Ep 73: Transitioning from Toxic Nonprofit Jobs to Freelancing Freedom with Holly Rustick

EPISODE 73

Life Beyond the Nonprofit

 
 
 

Ever felt the burnout creeping in after countless hours of dedicated nonprofit work? What if there was a way to channel your passion for change-making without sacrificing your mental health and job security? Join us to rethink your role in the nonprofit world with expert grant writer, podcast host, and coach, Holly Rustick, as we pull back the curtain on the often unacknowledged realities of toxic nonprofit jobs and explore the stability freelancing offers as an alternative path.

Whether you're feeling stagnant in your nonprofit role or are just starting to explore a career in this sector, this episode is a must-listen that could prove to be a game-changer for you.

About Holly

Holly Rustick is a world-renowned grant writing expert and Amazon bestselling author.

Holly has been coaching grant writers how to run successful 5-6 figure businesses since 2017.

With two decades of grant writing and nonprofit experience, Holly is a popular keynote speaker for events all over the world, podcast host of the Top-Ranked Grant Writing podcast, a former university instructor, and is past president of the Guam Women’s Chamber of Commerce.

She is constantly booked out to help aspiring and seasoned grant writers replace their full-time income while working part-time from home.

Join Holly’s FREE WEBINAR ON 1/10/24: Quit your Toxic Nonprofit Job & Replace your Income with Freelance Grant Writing 

Think you’ve reached out to “everyone” in your network? Out of ideas to get noticed and get funded?  Generate leads for your nonprofit or social impact business: https://www.splendidcourses.com/prospect

Steal my Prospect List! Lead Gen just got a lot easier!

Resources mentioned:

 
 
 

Links may be affiliate links which means I may earn a commission at no cost to you.

TRANSCRIPT:

Christina 00:02

Welcome to the Purpose and Profit Club podcast for nonprofit leaders, mission-driven creatives and social entrepreneurs. Get ready to stop dreaming and start doing. Here ideas become action. We prioritize purpose and profit. You ready, let's go? All right, welcome, friends. We've got my friend, holly Rustic. I'm so excited to get her on the podcast. We've been what's happening back and forth and she is here today. If you're new to her work which I don't know how you could be she is from the so popular grant writing and funding podcast. She is a grant writer, she is a coach. She's an all-around, enthusiastic, fabulous person. Welcome to the podcast, holly Rustic.

Holly 00:44

I'm so excited to be here because you've been in my podcast, I've read it and been funding a couple of times and I love that. So I was like, hey, I see you have a podcast, let's go. So this is so fun, I love that you're doing this and you're just like kicking butt. You came in and you're like I'm going to be at 74 podcast episodes already this year. I was like go girl, that's amazing, that's amazing. So congratulations on your podcast. I'm super excited, I love it. I think it's great. So yeah, congratulations.

Christina 01:15

Thank you so much. So I want to jump right in. When we were talking about the conversation that we wanted to just really dig into for this episode, you said something I was like, yep, here's the booking link, come on. You said my spicy belief. My spicy belief is and let's lay it out, I don't even want to say it, I want you to say it- Tell me what your hot take is in this nonprofit world.

Holly 01:36

Yeah, yeah, and I've been in the nonprofit world for a couple of decades. So, yeah, I'm not going to get that age, but I've been, yeah, more than 20 years. And my spicy beliefs, and one of them is like quit your toxic nonprofit job, like you might be, like what I'm in, and you want me to get out, and we're going to talk about a variety of reasons of why you should and why freelancing may be a better fit for you.

And we're going to talk about that, my other spicy belief, because then I have objections then about well, but my J-O-B is like security, it's like you know, I can depend on it and I say, if you're in a nonprofit, your J-O-B is not secured, your freelance business will be your job security your financial stability, your emotional stability, is where it's going to be.

Christina 02:24

So and we're going to dive deep into this because a lot of you might just like ruffle some- feathers, and that's okay.

Holly 02:29

Okay, because I got you, so we're going to dive right back.

Christina 02:32

And maybe we should take a slight detour, which is, tell us a tiny bit about your background, because I know you from the course and coaching sector. I know you as my go-to expert. If somebody's like help grants, help strategic planning, I'm like go talk to Holly, but give us a little taste about how you got into this work and what you've been up to the past decade-ish yeah.

Holly 02:51

Yeah, I love the work, you know, as far as like the causes of nonprofits and I am not dissing that at all. So, just to like my disclaimer, I love the work. But you know, for me personally, getting into the nonprofits kind of like a lot of people was kind of like an accidental kind of like, you know, push in. But I started actually way back during the Asian tsunami and I got a job in Indonesia and I was there for a nonprofit and I was there working and you know, just really realized that oh, I'm actually writing grants right now, before I even knew what I was doing, because it was just connecting community to money, right, so I was like mission to money connecting it up your way.

So I was like boots on ground for all the local, like local disgroups of people trying to get funding from the big UN organization. So I was like I'll help you Because we're just a little startup nonprofit and I love that.

