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Grant Writing Success: Insights from Casey Bryan | Nonprofit411 Podcast · Nonprofit411 Podcast

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Welcome to the Nonprofit 411 podcast, the podcast where we speak with nonprofit professionals and experts to uncover strategies, share insights, and tackle the challenges you face in fundraising and sustainability.
I'm Sarah Barton, your fundraising growth partner and the founder of Nonprofit 411.
My mission is to help you develop tailored strategies and support you as you implement them, ensuring your nonprofit thrives.
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Let's dive into today's episode and learn from the experiences and expertise of those who have been in your shoes.
Hello, and welcome to the nonprofit for one, one podcast.
I'm so excited to have you joining us today.
I'm your host, Sarah Barton.
And today I'm joined by Casey Bryan from Summit Grant Consulting, who she is the founder and owner there.
So welcome.
Hey, thank you so much for having me.
I'm excited to join you this week.
Yes.
I'm excited to have you and to talk about what your experiences in the nonprofit world.
Before we get started, let's go to my favorite question, which is what is your favorite hobby? I have many, but I think right now probably one of my favorite hobbies is photography.
It's something that I enjoy doing.
I can spend three or four hours walking around the botanic gardens here in the Denver area with my camera and just enjoy silence and capturing the beauty that is there because they've got some amazing displays.
So that's been one of my favorite things to do recently.
Awesome.
Well, I'm a little, I'm a little jealous.
One year in Denver and you're at the botanical gardens.
It's one of my favorite places to go.
Yeah.
My husband and I really enjoy going to botanical gardens and we also enjoy photography and he particularly enjoys photography of plants and bugs.
And he, he takes amazing photos.
on his phone.
So he is like an amazing phone photographer.
I'm all about the flowers.
Every once in a while I'll attempt to do some macro photography with bugs, but isn't that my thing? I like the flowers and the plants and still out to capture that.
elusive photo of a hummingbird hovering right nearby.
So, they usually follow me around at the gardens.
I'm just waiting for them, the timing to you know, align so that I can get that one perfect photo of them in flight.
Oh, that's awesome.
That's awesome.
We caught one on, you know, it's so funny you say that.
Cause we caught one on camera when we were in Hawaii at Pearl Harbor.
Like they, I was shocked.
They just like, are so familiar.
They just come up.
And so we caught one then, but I didn't know that like there's hummingbirds at the Botanical Gardens.
I would enjoy that.
Yeah.
There's usually a couple that follow me around.
I came.
really close to getting one.
And I couldn't get my camera to focus on it.
And I was like, I'm looking right at it.
And I take my camera down and it's hovering like three feet right in front of my face.
And I had on like my super zoom lens.
So I was like, well, that's why I can't see it.
So maybe one of these days I'll finally catch one in flight.
I did catch one sitting on a branch near right over near my house.
So I'm just waiting for that one in flight.
That's the one that I'm aiming to get.
So hopefully soon, maybe this spring.
Do you have tricks for getting them to follow you? No, I don't.
I just will.
I'll be walking around and I usually have my headphones and just like listening to, you know, music.
Rarely a podcast.
I'm too focused on my camera and in the settings to pay attention to a podcast.
But every once in a while, I'll hear them like I can hear their wings and that's when I'm like, okay, where is it and I'll find it, but then I can't get to, I can't get my camera to focus fast enough to get it.
So they just appear and I'm, and I don't know why that is, but I hear them and I'm like, okay, maybe today's the day.
So, yeah, that's exciting.
I hope that that happens for you soon.
Yeah.
People will hear me excited about it when I finally capture it.
Yeah.
Yeah, I understand.
That's really exciting.
Well, tell our listeners a little bit about yourself now, Casey.
Yeah, sure.
So, I am a nonprofit grant consultant strategist and writer.
I've been involved in the nonprofits for a little over 10 years now, maybe a little bit longer.
I've been grant writing, I think for about eight years.
That's both as a full time employee at a nonprofit, Or on a volunteer or consultant basis.
So I've done kind of the gamut of grant writing for nonprofits.
And I've been independently consulting for, it'll be four years this fall.
So it's been something that I've really enjoyed doing and it was a absolute joy to finally launch my own consulting business this past summer.
