free grant class and resources.

Now let's get into our podcast episode so you can learn how to win grants and advance impact in the world. Hello. Hello. Hello. It's Holly Rustic with Grant Writing and Funding.

I'm really excited to bring this episode to you today because we're talking about our movement, and this is our first sub series called funded. I'm really excited because every month we're gonna bring you a new episode to talk about what's working and what's actually being funded. And what we've done is we have hundreds of people inside our programs. So we have really good data on what funders are actually awarding grants, what grant writers are doing to secure grants and how much freelance grant writers are making in their businesses, what they're doing to pivot or change or just maintain to create income in their businesses. And this also reflects on what nonprofits are buying.

So whether or not you are a nonprofit or you are a freelance grant writer or a grant writer inside a nonprofit, we're talking about what you're buying, what you're selling, all of the things, and who is funding what. So this is our first subepisode. Once again, it's a series called funded. And I'm really excited because we're talking about what's going on in the world today. So you're gonna be getting real data, and we are pulling a couple of months back just because of how we report and how we have to batch our content in advance.

So what we're talking about today is we're gonna be looking at actually the last couple of years because this is our first episode on this, but we're also gonna focus on October 2025 even though this is coming out in December just because of the way we gather data. So buckle up. This is gonna be fun. Alright. So I also talked about our movement.

Right? And I talked about our movement to say, what is it? So let's just talk about 2025 for a minute because this is when we came up with our specific movement on our vision on where we're going and actually our mission on what we're accomplishing today. So 2025 has been real for grant writers and for non nonprofits. With everything that has happened in the world, there's definitely a lot going on to do with the economy, politics, and so much that do reflect on grants.

Right? Now we try to say, oh, we don't like to be political, but we do have to pay attention to the economy, and we do have to pay attention to politics to understand really what's going on with grants and how that affects nonprofits. So while there has been so much going on in the world in 2025, what have we done at grant writing funding, specifically in the freelance grant writer academy and in the grant professional mentorship? Well, in the academy, we have brought on new funding assets. We've also done a lot of mindset focus.

We've added in weekly freedom to fail marketing, and our fail stands for forward action is liberating. So it's like just try something new and get out of your comfort zone every single week. But different things to get clients. And we've also added a new co coach in our programs. We have created more touch points in our system so we could have more human interactions with our students.

We've done live training, creating a master grant application. We've done other live trainings. We've done our discovery sales call lab. We've integrated funding assets, as I mentioned, such as corporate solicitation and other type of ways to actually bring services other than grants to your clients to serve them during these times. In the grant professional mentorship, we've actually added innovation calls, so monthly innovation calls that talk about new things that are going on, in the nonprofit world, in the freelance grant writing world, in the marketing world that impact your business.

We've also added done for you services where we create job applications, test projects, a hiring budget, and training with subject lines and review your webinars and all of the things, like it's amazing. We've also built out other training such as how to build out training and on demand courses inside the grant professional mentorship for your business. And what we've seen is some people, they've been relying on federal grants, writing federal grants. They're now able to offer trainings or grant strategy and these other assets to nonprofits and sell those and help nonprofits during these times. Now we have also created new frameworks inside our programs, such as the minimum valuable product framework, and that's really understanding and leaning into should you include in your services that will get nonprofits results and really taking away the fluff and getting to the heart and the meat of the minimum things that you can add for value to keep your prices very fair, but also keep your time in check and keep boundaries.

What's really going to move the needle forward for nonprofits during these times include only those in your services. I've also created the impact method, which is a way to actually market using our, we have our change statement, our elevated change statement that is so good. So it helps you to develop a service offer and pricing, and what to include in that, and then also how to market with our impact method. And we've also been very results focused with our thought leadership. So, so good.

In grant writing and funding outside of our main programs, I also reopened my grant writing agency this this year because local nonprofits have been coming to me for support. I've been writing grants for more than twenty years. I had an agency for many years. I had to go dormant in 2020 since I was doing so much more training and pivoting to online. And in 2025, when a lot of people are actually shutting their agencies down, I reopened my agency.

So that's just to show you the perspective that we've had in 2025. Right? So why have we created all of these new assets, all of this new training, an agency reopening? It's because I've been a grant writer for more than twenty years. It's because I've been through multiple administrations.

It's because I've been through a recession before. I've also in 2008, right, in 2008. I've been through the inflation of 2023. I've been through a flipping pandemic with my business. I didn't create a agency.