And then I went to DC and I really learned how to do the actual grant writing and all the things, and was freelance grant writing, but also working in nonprofits in a lot of different ways, right? So, of course, when I worked inside nonprofits a lot of times it was as a grant writer, because I had a lot of experience in writing.

Christina 03:57

Grants.

Holly 03:58

And what I found was that I looked at the budgets of nonprofits right.

So I understood how hard it was for them to fund a staff grant writer into how hard it is for them to fund a lot of staff positions.

And a lot of this goes back to it's really not the nonprofits fault, right, it's the way nonprofits have, especially in the US, have been incorporated as 501C3s. So we go back to like when that was really happening. The federal government was kind of as a turn to the civil rights movement. Basically, the federal government said we want to funnel more monies out to community programs. Right, but they had which is right, but they had some strengths attached to one of those. You cannot put a lobby as a 501C3. There's certain 501s that you can, but the most, the biggest one, is a 501C3 that most of you probably are, because you have more ability to get more grants that way. But you cannot politically lobby. And they really decided we're going to give it to programs, individual services. So that's why it's so hard for you all to get prevention grants, that's why it's so hard for you to get general operating, not to say that they're not out there, but they're fewer and far between versus the individual services. So it's very much a paradigm shift of civil rights movement, social change, and we are going through that again right now, and a lot of you are developing nonprofits because you want to access some of this money.

But do you see how that can be a problem then? Especially how to fund your staff, because a lot of especially grant writers, can't be paid out for things they do before the grant is funded. So it can be very difficult and that's where it gets really toxic. There's also a lot of things in nonprofits, so I'm just going to dive kind of right into this area as far as, like, because of how that system is set up, there's then follows a lot of like well, we can't offer health benefits. Well, we can't do this. Well, we can't do that, we want you to work weekends because it's for the cause.

There's a lot of guilt, toxic system set up behavior and you all might be resonating with that right now, but especially as a grant writer, as a staff position and a nonprofit, how you are paid a lot of times because you can't really be paid as a grant writer. Sometimes, right, there's ways to loophole it, but a lot of times what they do is say you can be a program manager, a case manager or this, but really be hired, you to write grants. So now you got two whole time jobs but you're just getting paid for one. Right, we know, with grants never ending deadlines, you're working, weekends, you're working, etc. You're really not getting paid. Your health is suffering, your family life is suffering and a lot of suffering, but then it's for the cause.

Christina 06:38

That's right.

Holly 06:39

You can still work for the cause and take care of yourself, but I think everyone is collectively nodding along with me on a lot of that.

Christina 06:48

One of the big trends we've seen this past year and really it's fever pitching is burnout and churn in this industry because people are. It's like a reaction to feeling like, well, you got to work nights and weekends, you got to figure this out. Oh, this board member just found out about this grant. Can we apply for it? And you're like, right, right, and so talk to me about the benefit of why somebody should consider coming to the other side, the other wild side, the consultant, the freelance world that we love so, so much. Let's talk about that.

Holly 07:19

Yeah, and I think and I'll just share some of my story and weave it in here as well is one of the reasons I left the nonprofit I was working at was because I was in that place. I was totally burned out. I'm a single mom, right, I was feeling guilty if I had to go pick her up or she's sick, and I'm working through the nights when she's sick, like all the things, right, and I'm not saying you're not gonna have seasons of your business, but really this was on a perpetual cycle loop, right, because grants are always coming up and then a holiday always do, also do the grant management because now you want all these grants, so do that.

So it was just like constantly I just felt so like it was such a toxic environment for my health, for my family, for everything right. So for me I was like very scared in a lot of sense to like quit my job and go full time. But I did because I realized like I had freelance like here and there on the side in the past and I was like I'm just gonna do this, but my job had taken up so much of my time that I had to really be doing it on the side right For a while.

So there was a fear on a single mom. There's a lot on the line, there's a lot of risk and when I wrote my resignation letter, like to all my point of context because I had a lot of point of context right Like I'm the grant writer, I know all the people I'm just letting them know hey, I'm leaving and just so that you know I'll be leaving the organization because I'm opening my own business. Like I went out, like that, I got clients right away.

Christina 08:42

I got clients through my resignation letter.

Holly 08:45

Oh that makes me so happy yeah.

I got my anchor clients and I was like whoa, before I even knew what like an anchor client was like I did this way back in the day. So I was like jumping in and I don't encourage everyone to jump in Like it is nice to have a net and definitely I have set up in my program the freelance grant writer academy, like my lessons learned, right, and how to do these things, like with systems in place, so you have more nets available. But because there's such a demand for especially grant writers, but other nonprofit consultants as well, right, and because we can shift the conversation to the nonprofit to say actually it's more beneficial to hire me as a freelancer than as a staff, because then you don't have to pay for my taxes, my benefits, my office, my computer, da, da, da, da da da you don't have to manage.

you don't have to think about me forever on payroll and always like, oh, stressing out about that, where I can come in, maybe charge half as much as I was getting paid as an employee. Right, your rates are gonna be different y'all, we're gonna talk about that, we can. But you can have multiple clients then and you can have very clear boundaries, that's right.