It's something I've wanted to do.
So that was, you know, a dream Seen to fruition.
So it was really exciting to finally be able to take that step and.
The leap of faith, if you will, to go, you can do this and, and go for it head first outside of a work environment.
Photography, as we mentioned, is one of my things that I enjoy.
I also love going to concerts.
Concert photography is one of my favorite things to do as well.
So you'll often see me at a concert with camera in my hand.
Traveling spending time with my dogs on the couch, watching a favorite TV show or movie that's, or watching them with the zoomies out in the snow, as it is right now, so they're having a lot of fun and just, you know, my other random thing is listening to true crime podcasts, so, particularly right now I'm stuck on the Dateline podcasts, so that's something that I listen to when I'm driving, which, I think it's probably a little bit odd, but it's oddly satisfying, like in a relaxing way.
It just kind of helps calm my mind because I'm focusing on the details and trying to make a decision for myself if you know what I think the outcome is going to be.
So it's one of those things that kind of just helps focus in.
While I'm driving, which is very strange.
It works fine.
So it's funny, my husband and I got married.
So we've been together 23 years.
And when we first got married, we lived in separate towns.
And so there, we had a lot of travel.
We had a lot of travel back and forth.
But it was really before podcast.
So.
I used to get the CDs of like the old time murder radio shows where they would like make the sounds and stuff.
Yes.
So, yeah.
So, definitely.
That's my only you know, experience with driving, but I'll have to think about that one because that might be fun to do too.
Yeah, there's, there's a couple of good ones.
That one's just the one that I've been listening to recently because there's so many episodes.
So I just put it on and each time I get in the car just starts playing and when I, you know, takes me a minute to remember okay which case was I listening to okay now, and then I'll go but it's just, it's kind of one of those things that it's just nice every once in a while I will give myself a break and I'll Throw my music on shuffle and see what plays.
Yeah.
Well, great.
Well, I'm really excited to have you and just to talk a little bit about fundraising through you primarily do through grants, right? Yes.
And what other experience do you have at the nonprofits? I've done, done lots of different jobs when I first started out my first full time position in a nonprofit outside of school was for a real small ballet company out in West Texas.
the Midland Odessa area.
If you're not familiar with that area, it's about six and a half hours west of Fort Worth.
And that one, I, there, that's where I wore multiple hats.
I was a dancer in the company.
I was the business office manager and dance instructor.
So I did multiple things Took a little bit of break went to grad school and when I finished, I came back in my first like real full time in more of a like administrative type role was after grad school.
I was the operations manager, so I did a little bit of everything from, you know, working on fundraising.
I did some grant writing, but it was mostly like email and direct mail campaigns social media campaigns, things like that was the box office manager.
That was.
Interesting and fun, especially when you're trying to implement a new box office ticketing system, it's, it throws everybody for a loop when they're so used to doing the same thing over and over.
So that one was probably what I would call my Jack of all trades position.
And then from there I was able to do administrative like assistant positions where I could kind of get my hands on a little bit of everything.
And then my first full time grant writing position was with.
The Fort Worth Opera in, I think it was 2018 was when I started there.
And that was where I finally got to dive headfirst in and really start to get into what I enjoyed about Grant Rygene, which was.
You know, not was but is enjoying telling the story of the nonprofit.
Why are they doing the work that they do? How does it benefit their community and the people they serve and channeling creativity from a dance background into a more, you know, writing background and being able to still find the way to tell the story through writing rather than movement and acting.
Yeah.
Yeah, really heavy in the arts.
So that's really exciting.
I, I can't think of any fundraisers that I've actually spoken with recently who are so heavy in the arts.
So.
I grew up dancing started when I was five years old, danced until I was like 28 or 29.
So almost 25 years.
And so it's something I'm, I'm super familiar with.
I knew at some point I would have to retire.
And I was like, what's a way that I could stay involved in the arts? you know, even when I can't perform.
And grant writing was that I saw grant writing as a way to do that, to still be involved, but, and still be creative but not have to worry so much about the face to face asks that you do as an individual fundraiser.
I'm much better with words on paper than sometimes in person.
Yeah.
I, I like the words on paper myself too.
I really, I really liked that about grant writing.
Yeah.