You can see I actually made my agency go dormant in 2020 where a lot of you were opening up your freelance grant writing businesses during that time. So we've been through a lot, a lot, right, as a business. The thing is, is I've seen things go up and down. I've seen that there's always opportunity in any, any time, especially with grants because money is money is money, it shifts hands and that's all it is. So leaning into 2025 when we've seen a lot of money shift out of the hands of grants, what I really leaned into is creating a flipping movement.

Alright? So not only do we reopen an agency, agency, not only do we create new frameworks, not only do we add services, training, and so much more, we created a movement. And our movement is the Grants for Good for $1,000,000,000 So we're going to be reaching a billion dollars, 1,000,000,000 with a B, in grant funding for our students by 2030. And another part of that movement is to also have our students in our academy and mentorship collectively secure $30,000,000 in their grant writing businesses by 2030. So collectively have them secure $1,000,000,000 in grants by 2,030 for their clients and collectively secure $30,000,000 in their grant writing businesses by 2030.

Now, am I just throwing out random numbers or like big audacious numbers? No, I am not. This is based on data. Alright. So in order to really understand where we want to get to realistically and using data, I had to look at the last couple of years actually it's only been, we're going up to October 2025, so it's about twenty two months.

So just shy under two years. So we had to look and say, well, how much money have our students collectively secured in making money in their businesses? And in order to get our goal, we had to look at the data of what we've secured. So what we've looked at and secured, and you might have heard this a little bit, I was doing some new numbers. I'm really going through the data here.

And this is just what our students have reported as well. Like, we know that they've actually secured more monies, but all the things, like but we do work really hard to get students reporting so we can go ahead and add this to the movement. Alright. So since January 2024 until October so from January 2024 to October 2025, our clients have secured $262,410,207 in So grants grants I know if we've done this in twenty months and now I still have five years, a billion dollars is actually an under goal. We will definitely hit that.

Ten of these months have been in 2025 where actually grants were down a bit, right, especially compared to 2024. So this is an under goal to hit a billion. I know we're gonna hit a billion. I actually know we're gonna hit more than that, but that is our goal right now so we can easily hit a billion dollars. We've already gotten more than a quarter of the way there with over $262,000,000.

So over 25% of the way to a billion, and we still have five years. We've we've done this in less than two. All right, so let's talk about money made. Our goal by 2030 for our students to make in their businesses is 30,000,000. They have collectively secured 7,619,004 and $19.

So over $7,600,000 is how much our students have collectively made in their grant writing businesses. So we know we can definitely get to 30,000,000 if we add another five years. Amazing, amazing. Once again, these are under goals. We will definitely supersede these.

This is with a few 100 people in our programs, right? A lot of these people, what's really amazing about the staggering just amount of grants that they secured and clients that they've secured is I would say at least 50% of our students are new to grant writing, and they're new to business. I would say actually more than that are new to business. So this is amazing because they've been able to do this. And if you're a grant writer, you know that if you're new to grant writing, oftentimes you're working with newer nonprofits that may only secure like $500 in their first grant, dollars 1,000, 5,000.

It takes time to build up a portfolio. Right? So this is amazing. And even when you're first selling your services, you might not be selling them for, like, $5,000 a month. Right?

You're gonna start at at lower levels to build your confidence, build your own portfolio, etcetera. So I'm so flipping proud of this. I'm so flipping proud of our students. And the reason that they're able to get here is many things. It's over many things.

Right? So that's what we've made. Now let's talk about what I wanna do. And so this is gonna be the longest episode that we have for this kind of series that we call unfunded, but every month I'm gonna be reporting on basically one of the months to show you what's working, what who's funding what, all of the things. So let's talk about October.

As I mentioned, we're a little bit ahead here. We go back a couple of months just because of the way that we gather data. And what I can tell you right now is that in October 2025, just for one month, I can tell you what people have secured. So in the grants that they won in our program, so the few 100 people, few 100 grant writers in my programs have won $9,442,636.39 All right, almost $9,500,000 in grant awards in one month. Amazing, amazing, especially in 2025.

The money they made in their business, 411,637. So almost a half million, almost a half million, right? $411,637 So that is amazing that they've made almost a half million dollars in one month collectively and almost 9 and a half million dollars collectively in October 2025. So are nonprofits still winning grants in 2025, in October 2025? Absolutely.

Absolutely. Are freelance grant writers still making money in their business in October 2025? Yeah, almost a half million dollars our students have made, they reported, right, collectively once again. But that is absolutely amazing. It's amazing, right?

So we are really shifting the money. We're focused on getting money for nonprofits, on getting money for people who have grant writing businesses. Why? Because. Because, you all, nonprofits, organizations that get grants, they do amazing things in the world.

