D Abshire: Super duper. Hello and welcome to the Grant Writing and Funding podcast and YouTube channel. I'm D Abishire, and I'm a guest host today, and this episode is being sponsored by the Freelance Grant Writer Academy because we're doing a case study. So today, I am I am welcoming Cindy who joined the academy a few months ago and has had some amazing results. Cindy, just welcome, and I'm so glad you're here today.
Thank It's nice to be here. So Cindy, tell us a little bit about what you were doing before you joined the Academy and why were you interested in joining? What did you see? What attracted you?
Cindy: I've worked in nonprofits my entire career. Graduated actually, I was a late graduate of an undergrad program, so I had to put myself through college and it took me a decade. And so my daughter was two years old and I was 30. At And the graduation, everyone in my class in the marketing and business program was talking about going to work for Coca Cola or big consulting firms, and I just wanted to do something that mattered in the world. So I went into nonprofits.
And so I spent my whole career as a marketing kind of started as a marketing director and then marketing communications. And having worked in nonprofits for so long, I have definitely gotten into the fundraising communications and, you know, fundraising database management and impact storytelling and all those different kinds of things. And, I've been working in my job that ends actually next week for seven years. Gosh, I think it's over seven years now. It is live live in a part of the Denver Metro Area that isn't that's smaller and isn't as accessible to the rest.
And so it's like there's limited jobs available up here in the arts. And and I just had been looking for something different to do. And I had actually started my own business doing marketing consulting about ten years ago. And I didn't do it right. Mean, can just say, yeah, has to learn lessons when they start their own business.
I ended up ended up learning some lessons and I got offered a job. And I was like, the job is a lot easier right now than trying to figure out all these answers. And that is the job that I'm leaving at the end of next week. And I had a nice salary and it was close to home and it was great. But it was time for me to move on to do something different.
I had worked on some grants. You know, I'd just go find grants for marketing or events or other different kinds of things. And I was writing some, like, niche grants in this organization just for the kind of stuff that I could speak to easily, being the marketing director rather than the development director. And I actually met Sean Kosofsky, I think is his name, at a Bloomerang Fundraising Conference, because I was taking more of a role in fundraising in this organization. And I thought he was smart, and he was recommending, he was promoting the Freelance Grant Writing Academy.
I saw that and I was like, I have done grants. This is Marcom adjacent. All the skills for impact reports and storytelling and writing strong fundraising, individual appeals every year that I've been working on and all of that stuff. I've written a handful of grants, maybe 10 grants over the years. And I was like, that's really interesting to me.
And it the more I thought about it, a lot of the things that didn't work so well ten years ago were solved by Grant Writing as a service. Interesting. So marketing can be very hard to sell in a package because it could involve like, your website could need to be completely rebuilt because that may be one of the biggest problems why you're not getting sales is because the sales platform isn't functioning. And if you don't have the money to improve your website, like and and I don't you know, it's very hard. That's why, like, you go out and you see, like, marketing agencies, and they'll say, you know, it's a $6,000 a month retainer because it has to cover all the possibilities and the potentials of all the marketing things you may have to do to fix what's not working right.
And and I didn't wanna build an agency.
D Abshire: And I was
Cindy: like, this is I I I'm not gonna I don't wanna be the salesperson for an agency. That wasn't the job I wanted to do. And I was like, this just isn't working for me. And so my grant writing was like, it's very easy to package into a scope of work. Mhmm.
It's very easy, the deliverables. You're gonna pay me every year to write 15 grants. Here's 15 grants. And it involves the storytelling and the the data. I'm a data analyst kind of person in my my master's program.
I nearly got a marketing research master's master of science because I really enjoyed the data and what data can tell us and the and how it can inform what we do in the future and how it can inform what we've done in the past. And and so it really brought all those skills together. And I have a large nonprofit network from having worked in the Denver Metro Area for so many years. And so I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna jump in and buy into this. And I told my husband, I said, I I think this is really a thing that will work.
D Abshire: It made sense. It's solved the problems.