Tell me about the different types of grants that you've gone after you know, has it been larger federal grants or more in the like local community and state grants.
For the most part, it's usually Foundation grants like private foundations, family foundations community foundations.
I've also done some state and local government grants.
I have recently also done, I think it was two yep, it was two, maybe a third one, I'm, I'm blanking now.
But I have done a couple of National Endowment for the Arts grants.
And those are some pretty intense grant applications to do.
They're not long, but.
The one thing that I've noticed about anything that is state level or federal level is it's very detailed, you know, the amount it is.
So I haven't done those as often, especially now as a consultant, since I'm a one man team and I don't quite have the capacity for federal grants at the moment.
So I've done all the way from local city, you know, like your local city government, all the way up to at least national endowment for the arts.
So, did a couple of state.
Grants for a emergency use shelter in the Dallas area and I that felt like I was doing an NEA grant.
It was very intense.
By the time I finished with those, both those proposals were 80 pages long.
It was super intense.
It was very we had very data driven, very data heavy, you know, that kind of thing, but they were both successful.
So I can't, you know, it's like, okay, it was worth it in the end for the six weeks of stress that I went through to get them completed to see the amount that the organization was awarded and how that would really help The kids that they were serving.
That was like the biggest reward for me personally was to see that, hey, I can do this type of grant on the first go around and be successful at it.
So it's federal government grants aren't necessarily my favorite thing, but I know I can do them.
So I tend to focus on the smaller, like local city government grants and foundation grants.
Oh, good.
So that, that's really interesting.
And so as a grant writer who works with various organizations, what are some things that you always tell organizations when you start working with them? Probably one of the first things I always remind organizations is that grant fundraising is not an overnight type of fundraising.
It is a long term fundraising.
Sometimes I think there's a bit of a misconception that You know, you'll write for a grant, you apply for it and you find out pretty quick and then you have, you know, these thousands of dollars to use and that's Not necessarily the case for anybody who's involved in grant writing knows that sometimes you're lucky if you get a response back within three months, but I, you know, so I always tell them when you're doing grant fundraising, remember the timeline is that you write and submit the application, but then you're looking at a three to six month time frame to find out if you've been awarded the grant or if it's been declined.
So it's not something that's an overnight that can solve all your fundraising problems right away.
I always Kind of tell them, think of it as like your individual is your short term sustainability and fundraising and grants is your long term fundraising sustainability because as you build up the relationships with your funders and you have those funds coming in, you know how to plan for that so that you can sustain your organization through grant fundraising, but it's not something that happens overnight or within a few weeks.
It's something that is long term.
So Keep in mind, keep that patience, which I know is very hard to do because we all want to know if we'll get the award, but that's probably the first thing that I usually tell clients when I work with them, especially if they're new to grants, you know, and they have a little bit of background and understanding of grants.
That's one of the first things I will tell them is this is not something to think that'll happen right away.
It's, it's a, it's a slow burn, if you will.
Yes.
Yeah, I like that description.
That's something that I often.
Also often emphasizes that, you know, it's it's not quick money.
It is.
And it requires an investment on the other side.
So to be very thoughtful about whether or not you have the capacity to make that investment when you get the money.
Mm hmm.
Yes.
Completely agree.
And that's, I usually also will say, you know, when you're applying for a grant, yes, it's money to help you, you know, Provide your programs and, you know, serve your community, but you want to think of it as an investment, not just for you, but for the funder.
What are they investing in? Why should they invest in you? And you have to start building that from the very beginning, especially with the new funder.
And even if it's somebody who's you.
You know, supported your organization for multiple years, maintain that relationship and remind them, you know, why their investment is important.
Yes, it helps with the administrative things, but your investment is helping us do X, Y and Z in the community.
And that's really the important thing about when you're grant writing to is framing it as an investment, not just a donation of say 10 15, 000, but an investment and showing the funder how their investment is actually making a difference in the community.
Yeah, yeah, I like that.
So, are you seeing any changes in the grant funding.
Segment right now is we, you know, we have a lot of changes administratively in the United States.
We have a lot of shifts just, you know, in the industry and, and in the, you know, the nonprofit sector, as well as the for profit sector, are you seeing any changes that are coming along that you're just noticing a new trends? I haven't seen any recently.
I'm that I've noticed.