And freelance grant writers that are out there, a majority, 82% of you, are female. I wanna get more money and more profit in the hands of female entrepreneurs, and I wanna get more money in nonprofit's pockets so they can fund amazing things in the world. And there's like a billion for good movement, you know, because a lot of times we hear the word billionaire and it's kind of this negative comment connotation or, you know, more money or wanting money or loving the love of money is sinful, like, all of that. For us, we talk about money day and night because we're grant writers. I am very neutral about money, but I know that when money can shift to actually doing good in the world and making that money stretch in the pockets of women entrepreneurs, I know that good things are gonna happen.

I know that's better for the community. It's proven when women do better, everybody does better. And thank you to Grant EZ Management Software for sponsoring today's podcast episode. We love GEMS, Grant EZ Management Software, because GEMS is a software tool that organizes all of your grants. It also gives you an opportunity to invite your nonprofit clients into the software and you can put every single grant you've submitted.

You can also put every single note with funding sources that you've connected to. At a click of a button, you can see everything that's pending, everything that's been secured, everything that's been denied, and your clients can see that as well. We love that GEMS actually says, hey, bring GEMS into your meeting with your nonprofit clients so you can show them exactly where you're at with all of the grant writing strategy as you are working with them. And there's even a time tracker inside of so you can track your time with all of your clients. Never miss a deadline again.

Never miss a document again. Go ahead and join GEMS, grant easy management software. Sign up for a free demo today, and you can also get a $50 off coupon code when you mention g w f, Holly, h o l l y. Go to grantwritingandfunding.com/gems,gems. Okay, so let's talk about October then.

Let's look at some of the grants. Okay, we've recently started collecting this information. We've been asking what type of grant are you getting awarded, where are you getting awarded it from, And also what is helping you get these grants awarded? And we've also just in the last few months have been asking the questions too of, hey, what type of client are you getting as far as like, what are you selling? Are you selling a retainer?

Packages, etcetera? How much money are you selling it for? What are you actually selling? And we're asking how are you actually selling it? How are you winning these these client contracts, etcetera?

I'm gonna share some of that information with you today because I think that's so important for you to know like well who's actually funding what and now that we're collecting it we'll have more month over month as far as like just getting into the nitty gritty of what you know where are people getting grants, etcetera. So let's talk about some of the grant wins, that we have been seeing and this is also because, like I said, a lot of our clients are a lot of our students, about half of them are startups, so they are gonna be writing more. What do you think? Do you think they're gonna be writing more foundation, state, or federal grants? Foundation.

Right? They're gonna be writing more foundation grants. So we do have an overwhelming, amount of foundation grants, but we also have state grants. We also have federal grants that they've been winning. Yes.

The federal government is still awarding grants. Right? And this is even on the heels of a government shutdown. So this is how amazing it is that they've been able to secure this much much money, especially in October 2025 on the heels of a government or during a government shutdown. That was actually during a government shutdown.

So amazing. Can I just say amazing? Okay. So where are people our students getting money from? Well, we have the students getting money from let's go ahead and name off some of these so you can kinda see.

We have foundation grants, and I'm do I'm not gonna name them all off. We would be here all day, but I'm just gonna give you some names, and I'm gonna give you some bigger names that you may see often, like if you're in Instrumentl and doing your grant prospecting or on Foundation Directory Online or in Candid, all of the places. And you might be like, okay. Does that place ever fund? And I'm gonna say, yeah.

It probably does. I'm gonna name them because one of our students have gotten a grant from them. So we have seen federal grants, Department of Education giving out grants. We've also seen MetLife Foundation which is a foundation. We saw Minnesota is really good.

They've been giving out state grants, the Department of Commerce, so always look at your Department of Commerce's y'all because they give out grants. Let's see federal grant. We have the office of violence against women has given out grants. We've also had the Michigan department of health and human services. So another state grant going out.

West End Health Foundation, Lloyd and Mabel Johnson Foundation. We see a lot of city grants going out as well, so that's great. Pet Finder Foundation, so for those of you who are animals, the Okay Bar Foundation, the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office. Once again, another state grant, look at your attorney general's office. Harris Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts Foundation, Boeing Foundation, that's a big one.

For some state, Department of Homeland Security, FEMA, Kirby Foundation. I believe Kirby isn't that, like, cost you less. Hillcrest Foundation, State Farm, George Kaiser Family Foundation. If you guys you I always see that one. The Black Collective giving out small business community awards.