Cindy: Problems. Exactly. I I think and I and it's funny you you say, you know, like, could share my web address. I have told everybody I do not want. I don't want a website.
I don't want an email newsletter.
D Abshire: There's many of us that that go that path. Yeah. And can. That before.
Cindy: And as a marketer, ten years ago, I spent so much time marketing my my business that I wasn't like, I wasn't actually doing the work and selling the work and building the agency that I would have had to build to make it actually pay out. And so this time around, I'm like, nope, I've got a LinkedIn page and that's it. I'm not building a website. I'm not building this. I wanna do grant writing, and maybe some of the adjacent work around that.
Very simple, probably have, you know, maybe a couple people who helped me during heavy grant periods, and like a virtual assistant. And that's like, I want it simple, and it's really worked.
D Abshire: Yeah, sounds like you're very clear and clarity certainly helps. Certainly helps us forward movement. And I love that story, and I love having watched you in that story these past several months in the Academy. Was there anything that you were on the fence about before you joined the Academy? You know, money, your time, or doubts, any of that kind of stuff when you were going through the process?
Cindy: Well, I tend to not be somebody who sits on a fence. And my dear husband, who is an engineer who takes years to mean, you know, like he's somebody who would, you know, it took him years to propose to me. Granted, I could have proposed to him. I'm a feminist. But but he is somebody who likes to think about stuff and, like, analyze and is a very logical step by step.
There's a balance there. I get it. And I am very much like, this is it, jump. I think I was really trying this time around to not jump into something that was just gonna take my money and not actually give me Oh, sure. A business.
You know? But I but I also think I I had a lot of clarity from my last go at this. But I I really think I you know, when I I didn't I felt very much like I was not like, oh, shiny object. Let's go get it. You know, it was really like this, I think, will really work.
So I had I had talked to my husband about it for a while. And I said, well, you know, it's it's this much money. He's like, well, know what? You know what? $2,500 can buy.
You know, which was, you know, the cost to join the academy back then. And and he said he said, you know as well as I know what that kind of money can buy. And if you think this is worth it,
D Abshire: do it. Go heavy. Yeah. Yeah.
Cindy: And so it was it was really kind of a it wasn't a concern about the program per se, because I knew I had the the skills to be able to be a strong grant writer. I just needed more of that, like, details about how to do it really well.
D Abshire: Yeah.
Cindy: You know, how to how to really excel at it and how to do it at a high level so I could sell myself well. And so that was really it. I just I had to think about it for a while and make sure I wasn't doing I wasn't acting too much of the person who never sits on a fence, and I wasn't being too much of my husband, letting him provide too much to me in the, like, no. No. Sit on that fence for another year and wait for it.
So I had to just kind of balance and make sure that I felt like this was the right move.
D Abshire: Yeah. I like I like the balance there, and more importantly than that it worked for you. It worked for you to do it that way. And you know, what are results of joining? What are some specific results that you got from deciding to jump in?
Cindy: Yeah, mean, you know, were talking before you turned the recording on. I'm somebody who I'm an extrovert. I'm somebody who processes things, honestly, with other people. Like, I'm not I'm not a journaler. I'm not I've met that's never been my way.
It's always just I need to talk to somebody. So like, having the academy and having like the coaching calls where I could get feedback from coaches, could get feedback from other people who are newer in the academy, but maybe a little bit more experienced at the grant writing part of things has really, really beneficial to me. And then I think the thing that has really been extremely valuable for me is the master grant application approach that that is taught within the academy that I've been through it twice, and I'll be honest. I've got I've got, like, three almost complete master grant applications because, like, pulling a budget together and all the things that that master grant application asks for can be a little hard, and it takes, you know, especially when you're working on actually getting actual grant applications out the door. So it can be hard to kind of get those last few pieces into that.
But it has really every potential client I talk to about how I approach my work that way is like, Oh, that's strategic. That's what we're looking for. And so it has really going through that process before I found a client and then continuing to do the live Master Grant application training just helps me be more strategic about how I communicate about the work that I do. And then honestly, quicker at putting master grant applications together for my clients. Yeah.