I also haven't in the last couple of weeks been able to kind of really dive in to see what, you know, what changes are coming, what's been happening.
This is my busy season for consulting.
So like nose deep and, and client projects and deadlines.
But I am definitely curious to see how with the new administration, how that affects obviously not just like your federal funding that states rely on, you know, for many organizations rely on, but how that will affect, you know, foundation giving.
You know, how are family foundations, private foundations, community foundations, how are they going to shift to help organizations through a very uncertain time right now? So that's, I've been paying a lot of attention to that in the last week or so, just to see how people are starting to respond, how funders are responding, and you know, Signing up for a lot of emails from foundations and funders just to see so I can get a feel for how they're responding art so that if I have a client that has a question, how does this affect us? I can say, you know, I can at least come up with, you know, my best estimated guess of what might happen, but you know, let's not panic.
We have, we still have these options available to us.
These are things that I've noticed funders are doing to make the shift to be able to support us.
So that's something that I've, Definitely been paying attention to in the last couple of weeks, and I'm curious, but also slightly anxious to see how all of this unfolds and how this will affect all of these nonprofits that are doing, you know, the work that they're doing, especially for, you know, Those who are experiencing like homelessness and, you know, food insecurity and things like that, like those services that families need, it'll be a very trying time, I'm sure.
And hopefully if I have a client that is in that space, I can help them find other sources of funding so that they continue doing that work if they're, if the federal level, federal level, you know, shifts and changes.
Yeah, I think with any shift or change, even.
You know, it's just the unpredictability of what to anticipate.
And I think that happens with every administration, actually.
So I've been writing under five different presidents now, I think.
And, you know, you just never know how it's going to shift a little bit.
It's really tricky.
I think when we have elected positions and, and agencies that, you know, aren't really They just can't predict, they can't predict how the administrations will view their agency.
So, so one of the things like I am really passionate about is talking about sustainability outside of the grant, you know, and you, you kind of referenced it talking about making sure that they have the quick response and I think long term response when we talk about donors when you build projects.
What do you encourage organizations to think about when they're looking at the ongoing sustainability of projects after their grant? I always encourage them, one of my biggest things is communicating with their donors, whether it be a foundation funder, a corporate sponsor, an individual.
Find that communication method or tool that, you know, resonates with your donor base and, you know, those that support you.
You know, I've suggested most of the clients that I work with right now are very small organizations, so, you know, there's and a lot of people are familiar with them because they've been around, you know, in their community for 50 plus years, so I always tell them, you know, even if you have a donor that's been around for 25 years and consistently give still keep them updated, communicate with them throughout You know, your season, if you're performing arts or throughout the year, no matter what, you know, your organization, you know, what's what nonprofit space you're in and letting them know how their dollars are still providing that impact in the community, show them how their dollars have been used or spent, you know, and I think that's one of the biggest things is being transparent.
And when you run into, you know, a situation like we're in right now, where it's super, you know, feels very chaotic and uncertain, we don't know what's going to happen, the more you can also share of saying now is more important than ever for your help, you know, for your support.
And if you can help us do this, then we can continue doing this.
And it's, I think that's one of the things that I've noticed times, usually smaller nonprofits that might not have the capacity.
In that moment to be able to provide that kind of communication, so I usually will suggest that, hey, I can help you come up with a timeline that's about as far as I can get capacity wise, but if I can at least help them come up with the timeline of when to send out communications, kind of, I would say at this point, talk about this.
You know, and kind of just give them a real broad idea, then that's something that can help towards their sustainability, because the more you're transparent and show that impact, the more likely that your donors and your supporters are going to stay and engage with you and continue, you know, supporting you and your mission.
Yeah, yeah.
Gone are the days when organizations can depend on, you know, just having an Outlook account and Spreadsheets.
There are lots of donor platforms that are available.
Give Butter is free.
Yes.
You know, available.
And that allows you to coordinate your messaging and get that message out there to your donors.
And I think, you know, as you were talking and you were mentioning being transparent, I think being able to be transparent about what you know is coming down the pike.
So like in this.
If we have traditionally depended on a state grant or a federal grant, and we're unsure, we know what that amount is, right? And I think that that's a way that.