I'm gonna write grants six weeks out minimum. I do not work in grants, right. I only write X amount of grants and this is what we're going to write for X amount of money Right away. You have a different relationship with the executive director as a consultant versus staff. You can control your boundaries more and because you can take multiple clients and you can set up systems to work with clients, with repetitive systems of what you do, grant templates, et cetera right. Then it's easier for you to make more money and to have more time and just to work with the causes you totally believe in. That's right.

Christina 10:29

you have so much more choice, so much more choice and jobs like your.

Holly 10:33

Job security has just increased because what I've seen so many people have come into my program because they've gotten fired, laid off, they've had to quit. The grant that they were under didn't get renewed, so they there you go. Offright all the things. You have no control over what happens within nonprofit. Nonprofits budgets, you all know, are very tenuous. They're very dynamic, so it's okay, if you lose one client you can get another one.

Christina 11:01

You know, what's coming to mind is this idea of the culture of a nonprofit and I often joke, but no, really, I'm too much of a wild horse now to ever go to a nine to five. I'm just too much. I don't like things to go slow. I like to be able to voice my opinion. If I can see a faster, more impactful way, I want to do that. I think sometimes when you're stuck in the structure whether it's the org chart structure or the cultural structure of an organization, it is really hard to speak up. It is really hard to say let's go after this one and not this one. But when you're a consultant, you get to have your own organization culture. You get to say you know what, that doesn't fit for me, or here's how I will take this on, but in this way, and it's so fun, and you're expected.

Holly 11:49

Think about that. You're expected to step up. Like that. If you're just like, don't do anything, like they're going to step all over you. There's no respect like that. But if you step up and you're like this is how we run our organization, we onboard this way. You come in with your nonprofit. They're going to look for this many grants. They're going to write X amount of grants in this timeframe. This is what's going to happen. They're like thank you, Now, I don't have to think about that.

Christina 12:10

Like that's such a and it actually is a service to them to be clear, to be very specific and clear and sometimes bold. And sometimes they may be like oh, wow, okay, and you're going to dig into this. You have a webinar coming up. I want to make sure everybody knows that it's happening, so tell us a little bit. What will attendees get from that webinar? Anyone who's like, okay, this is interesting, but dot dot dot, like, say more Definitely come.

Holly 12:33

So it is on January 10th at 6.30 PM Eastern. And so, even if you're working full time, you got the evening to show up. There will be a replay, but you do have to register for it and it is. Quit your toxic, nonprofit job and replace your full-time income with grant writing. So we are going to talk about you're going to walk away knowing how that's a possibility for you, right? We're going to really get into the nitty gritty-nitty grittiness of it as far as like. What does the grant world look like up there? How?

Christina 13:01

can you?

Holly 13:01

actually why? Is it saturated or not? And it's not right.

We're going to talk about that and we're also going to talk about, like, how you actually can do this to replace your income. So, if you're making 40,000 a year, $100,000 a year, you can replace your full-time income Plus right, because you also have to pay for your taxes. You have to pay for certain things. Because you might have heard that before and that freaked you out, let me tell you, it's not as much as you think it is, and it's going to give you, like, the ability to really make that decision. Is this right for me? Do I need to start this as a side hustle and have an exit strategy at a certain time? Or just in case, like that's what it gives you power to do?

It might give you you start a freelance business on the side, no matter what, it is a side hustle. What it does is it gives you more like power, because you see, ok, inflation goes up, like even though my paycheck isn't going up, you know, in response to that, I have some extra income, or my boss is like dumping this on me, or this is a very I'm feeling very like. This is not healthy. Now I can step up and ask for a raise. It actually gives you like the empowerment, like you feel more empowered just because you have more financial stability. Right, and what that does for the brain is really impressive 100%.

Christina 14:16

Yeah. And there are some of us who are like, no, I'm all in, I want to do this consulting business yes. And there are many of us, including myself, who was like total side gig until I figured it all out, because not a mortgage to pay. I just also wanted that safety net. And I get that. And now, with kids too, it's like I would imagine if I was in those shoes now. I would also say, ok, how do I do this? So maybe I'm writing an extra grant or two a month, and what would that do for my family? And then going OK, my favorite part about being an entrepreneur is you guys. We do not have to keep nine to five hours, like my kids program is. He's playing saxophone. I cannot wait for him to play. Mary had a little lamb. Oh my gosh, I get to go to it. It's the middle of the day. I blocked my calendar. I don't have to ask anyone's permission, it's not a problem.

And yeah, all of that great stuff is. So let's dig into. I want to talk about the income piece because I feel like that's a big thing for people is like I get it, like it can be really hard to say OK, but right now I'm making $50,000 a year and how it feels too big and too far away. Who would I even ask? Where would these clients come from, molly? Like how do we give people like bite sized actual, because I know you've got people in the academy right now where it's like what does it actually look like in practice to move over?