So this is even for, like, not for nonprofits, but for small business. United Way, HUD, so another federal grant, HUD under the community development block grant. The Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, the American Association of Community Colleges, Department of Education for a federal grant, Papa John's Foundation, if you like pizza. Another federal grant here is the Department of Justice, Office of Violence Against Women Again, another FEMA grant for firefighters, and that's a federal grant. So we're seeing a lot of New York grants going out in the city, so that's great.

Jacksonville City grants. Yep. So we're seeing a lot of different grants. Now let's go ahead and see what are people doing to get these grants though. Okay.

So we talked about some of the grants going out. So I'm gonna look now on what they've been reporting has been very, very helpful so they can actually secure these grants and win them. All right. So, and like I mentioned, a lot of our students are new as well. Okay.

So, one student says just encouragement and listening to others in the coaching calls. Amazing. Confidence in increasing the funding award ask. Okay. So maybe just asking for more and having confidence to do that.

Oh, listening to the recording of the coaching calls have been extremely helpful, and this is inside our freelance grant writer academy. We also have a grant writing master course, so they're saying the grant writing master course was helpful. Also listening to the recorded coaching calls. Someone said they the skills they learned in our thirty day master grant application and master course made all the difference in making this application stand out. Amazing.

Oh, someone said the review I got because we could do unlimited grant reviews inside our freelance grant writer academy. Someone says the review I got on one of my grants was to use the name of the organization more often as a detail to help others remember our name, and this helped me score highest. They also said the grant writing curriculum was super helpful in helping me drop my statement of need. I felt that element was my highest scored area in my grant. I used some helpful tips to revamp my submission from the SWAT assessments that I learned from inside the academy.

Oh, someone said getting getting feedback in the Slack channel was helpful. Oh, I implemented the suggestions to strengthen the narrative. Thank you so much. As once again, that's through our unlimited grant reviews, and I'm just scrolling through all these and showing what many students, like all the different students have written. So this is from a variety of students.

The grant reviews have helped me get more focused on the grants, assistance with budgets, writing narratives. Oh, I love that. Coach d did some grant reviews for me. It was very helpful. The podcasts were helpful for supporting my confidence during the writing process.

Oh, big shout out. Someone else said listening to coaching calls gives me the confidence and wisdom to manage projects and be confident as a consultant on behalf of my clients. Very cool. Oh, someone else said mindset shifts, building confidence. Someone else says I received some excellent feedback from coach Gwen.

With these changes, I could tighten the proposal even more. Once again, with our unlimited grant reviews. Someone else says, use the templates. Very cool, we have a million templates. All right, so those are some of the main things that I'm seeing in our reviews.

Somebody else said the master grant application review is very telling on my weak areas. I was able to strengthen my master grant application, which led to better grant writing. So we're seeing a lot of different reviews. Coach D reviewed this grant, gave me important feedback on consistency of voice and tone. So, so good.

So we're seeing a lot. Okay. So that's what's helping. That's what's helping. Listen from people.

K? Winning grants is important. What I'm seeing, what some trends are, is when you get feedback. Right? Don't do try to do this in a void or in a silo on your own, y'all.

Get feedback. Contact other grant writers or get inside the academy so you can get feedback. Another thing is training is what I'm seeing. A lot of people are saying the master grant application or the grant writing master course was really important because it helped improve their areas. So that's another trend I'm seeing.

Another trend I'm seeing in here is coming to coaching calls and getting feedback and just increasing confidence in your writing, right? Confidence in actually asking for more in a grant. Like that's amazing and community can help you do that as well. So these are some very specific things that I'm seeing. So if you wanna increase your grant wins like our students, these are things that are important.

And if you're inside our program but haven't been utilizing these, these are how people and you're seeing not everyone's wins drop. This is how they're winning. So make sure you're taking advantage of the full program. Alright. So let's talk about client sales now.

We talked about a lot about client sales. Let's see in October, our students once again have almost made a half million dollars in client sales in October 2025 when a lot of you were like, I'm not even gonna pitch to nonprofits because they're not buying right now. Yes, they are. They are buying services right now. They are paying for it.

So what are they selling? Let's go ahead and look at what people are selling. We're seeing referrals. Someone said a refer this was from a referral from someone in my network. I was told about the job posting.

I applied, interviewed, and got the contract. Oh, I love this one. So this is something really interesting for you all to think about and to listen to. I actually recommend this inside our programs is apply for jobs but on behalf of your company. I've gotten work like this for my company and so did this student.

