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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 number one grant writing podcast in the world, the grant writing and funding podcast, where we help passionate people create stable incomes and flexible schedules by
Holly Rustick:getting ideal nonprofit clients with the best grant writing and nonprofit sales strategies in the industry. My name is Holly Rustic and I have more than twenty years of grant writing and nonprofit experience as well as federal grant reviewing experience. And I went from working fifty plus hours per week as a grant writer inside a nonprofit and living paycheck to paycheck to opening my own freelance grant writing business and only working part time hours while earning multiple 6 figures per year. Inside our programs, the freelance grant Writer Academy and the Grant Professional Mentorship, I have helped more than 200 change makers 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 grant writing formula and implementing our unique approach to nonprofit sales strategies. 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 a key part in advancing these movements.
Holly Rustick:Be sure to join our weekly newsletter, the Write Grants Get Paid newsletter, where you get stress free nuggets on the financial stability components and skills of being a freelance grant writer, and updates about the academy and the mentorship. Just go to grantwritingthefunding.com. And now let's get ready for the most bold, empowering, and approachable coaching and conversations you've ever heard about freelance grant writing. Let's create a higher standard of stability, freedom, and legacy together. Hello.
Holly Rustick:Hello. It's Holly Rustic here at Grant Writing and Funding, and I'm excited about this podcast episode today and talking about how to start a grant writing business today with little to no experience. You are gonna want to tune in about learning our two main skills, and that's grant writing and business acumen. I know a lot of you out there are wanting to start a grant writing business, and you may not have grant writing experience, so this is your episode to listen today. Or you may have a freelance grant writing business already, but you just aren't booking clients.
Holly Rustick:Listen to this episode. And of course, if you want more, go and register. We have a full webinar to really go through details on how to be a grant funding strategist in 2025. So if you were listening to this before June 11, definitely go to grantwritingandfunding.com/academywebinar or just jump over to grantwritingandfunding.com to sign up for our free webinar on June 11, work from home, replace your paycheck on part time hours as a grant and funding strategist in 2025. You're gonna walk away with knowing how to create a profitable grant writing business with little to no experience even in 2025.
Holly Rustick:Jump over today because you can work from home, you can replace your full time paycheck, yes, even in 2025. We are gonna show you how and really how to change the lens of not just being a grant writer, but being a funding strategist. And for all of today's notes, show go to grantwritingthefunding.com/40five. And here's a word from our sponsor. And thank you to Grant EZ Management Software for sponsoring today's podcast episode.
Holly Rustick: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.
Holly Rustick:And there's even a time tracker inside of GEMS 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, HollyHOLLY.
Holly Rustick:Go to grantwritingandfunding.com/gems. GEMS. Thank you, GEMS, for being a sponsor for today's podcast episode. Alright. Here we go.
Holly Rustick:What does it take to start a freelance grant writing business? Well, becoming a freelance grant writer, you need two skills. One, grant writing. Two, business acumen. You can learn both, and you don't need a grant writing degree or business degree.
Holly Rustick:You don't even need ten thousand hours of experience. You don't even need a certification. Folks in the academy like Evian, Paula, Christina, and Gabrielle all won their first clients in the program, and Christina and many others also won their first grants. What worked for them to go from zero experience to getting funded and funding training? Of course, you do want to know how to write grants to be a freelance grant writer.
Holly Rustick:However, you can also get clients while you learn how to write grants. It's one of the best ways as well. And one of the ways to get experience is to have a short internship or volunteer period so you can get some real world experience. And you can also negotiate with a nonprofit to pay for some grant training in exchange for your grant writing services in the first few months while you're learning how. For example, we actually have nonprofit organizations pay for folks to come inside the Freelance Grant Writer Academy as we provide unlimited grant reviews and grant training.
Holly Rustick:As we provide grant training and unlimited grant reviews in exchange for volunteering at their nonprofit for three months or writing maybe two grants. We do recommend that you have some sort of reciprocity agreement if you offer your grant writing services for free when you are starting out, like I will only do it for this long or pay for some of my training while I do it for free. Other types of grant writing training can be books, online courses, and so much more. But some of you may have grant writing experience, but you have no business experience. So I said, you need to have grant writing experience and you need to have business acumen.
Holly Rustick:And selling your grant writing services does not have to be hard. In fact, here are some places where we've seen folks get clients, Chamber of Commerce events, grant training and workshops, conferences, coffee shops, birthday parties, online webinars, just having their title and their name, posting on LinkedIn, and mentioning it to family and friends. And we're going to talk about this a little bit more towards the end, so stay tuned. And if you don't know who I am, I'm Holly Rustic, founder and CEO of the Freelance Grant Writer Academy and the Grant Professional Mentorship, and we help aspiring and seasoned grant writers replace your full time income on flexible hours writing grants from home. Make sure you subscribe to get all of our videos.