You know? And it really you know, like like, you know, Holly and everyone talks about the master grant application approach is to pull, like, your strategic fundable story into one document. I find a lot of now the clients that I work with, many of their grant applications just say, Here's the good work we do and it's important. And it's like when you go through the master grant application approach, you have to do the research. It's not just us that says this is important work.
Here's the data and the research outside of us, nationally, internationally that has been done that says this work is important. And I think it's helped me bring a much more professional and strategic approach to writing about their work that they appreciate.
D Abshire: So it sounds like if you were going to rank order two or three things that are on your on the top of your list, then the Master Grant application template, the process of it as well as the product of it sounds like it would be right up there. What are another one or two things that you really appreciate about the program or that have been specifically that have been helpful for you?
Cindy: I'm a marketer, so how to talk about what I do is not necessarily a problem for me. I'm a marketer who is like, communicate the benefit to your customers. You're not like, oh, here's all the great things I do. No. Here's what I do for you.
Here are the problems I solve for you. So I've never had a problem thinking
D Abshire: get that baked in.
Cindy: Yeah. I get that. But I think for a lot, I mean, for so many of us, it's like the pricing piece.
D Abshire: How price my work specifically. How I
Cindy: charge my work? Exactly. And so now I think with a lot of those discussions that have gone on in the academy and the training out there and all of these other things, I have really gotten solid on when somebody when somebody says I'd be interested in working with you, I have a little Excel spreadsheet that says here's all the grant applications. Here's, like, the scope. Put the scope in there.
It calculates it out. Here's what your monthly retainer looks like. So I'm I have that to where I can be like, I can give you an answer pretty quickly.
D Abshire: Yeah. And I'm
Cindy: not really I'm not at the point where it's like, well, you know, I don't work for anybody under you know, for under $5 a month. I'm not at that place in my, you know, in running my business or even not sure I'd ever really want to be there exactly. You know, I'm not covering for a bunch of subcontractors and I'm not it's not a bunch of staff that I'm that I have to pay for. I just wanna do good work, do it reasonably for my clients, and and do it for, you know, a paycheck that that is comfortable for me. You know?
D Abshire: So that has
Cindy: been, that has been really, really helpful.
D Abshire: Nice. That's really nice to hear. So I'm kind of put those into one little puddle here, and that is I heard community and the importance of community and support through community. And I heard the master grant application template. And now, know, hearing about how do I get solid on my pricing as a grant writer, as a grant consultant, as a how are a grant strategist, how are I positioned myself?
And I know from the conversations we've had about you and growing for good, the work that you do, that all that's really important. Know, those were your priorities. So you've been able to address your priorities in the program. It's really, really neat to hear that. Has there been anything that surprised you?
Anything that's come up in the program or you think about, oh, I didn't know that was going to come out or wow, where did that? Is there anything that surprised you or that's been surprising either way?
Cindy: Think so. Really. I you know, I have two business degrees. I have an undergrad and essentially an MBA. So like the business coaching stuff, I'm like, yeah, I've heard that before.
Know, it's not
D Abshire: even Maybe Yeah. Know,
Cindy: the community is kind of what I would expect of nonprofit people. You know, that hasn't been surprising. So and also, it never should be surprising to anybody who knows me that I find friends. I just am like, hi. I mean, I'm the person that's like, you wanna be my friend?
Let's be friends, you know. And and I am I am 0% shy about that. I think I think maybe surprising. I I think maybe the one thing that has been a a little bit surprising or something that I didn't completely expect Mhmm. Was, like, how much other, like, advice is shared?
Like, Gwen's coworking. You know, I remember going to one of those, and she's like, hey. Here's a thing that I put together that that, like, ranks metro areas, rural areas, suburban areas, and different organization sites. Here's a grid that's how grant writers are pricing their I'm like, oh my gosh.
D Abshire: An unexpected benefit. Yeah.