Holly 15:37

I love it and I love excuse me the people that like come into and be like you know what I'm going to replace my full time income working part time, because that's what our people yeah, and they do it while they're working full time. So the program is 12 months. It gives you a long time, like good chunk of time. We're not just like oh here it is four weeks later, see you later, right? We want to give you time to process through this, right, to be able to set it up. So I love it when folks there's a lot in there right now One one lady she was just like she goes I was going to quit my full time job in Q1 of 2024. But she said I already could do it in October of 2023.

Christina 16:20

So a whole quarter before you get estimated.

Holly 16:24

She was like I'm already done, I quit my full time and I'm just freelancing now, like I've been able to set up the clients to do that. And that's really our premise too is? It's not just about like come in work, you're blind, right? We understand a lot of folks that come in the program. They're already burned out, they're already like because they've been working in nonprofits. They already have so much. They want like more of a schedule, they want more freedom. So the point isn't like work, work, work, work, work. It's about how do you set up systems then in a way where you have time right and we actually show you like you can create these so you can repeat your processes.

So you hire a VA or somebody like a virtual assistant or somebody to come in or a grant another grant writer under you to help you out. So a lot of people like to get that set up and they have a well oiled machine and then they're actually not even working as much. They're working part-time because they have the systems in place. So from a financial point of view it's very, very like you can do this. 50,000 really is not a lot of money, yeah, yeah.

Christina17:26

How many?

Holly 17:26

clients. Is that A?

Christina 17:28

few maybe right If you have retainer clients which fully set up.

Holly 17:32

You can set up who you want to work with, you can identify what causes you want to move forward and actually niching down like that will get you more clients.

Christina 17:41

That's right.

Holly 17:42

So I see people that come in and they're like I want to work with black owned like agriculture, to create legacy for land ownership, and I'm like yes, that specificity, people are looking for that.

Christina 17:54

Yes, yes, yeah, and I'm like that's that's what you want to do. Yeah, great tip.

Holly 18:00

Yeah, we'll relate to you. Your marketing is going to be just like easy, because that's what you're going to be talking about. Your writing blogs about that. Whatever you want to do, right, or a lot of you all you don't even need to go online as a freelance grant writer. Here's the other thing is I'm not like. I have a lot of introverts, actually a lot of grant writers.

Christina 18:18

That was my next question Okay. Let's talk about them. Yes.

Holly 18:21

And it's I'm always like low hanging fruit. A lot of people, all they need to do is start with our matrix. So we have a matrix of like a low hanging fruit marketing matrix of like who you know and I give you scripts and everything of like how you could tweet this. Here's a little email or here's a phone call message or here's just like a DM message. Yeah, and it's starting with people you actually know. Right, and most people get booked out just like that.

And I always say, like what's funny? I would say, being a grant writer is the best party trick at any networking event, any networking event or conference you go to. As soon as people go, what do you do? You're a grant writer. You look at at least three heads. We'll whip around and look at you. I need your card. I know somebody who. I need one. It's not hard to get clients as a freelance grant writer at all. It's actually one of the easiest things in your business. What we do most coaching on is just like how do I do my prices? How do I do my packages? How do I build up my retainers? Where's a memorandum of understanding? I'm writing a grant.

We have all of that inside our program, so we teach you the grant writing skills.

Christina 19:23

but we also do grant use.

Holly 19:25

So you're like how do I know this is good, so you get both Okay.

Christina 19:28

So you get the how do I grant write skills like that entire. You're gonna build up that capacity and then you're gonna get the part that you and I have basically just learned through. Okay, that didn't work and okay, that did work. We've DIYed, which is fine, which is like contracts, like you said. Just pricing oh my gosh pricing. What do I wanna offer? What do I wanna niche down on or not niche down on all of those pieces they get the support there. I think that's the piece that a lot of people who are considering moving into freelancing and consulting feels really like. It feels hard and I get that and I just wanna honor that. It does feel hard to be like well, what's market rate and what do I say and what do I charge? And I remember my first meeting and completely undercharging. And now it's so sweet Like I think of sweet Christina who was like I'll do that for $200. But it was like listen, I didn't know what I didn't know and to have somebody to help you through that learning curve a little faster is.

It's the best. It's the best, it's huge.

Holly 20:29

Yeah, we have our how to do value-based pricing and then we really get deep into that. We have even, like when you have thoughts that come up around that, because a lot of it's based on your money trauma and your like trauma and all of your experiences with money and everything. So it does take some like looking at yourself and introspection, for sure, and we honor that. So we have a self-coaching part as well that we really work with.

Christina 20:54

I'm glad to hear that.

Holly 20:55

Yeah, like I'm suffering with guilt over charging a nonprofit, they're asking me to do it for free and I'm having feelings around this. So we really get into. We actually have a program inside. It's our ethical nonprofit sales strategies. So we really get into that too, because a lot of times you might think you're doing the nonprofit a huge favor by doing pro bono work or whatever.