So did this student. Alright. Oh, I love this testimonial. So someone said this, this is an old employee who reached out with a rush job. My first instinct was to say no as they've been challenging to work with in the past, but then I asked myself, under what circumstance would I be happy to do this?

And the answer was by raising my rates. So I said, yes, I'd be happy to help, but my new rate is a $100 an hour, up from $75 per hour previously. They didn't blink, said great, and in that moment, I learned a major lesson. I can have more control over all of this and get paid well while still delivering real value to my client. It was a crazy forty hour rush job, but I did it, and I'm proud of the proposal I wrote, and I love this reframe that I can charge rates that make me happy and serve me better.

I love that. I love that so much. And they said what was helpful for them inside our program was our value based pricing curriculum. Yep. They got the confidence to increase their price.

Alright. Another student said they were able to get $500 sale. They made a $500 sale and they said, the coaching from a September coaching call helped me get this client because of mindset and Holly's suggestion for what to deal to offer the attendings of these luncheons. Okay. So they were going and they were doing a speaking engagement.

So they sold a $500 consultation, and they said what was helpful was the coaching call. I love it. I love it. Somebody else made $2,000, and they sold a master grant template. What helped them was the master grant application guidance allowed me to offer this package with confidence.

So they created something that we taught them how to do, and they did it inside our thirty day master grant training, and they sold it for $2,000. Alright. Somebody else said they were able to get a $30,000 contract and they said my dream client found me on the GPA website and reached out to me. So that's the Grant Professionals Association website, so they're a member there. So that's another goal like, hey, that's a great thing to become a member of because I'll also list you in their directory.

So so good. Okay. So another student got a $45,600 contract, and they said, I've done cold email outreach to them a while back, and they are now ready for a retainer. The trainings on ethical client sales and value based pricing were especially helpful. So you see people are doing all different things.

Some people are applying for jobs under their company. Other people are doing speaking engagements and securing things. Other people are just selling one one little thing, a master grant application. Other people are selling retainers. This is how it's all done.

Alright. Let's see another $49,200. Okay. This is something this is a an existing client for whom I've done a lot of development or marketing in the past. The ED approached me about doing strategic planning with them in 2026, and I grew the scope to include a wealth screening and small feasibility study with donors since they are losing a lot of federal grant funding.

So leaning into strategy. Right? Leaning into strategy. Another student got a $14,400 contract, and they said having a checklist of things to do, e, set up the calendar for discovery calls was very helpful. This client was one of the first that scheduled a call through that calendar.

So that's something we teach in our program. Another student got a $6,392 contract, and they said in one of Holly's videos, can't remember which one, she mentioned an upfront fee retainer. So learning how to how to charge differently so they can get money upfront. Very cool. So you can see a lot of this here is about being flexible and also being prepared.

Being prepared, like having your discovery sale call questions, having your Calendly built out, having a Canva doc deck, having a contract. Right? Being able to go. Here's another one. They sold $1,625 to provide grant management training to nonprofit organizations.

Right? So they're also you can see because of how we've leaned into diversifying your results for your clients, people aren't just offering grant writing anymore. We're teaching you how to do other things. So this is amazing. How do you get your clients results during these times, right?

This is what's working. That is your funded episode today. It's a little bit longer than we'll be doing your monthly, but every month I'm gonna be doing more about this. What's working? Where are people getting funding from?

Where are people getting grants awarded from, just so you can hear this more, so you know what's available, so you know that this is possible. And because we wanna get more money in the hands of nonprofits and organizations who are doing good in the world, and we wanna get more money into the pockets of women entrepreneurs who are freelance grant writers who are making a difference in their lives, in their community, for their family, and so much more. Alright. Be sure to check out our website, grantwritingandfunding.com for so much more. Let me know.

Send me an email. I would love you to send me an email, holly@grantwritingandfunding.com, if you like this subseries funded that we're doing. And, yeah, let me know if you wanna hear more of this. I hope you enjoyed today's podcast episode. And if you are still struggling with how to write a grant, it still feels overwhelming.

Maybe you're new to it or maybe you're a seasoned grant writer with no processes in place on how to write grants. So every time you onboard a client, it is a lot of work. Make sure you subscribe to our private podcast on how to write a master grant template. When you sign up, you even get a free downloadable master grant template and a workbook. You'll get five episodes that walk you through how to write our master grant template framework that has helped hundreds of people inside our freelance grant writer academy win more than $238,000,000 in grant funding.

Go to grantwritingandfunding.com/private-podcast. And if you love this podcast, please do me a favor and leave a review on your podcast player as we love to read each and every review, and this helps other people find the podcast. Thank you for listening to our podcast today.