Cindy: And then, like, like, you know, yesterday, I attended Gwen's co coworking session, and she's the AI queen. And she's like, I've written all these prompts to help AI help me keep an eye. I mean, that's the thing I wanna do is I wanna be on top of things. I want I want to be acting exceptionally. And and so as I told you this morning, you know, like Gwen's conversation yesterday about how she uses AI to help her keep on top of grant opportunities and all of these different things.
This morning, I was like, I need to be doing that. I think the thing that is surprising to me is there is actually joined a program ten years ago. And there's like, there was like the guy who ran the program and he was the coach. And, and he wasn't really accessible, you know, like, you could do the trainings and and there was a community. But it was yeah, it just wasn't as accessible, you know, and it just really, in this program, like like, if you have a question, you can get it answered.
You know? And if you have a strange client thing that's going on and, I mean, yesterday, Holly told me, I said, you know, I have a new client. And and and I you know, they paid their first invoice, I and haven't gotten any documents or any information from them to be able to move forward. And she's like, send an email and say, I'll bring you lunch. Here are the days I'm available next week.
I'm like, of course. Just, you know, like, I'll bring you coffee. We can even give me twenty minutes, you know? I was like We got together. Yeah.
Of course. That's a perfect way to just see if I can get a response and just get even, you know, twenty minutes of time in front of this executive director. So, think the little things have been, not exactly surprising, but like, you know, like I said, with a whole cohort of people who are nonprofit people, they're giving people. And so I guess I'm pleasantly surprised, you know, just that or like nodding my head going, yeah, of course, it's like this, you know?
D Abshire: And she gives unexpected benefit coming in and having that in addition to everything else. Right. The process, the protocols, the professional help. Thank you for that. That was lovely.
Sure. What would you say to someone who's unsure of joining? Maybe in a similar position that you were in before you joined. Knew you wanted to change. You knew you'd been doing something for a while.
How would you address that uncertainty in a friend or a colleague?
Cindy: Yeah, you know, I think I have another friend in the program who joined and through, I think maybe her joining the program has helped her clarify like I did ten years ago, what I, you know, what works for me. And I'd say, I'd say, you know, this program is probably I mean, if you if you have the funds that you can invest, you know, I don't think anybody should be adding another $2,500 or three that whatever the cost is to an already overwhelmed credit card like, you know, it but but anybody who is like, I think this could really work and I think grant writing is something for me, I'd say it's very worthwhile. Has. And even if even if I have said, I want to do half grant writing and half marketing Yep. Contract services, I think a lot of the coaching within here would help me think about you know, because there's a lot of that, like, pricing and structuring your how you how you you know, your proposals and stuff.
I think I think that would have even helped me even if I had decided that grant writing was only a part of what I wanted to do.
D Abshire: Sure. I hear that. Yeah.
Cindy: Yeah. So I
D Abshire: so I think it's
Cindy: mean, everything that's available, I think it's quite valuable. Would just say, make sure you know what you want to, you know, make sure that not, you know, I think if I had a friend who was like, well, I bought that program and this program and that program and this program, and now I'm thinking about buying this program. It's like, you know, you probably want to take a moment and make sure that you know that you just don't have an addiction to buying programs, you know. Yeah, Because you to understand where you are and where you think you want to go to make the program and everything that's in the Academy work for you.
D Abshire: Yeah, certainly. Certainly. Well put. Thank you so much for that. And now I'm going to ask you the personal question.
Where can people find you?
Cindy: Oh, they can find me on LinkedIn.
D Abshire: We're going to post that down in the notes here, too.
Cindy: Yeah, I'll do that here in a second. I don't know what my LinkedIn URL is off the top of my head. They can find me on LinkedIn. I have a little Calendly scheduler there if you want to book some time to talk to me about working together. But that's really it.
I don't plan to build a website and I don't plan to do any of that big marketing stuff. Cause as I told people, I'm done with the marketing director part of my professional career.
D Abshire: So lovely, lovely. Well, Cindy, thank you so much. Folks, we've been listening to Cindy Homan and Growing the Good. And you've been Growing the Good. Thanks for being with us today.
Cindy: Yeah, thank you. It's been fun.