Christina 21:17

But, and there's a time and a place for that.

Holly 21:19

But we show you how to like kind of navigate where that time and place is and how you could actually be doing a disservice If you're not out there advertising for who you are and what you do. Right, people need your services right they do. And if they pay at such a deep discount or for a free a lot of times they're not actually gonna do the work to get it done. So there's also give and take that we talk about there and it really does help people then show up more confident about what they do and really understand the value. So we also have like a pitch deck and camber that we help them with like the little advantage, just so they feel like, okay, yeah, they understand completely their services.

So we love that because, yeah, that part of like how are sales ethical in the nonprofit space?

Christina 22:04

Yeah, it gets, it can feel muddy and confusing, right.

Holly 22:08

And we don't want you to feel icky about charging a price that you're like, but that is what I should be charging, right? So it's like we don't say these are the rates to charge. We work with each person individually, from where they are Like. If you are in New York City, your pricing is gonna be different than someone in rural, like you know, wyoming, like you could be right, and that's okay.

Christina 22:30

Your overhead costs more like, and that's okay. Yeah, exactly.

Holly 22:35

And so it's like also looking at each person and where they're at and working them through that. So we do love to give a lot of feedback and reviews. We have a daily Slack channel. We meet up twice a month so we can really coach people individually through how they're working through that. So we love it and we have our curriculums like Top Notch so they can go through that as well. But we love to give the reviews like work on it. Let us see it. If you have any feelings about it or thoughts, or why aren't you showing that? Why aren't you sending that out? Yes, yes, that's what we need to talk about, right? Then it's that thought about that price. Yeah, that thought about showing up. So we actually have a whole script, too, on what questions. So what objections you're gonna get as a grant writer specifically.

Christina 23:17

Oh, that's smart.

Holly 23:18

So yeah, cause you're gonna go a lot of objections like, well, can you work on commission? Can you work for free? Can you give it a discount? Do you have a grant writing certification? What's your ROI? And we show you like, depending on where you are, here's how you can respond and step into this response with confidence, because that can hold a lot of people back just cause they don't exactly know how to respond to that.

Christina 23:39

I even I have heard, like I've had clients say oh, blah, blah, blah, this grant writer, can they do it on commission? I'm like you guys, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it. So everyone, yes, yes, collectively. If you hear that in the wild, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, go ahead and just.

Holly 23:59

How do you respond in an ethical way of being like? It's because it's against best practices, it's because you actually can't do that. The federal grants will not actually give you that budget. You know what I mean. You know how to talk, because it's not necessarily the nonprofits fault. A lot of these questions at all.

It's once again, it's more of a system of toxicity that they're not even aware of, right? So it's like just being. It's not the individual. It's like hey, we just need to educate you in your when you're doing your discovery sales call Like this is how you can respond to those objections in a very ethical way and not like as a mad or angry way like you guys, don't you?

know, so you can be like, oh, it's because of this and that's why we don't do that. And it's like, oh, and more so than our nonprofits are. Like, oh, I didn't know that, they just didn't know because there's so many urbanists out there. Right, there are. Yeah, it is all into that.

Christina 24:50

And it's not our fault, but we gotta educate them. So they yeah. I wanna offer that because you and I have been basically on the outside as consultants for a long, long time, working with so many organizations like across the board. I know that you have worked with so many internationally different types, different everything. Can we both just say that, no matter how tiny, tiny, tiny and big, big, big they are, they use freelancers, they hire consultants Like I could see that too of being like well, only this type of nonprofit will have no, no.

Holly 25:24

And I can say having more. I think smaller ones, yeah, and two more right, and the larger ones will too. I've gotten huge institutions. Organizations have hired me and my clients right to do different grant writing and it's you know they all, there's a place for both.

Christina 25:41

There's a place for all of it. And the other piece that I was thinking, particularly for the smaller organizations that maybe they're starting salary for a full-time person would be like $30,000 a year. Where you're like, no, this is a no right, I can't survive off of this. They can pay somebody less. They could pay you as a grant writer, as a consultant, less than that. You could get more awards for them. So they get more money. You get paid more because you have multiple clients.

I'm like this is just back to like this more is more philosophy that I love so much, which is just like there is a way. I guess here's my, here's my promise. There is a way to stay in the nonprofit sector and not leave the nonprofit sector and deliver tons of value, serve and make a ton of money. Like you get to do those things. And I think part of the challenge is that people feel like to work and serve in the nonprofit sector means that I have to make. Maybe I can top out at 60K, so I have a decade. It's like I understand and know Like what if we just reject that and we do this better thing over here and still stay in this yeah, and it will help the nonprofits budget, right?

Holly 26:53

Like, even if you said like, okay, 30,000 is what they're advertising for salary, I could never do that. But if you came in under retainer and said 3,000 a month and I'm gonna write I can't earn grants, that's actually more than 30,000, but then their heads they're like, oh, that's better for us.