Holly Rustick:But getting your first client or two usually doesn't take much marketing as everybody knows someone who needs a grant writer, especially in these days. Just mentioning what you do in conversation is like a magic trick. So be sure to carry make some business cards and carry them around. But you still need to understand business acumen, I e, how to price, how to market, how to sell, how to invoice. This doesn't have to be hard as well.
Holly Rustick:But this is not an innate skill, but it can be learned. Not understanding these basic business skills can hold you back from growing a business. This is because many grant writers aren't sure how to sell their services. Let's face it. Pricing any kind of services versus a product can feel a little ambiguous.
Holly Rustick:To understand what the real value is of your grant writing skills is important. And then you need to know how to put together your offers, how to run a sales call. None of this is difficult, but without a roadmap, it can feel overwhelming and take you longer than it needs to. Believe you me, that's where I started so many years ago, more than a decade ago. Right?
Holly Rustick:And I've done the work for you. So let's talk about it. Before we get into it, here are some things that you don't need. Freelance grant writing certifications. You do not need a freelance grant writing certification or a grant writing certification to write grants.
Holly Rustick:If you are wondering if you need a grant writing certification to pursue grant writing and get clients, you don't need one. But some people are still interested in getting a grant writing certification due to external or internal reasons. And we've talked about these in other videos, but let me just summarize them again for you. External considerations for getting a grant writing certification is maybe you know a nonprofit might ask you during a discovery call if you have a grant writing certification. When a nonprofit prospect asks you this question, really, they're asking how experienced you are.
Holly Rustick:So if you do have a grant writing certification, then you can just simply say yes. However, if you don't have one, you can instead let them know that there is no industry requirement for having one because there's not. Instead, them know if you've written X number of grants or secured X number of funding, that's an easier way to do it. And let's face it, even if you did have a grant writing cert and funding certification, and yes, that's a thing inside the academy, wink wink, or your grant professional certification, and we also offer education credits for that. A nonprofit lead isn't going to know how many hours of grant writing you have done, how long it took you to go through the course or etcetera.
Holly Rustick:They don't even know the difference between our internal certification and the GPC one. So even if you do have a grant writing certification, then you have to mention all the other cool things that you've done, whether that's your experience, getting training, all of that, and that's gonna eliminate a lot of other questions that come up. So externally, when having a grant writing certification, what you're gonna get is a nod of approval, a signature of experience. Literally, you can put the logo of your certification in your email signature. You can put the name of the certification on your webinar, website, LinkedIn profile, or even business card, and this lends to external affirmation of your skills.
Holly Rustick:But once again, this is not required. Many people get a ton of clients and they've never had a certification. Here are some internal considerations for a grant writing certification. The process of getting a grant writing certification can help improve your skills potentially, knowledge, and confidence in writing grants. If you are looking to improve any of those, then you may consider going through a course, a workshop, or a program like the Freelance Grant Writer Academy to get your grant writing certification.
Holly Rustick:This is the heart of it. Right? But grant certification or not, it doesn't really showcase your grant writing abilities. To have longstanding credibility and a reputation and implement the learned skills, you need to practice writing grants. So yes, a grant writing certification can increase your resume and improve your skills, but actually going through the process of writing an entire grant template and getting feedback is important.
Holly Rustick:So do you need one? No. However, a grant writing certification can help increase your skills, your knowledge, and your confidence, but you still need to actually write grants. I hope you enjoyed listening to the Grant Writing and Funding podcast episode today. For today's show notes, go to grantwritingandfunding.com.
Holly Rustick:And while you're there, join our email newsletter, write grants get paid, where every single week you get proven strategies to be able to replace your full time income on flexible hours writing grants from home. We give you all of our beliefs and strategies to run a freelance grant writing business and to improve your grant writing skills. Be sure to join because we have the best email newsletter in the industry with amazing weekly tips. You also find out when the podcast drops, when we have offers coming up, when the doors to the academy and mentorship are open, and so much more. So make sure you go to grantwritingandfunding.com.
Holly Rustick:And we also have some other free goodies for you over there, including our five steps to become a freelance grant writer and a free grant writing class. You're definitely gonna wanna check that out at grantwritingandfunding.com. And if you love this podcast, please do me a favor. Please make sure you subscribe on your podcast platform and leave a review. We love reading all of the reviews as it's a way we feel like we can really interact with all of our listeners.
Holly Rustick:So thank you again for listening to the number one grant writing podcast in the world, grant writing and funding. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.