Like, there's a way that you can, you know, think about it. I'm gonna do this, but think about taking on a couple of those clients, two or three of those clients, right, Like that, and that's not difficult. Like it's not difficult and, like you said, like I see a lot of startup nonprofits like their first EDs, like a consultant sometimes like it's crazy right.

And like, but they can budget better, like there's so many things with hiring, non-profit consultants. So even with, I tell a lot of folks and I've done this personally so I tell a lot of my folks in my program too is, if you see a job like a J-O-B advertisement in a nonprofit for a grant writer, apply for your business. If you love that Like, use your business and be like my business, can actually come on and do that J-O-B. But we'll do it under a contract.

We'll be a contractor, because a lot of times nonprofits have never even thought about that that is right.

Christina 27:58

And as a consultant I have been offered the J-O-B and I'm like thank you and no, and guess what? They still keep me on. They've still kept me on and said we love you, please stay.

And you can, and it's like that is the best of both worlds, because I get to say I'm out of town these two weeks, I'm traveling these two weeks. These are the blocks of my calendar. I'm not asking for approval Again. This is how I like structure the business and that ability, that freedom, I think, is again, it's just the best. It's the best.

Holly 28:27

Yeah, so you can be creative with it. Right, and even before I've had J-O-Bs while working as a freelancer and I've just thought of them as a VIP client. That's how they're paying me. So even coming in with that paradigm has really helped a lot of people be like, okay, this is just like a gig, it's a good VIP client, but they're paying my taxes for that contract.

Christina 28:49

It's like I love it, it's so smart and then keeping.

Holly 28:52

You're still keeping clients on the side. You're still mentally I'm still a business owner and you will have a different relationship with the ED for sure when you walk into something like that. I've also had people in the program then do work as a consultant and then get hired from the nonprofit later on and they love that. Once again they treat it like a VIP client. They've gotten better wages than they've ever gotten before. One of the ladies in my program super cool. She wrote this grant $2.5 million for this nonprofit. They hired her then after three weeks of negotiation I don't know, I don't know, I don't wanna do it, but because the salary was huge, the best benefit she ever got Then in three weeks she got a promotion of another K-Rays in that. That is like you're a VIP today. You're not my boss.

Christina 29:40

That's right. She's not a unicorn, though, and that's the best part is like she did it and she's not a unicorn, and this is possible, and this isn't a single unicorn. Nonprofit and one unicorn person finding each other.

It's like no, this is what you get to do. I also think for stay at home moms, for single moms or caretakers. I think several people in my life are caretaking for their parents. It's like this is such a great place when you're like I cannot report nine to five in office. I have caretaking to do. It's like to be able to have, but I need stable income and that's the magic there for sure. So we covered, like one of the biggest things which I wanted to make sure we cover, which is like oh, but I don't wanna market, I don't wanna sell right.

So what I hear you saying is that you don't have to go live on your Facebook page and do all of the things, even a lot of people in my program don't even have websites yet.

Holly 30:36

Oh, I'm so glad you said that, yeah, they're like and I'm like, stop fiddling with your website. To the other half.

Christina 30:43

I'm so glad you said that it's true.

Holly 30:45

I'm sorry to say that. Just pick up the song. That's right, that's right.

Christina 30:49

Don't worry about your logo.

Holly 30:50

Don't worry about your logo, your website, your brand colors.

Christina 30:53

Let's go, get you some business.

Holly 30:55

Yeah.

Christina 30:56

That's like you don't need all of that.

Holly 30:59

Like you know, it's almost like the old school, like Rolodex. That's all you need, right? So I just like building that. How do you build that? Well, that's pretty easy too. You figure out cause, areas you really wanna support and you go to some of those conferences and those networking events. Like I said, all you need to say is I'm a grant writer and you've got the party trick. So, like you can, literally another girl this last week this is so pretty wrong.

These things like this is what happens in our program. Like every week we have these amazing things that are happening. Same thing. She's like I'm just booked, I'm fully booked out with my clients now. And she said, just because I just went to a networking event and I basically was like you know, in conversation I was like, oh yeah, I'm a grant writer and then I'm done, like I'm solid, and I was like, all right, we're good, we need a few months to be in the program. Yeah, just because of you know. It's like, yes, we can do low hanging, easy things. We don't have to do hard things. It doesn't all have to be like these crazy, crazy systems and tech and all the things Like you don't need that.

Like you know it's a skill and you just need to know how to connect your skill to the right people and know what you want to sell, right. So, when you're very clear on who you are and what causes you want to serve, that's all we need. Like I can teach you the skills, like we're going to also help you articulate that. And then it's like okay, how do you do your pricing? Well, here's a few different ways. Get some feedback here you go, get out there and get your clients. Like it doesn't have to be difficult, but even throughout that process right Once people get clients.

Sometimes they're like oh, I have a, problems are like happening. We coach through that as well. A lot of times it's usually because maybe your policies we have to go back to your policies, what your policies about, like how you would do grants. Are you actually resting in your policies? Are you implementing your policies? We talk a lot about the business operations as well, which I love, because we want people to be like yes, I'm showing up 100 percent for my clients. That's usually like if they have clients before they came in the program, before they had their policies. But we can work on those, we can tweak those, we can help you with those, because we also have people that do come in going like it just haven't got momentum in my business, so we help that as well, yeah, that's a good one.

Christina 33:09

Yeah, I mean, policies are again one of those things where it's like, oh yeah, I figured those out along the way.

Holly 33:14

I was like I need that policy.

Christina 33:15

I remember being like, oh, going to put that in the contract of just things that you learned through trial and error. It's nice to have like experts like, okay, we got you. It's so funny because of how much you're talking about the parallel of starting and running a thriving grant writing business and what it takes to online fundraise, what it takes to become a really powerful nonprofit leader. There's so many through lines and a lot of it is, for me, just it's less of the don't worry about your website and more about direct outreach. One or two relationships can make or break and it doesn't mean we're making you go stand on a TEDx stage or something really like.

Holly 33:58

do you know what I mean?

Christina 33:59

Yeah To have a business that's really thriving. I think that's the place that people either get stuck or that it feels just really hard. The marketing part, or maybe the systems part. And it makes me think about when I brought on my more recent VA this year and I thought I had systems and she was like I'm going to make you systems and it's like, yes, you can hire out for some of that stuff, you can hire your weaknesses. I had a framework for her but she, boy did she make it 10x better. And I told her I was like I've been using this framework for five years and I've had multiple people go through it. You nailed it, you made it better and so you can bring out on people who help you at a very low cost. She could be a couple hours a week or something like that. So that feeling of isolation that I think that sometimes people get overwhelmed with freelancing doesn't have to quite be that way.

Holly 34:47

It doesn't have to be that way. Yeah, and we have, like we also have, once you reach 50k in your business, you get into our quarterly club as well, where we teach more like the same concepts, because we don't want to overwhelm everyone who's starting out there too, because then they are going to dive into that website. They are going to, like, start tinkering, like courses and all of the things.

Christina 35:07

We're like no, no, no, just wait.

Holly 35:08

All you need to do is be working in your business right now writing grants like getting clients. That's it.

Christina 35:13

Don't be doing all the other things.

Holly 35:15

Then when you get there, then we'll take you to the next level. But let's first get you there, right, like, let's get you there first, so we do have where we can do that with them and we have some tiered kind of opportunities for people as they're going through the program.

Christina 35:28

Right, yeah, Is there anything else? Yeah, that I haven't asked, that you would like to share about, and we're going to have, before my last and final question, anything else you feel like your people should know, my people should know.

Holly 35:40

Yeah, I just I think you know anyone who's working with nonprofits and in the nonprofit sector to really think about what they're doing. Am I really showing up in a way that I can really drive impact in the best way? And that might be a hell yes for where you're at right now and it might be. I'm not sure. And here's what I'm talking about is a lot of people. They might be like I want to have a meaningful job, so I'm going to go start a nonprofit or I'm going to go, like you know, work inside a nonprofit.

But there's other opportunities or I'm going to go, like you know, have a soup kitchen once a year which is great, all of those things are great, but there's other skills that you might be able to have a bigger impact that suit your personality more Like freelance grant writing.

Like we're going to throw that out there right, you can generate millions of dollars for causes. It's not just like volunteering once a month, like you can literally generate millions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars, even $10,000, right, and grants, like all these things to drive a cause forward that you're passionate about. And maybe you are more like I like to work behind the keyboard, I like to do like more, I like writing right, I like to figure out these puzzle pieces. This is actually where, like, going out and volunteering at a fundraiser is not where I'm comfortable. You can have a lot and I've said that there's not impact there, but you can have a lot of impact, significantly.

Christina 37:06

In other positions.

Holly 37:07

Yeah, that you may have just never thought about, even if that's helping like as a nonprofit consultant, right Like what you do, christina, right Like helping marketing, like you can bring millions of dollars of funders and donors because you're working in a skill that really lights you up. And it doesn't have to be like that traditional, like oh, you started a nonprofit, like there's a lot of nonprofits out there.

Christina 37:27

Do we really need?

Holly 37:28

to be starting more, maybe for some causes, but for a lot of them, there's a lot of overlap, actually, right? Yes, yeah, we want to focus on what is the most impactful thing that you can be doing and do you need to like suffer by doing it?

Christina 37:42

No, right, right. You don't, you don't, you don't need to be marbors in the nonprofit world to make that cause.

Holly 37:48

But is that we believe in like helpful? Like I see so many people like working to the bone, their family life is like nothing because they're working so hard, because they're so passionate about like a program for children, like the nonprofit serves children and their own children they hardly have any time with. And I'm not trying to shame or blame, I'm just putting facts on the table. Like sometimes we feel like we have to give so much to something that we take away from ourselves and that is toxic, that is not healthy. So really have a look at yourself and see where you are. Maybe in that prism, like you know what I mean. Like are you at what is the lens on that? Yeah, that would be my main kind of takeaway. And to be like there is a way where you can be very impactful with a skill that you can learn, that really like jazz, with your personality and with whom you are.

Christina 38:40

Yeah, my husband shared this like Instagram post with with me and like resonated with both of us and it was basically like your employer won't remember all the nights and weekends you worked, but your kids will, like they will. Your employer is not going to remember that Tuesday night or that Saturday night or whatever they're not going to. And so just to remember that I think it was like, oh yeah, that's a good one OK the last question. I think we'll drive forward the impact. You can still do that, but you still can't.

Holly 39:07

Yeah yes, that will help you, that's right, that's right.

Christina 39:11

You can do it better.

Holly 39:12

You can even do it when you're not burned out, when you can show up on a percent, when you're just focusing on the skill that you're good at, instead of all the meetings that you don't need to really attend but you have to and all the other things that you have to go to as an employee. You can cut that out and just focus on the skill that you're good at and drive forward intact.

Christina 39:29

that way, and I'm glad you said that yeah, because that's how we work. Faster is when we're not in all these extra meetings as an employee that have nothing to do with us, right, and we're actually fast tracking, getting the client exactly what they need and doing it in our own time. Like we literally work faster. I know I do for sure.

Holly 39:47

And then employees are burned out because they're like I can't reach my milestones because you're making me do all this You're going to be alone. You're being so needed. Right All other as needed in their job description. That's all they're really hanging out in not the other things. Yeah.

Christina 40:02

OK, last question we ask on the podcast is what is one thought that you like to think on purpose? So this could be an affirmation, a mantra, just something that's like a guiding post for you, that you're like, yeah, that gives me a little something.

Holly 40:16

I like that. I have a lot of them. I always kind of like switch up my thoughts, but I think you know one that I've really nestled in a lot is I am enough, and I just I love that because it's simple. It's not like I am amazing or I am, this is just I'm enough. And I think when we show up knowing like for me it's really been this mantra of like I'm enough, even if I don't feel like enough today or whatever.

whatever I am and that's and I just think that's a beautiful kind of simple take away, yeah, yeah.

Christina 40:45

I'm enough, I love it. That's right, like say it out loud. Yes, yeah. So where can everyone find you hang out with you? I know we're going to link to the webinar which is happening on January 10.

Holly 40:58

Okay.

Christina 40:59

Tell us yeah you can.

Holly 41:01

Yeah, people can definitely find us at grant writing and fundingcom and I know you'll have that in the show notes so you can hang out over there. We'll have our link to our webinar, more information about us. You can also join our freelance grant writer hub haven, where every single week, we give out our stress free nugget for grant writers and grant writers, so we love to have that. We also like drop our podcast. As you all are podcast listeners, you can definitely jump over to grant writing and funding. Christine has been out a couple of times, so you want to show our. Grab those links. And we just celebrated our 300th episode last week.

Yes, I'm really excited about that, yeah, so definitely join us over there If you're interested in more of these concepts. We're dropping a lot of like what we've learned with freelance grant writers how we train them, our formulas in our program, all of the things we talk about grant writing. We talk about all the things. So definitely, yeah, join us at our webinar If you any of us resonated with you all today and you're just like you know what that kind of like Sign up for the webinar, you'll dig.

Christina 42:01

You have the same, I feel like, level of enthusiasm that I do. So if you dig me, you'll dig her, and also you, you do. I see you run your business. There's a lot of overlap and values to mine. You send amazing value packed emails and you are unapologetic. You're unapologetic about sending emails to your audience. We didn't even talk about that today, but everybody is listening to this podcast, knows I talk about email all the time. So, the very least, sign up for the webinar, join the email list and you can get a sense of like what is trending in the sector, what's working and what you've got cooking. Yeah.

Holly 42:33

Oh yeah, you join, you guys are going to get emails, but we give, like you said, very value. Like we talk about the things in our program, like we highlight, like our concepts and our industry concepts, and so you really understand that, like you're on our list to know about those things, so we want to let you know. So, yeah, if you're interested in more like I don't even send more emails like join, join my email.

Christina 42:58

We can show you. Yeah, and I love that you do that. We talked about that, yeah, yeah, we're like go email. Yes, thank you so much for coming on today. It was so fun.

Holly 43:07

This is awesome.

Christina 43:09

Right, see you next time. You know how they say you should enjoy the journey, not just the destination. Have you ever wondered how do I crack the code to do that? I can help you do that. I can help you not only achieve your biggest, most daring goals, but the journey to get there. No more overwhelm, no more self doubt. I want to invite you to book a call with me. Go to splendid atlcom forward slash book.

You Get To Have Purpose And Profit. I’ll Show You How.

 
 
PodcastChristina Edwardspurpose and profit, marketing, entrepreneurship, purpose driven, nonprofit, social impact, mindset, productivityComment