It boosts our transparency saying, you know, we know that this is the amount that we're going to be having to make up in a different way and we would like to share with you some opportunities to help join us in doing this, you know, yeah, that's something I've started thinking about one of my clients.
They have been receiving a local grant through their arts council for many, many years.
It's like.
I hesitate to use the word guaranteed, but it's essentially guaranteed funding for them.
The amount might differ every year based on the number of applications that come in for that particular program, but they've received, there's not a year that I can think of where they've been declined that grant.
And for them, the amount that is awarded is a, would be considered a major gift for them.
And so I'm thinking, okay, now, how are we going to, if we have to, how do we shift to make up this somewhere between 10, that you would generally receive, where can we find another source for that to make up for that gap? If, you know, funding at the local city level is on pause or has to be allocated elsewhere.
So that is something that I'm starting to share with my clients.
Start thinking about this now.
No, find those ones that you know are upcoming, especially if they're, you know, a government grant, local, federal, whatever.
What do you usually receive for that? Where might we be able to shift our focus to find other streams of revenue to come in to make up for that if we're unable to get that grant because of whatever changes are coming our way? Yeah.
And since it's such a, you know, if it's an unanticipated shift, I really think it's a great opportunity for us to look within our donor.
Donor database and see if there's any donors.
There may be donors.
They're hiding, you know, major donor gift donors that are hiding there wanting or willing to cover the gap.
So, so that's what we just need.
And a lot of times too.
I always tell people sometimes you just have to make the ask.
The donor is waiting for you to reach out to them, and you won't know that until you actually do, and you set up a meeting, and you sort of, you know, further develop that relationship that you already have with them, and making that, you know, maybe they've already given, and now you're just going to ask, would you be willing to support us further in this, you know, uncertain time, and a lot of times they just want to be asked, but they're not going to tell you that.
So you have to, you have to kind of use your own instinct and intuition to say, I think they want to support us.
Let's set up a meeting and see if there might be another way they'd like to support us, even if it's not financially, maybe there's another way they can contribute to the organization.
Yeah.
And, you know, I think we often forget about the value of our donors and our supporters networks.
Right.
They know a lot of people too.
Yes.
Yeah, and then vouching for you and saying, Hey, this organization's doing really amazing work.
Mm hmm.
I've been supporting them is a huge gift.
Yes, it is.
It speeds up the trust you know, with the, the new supporter and helps you quickly be able to build more quickly, be able to build relationships with them.
100 percent agree with that.
Yeah.
So are there any tips and tricks that you recommend organizations consider or think about? Before they get into the grant writing arena.
Yeah.
So one of the things that I have found in my consulting work, especially with a couple of my smaller clients that are ready to expand their grant, you know, program, or are just starting out is making sure you're grant ready.
And by grant ready, I mean, making sure that you have all of your financials in place, you have copies of your audits, your tax returns, make sure you have what I also call boilerplates of your stand, the standard questions that are going to be on an application, you know, your mission, your history, why you were founded, why, you know, why are you doing the work that you're doing your Organizational goals, your program goals, like all of those main questions that are asked on an application.
Go down that list.
I have a checklist.
I've kind of referred to other grant ready checklist from other consultants and other organizations and.
You know, just to kind of make sure that my list is comprehensive because when you're new as a new nonprofit or new to grant fundraising, there's certain things that funders look for your financial records.
How do you handle, especially if you're brand new, do you have two years at least of a financial record? How have you spent the money that you do have? You know, are you Stewarding that money responsibly.
Are you being responsible with your expenses and things like that and having all of those things in place? So when you're ready to do that first application, you're not all over the place You don't feel like you're in a pinball machine with just bouncing off the walls trying to find.
Oh, we need this document We need this we don't have this So I always like to tell people before you dive in and just start applying Go through this checklist, put all of these pieces in place to see what information you do have and what you don't, it's better now to fill in those holes in those gaps of like the missing information or documents, then you're on a tight deadline trying to meet a grant submission, and you realize.
Oh, I need this document, and our accountant can't get it to us for another 48 hours, and the deadline's tomorrow.
You know, so that's one of those things is be really prepared and take your time and go through every single funder's grant guidelines, what their requirements are, because every funder is different.
Every application is different and that's one of those things that I like to say is look at it first before you even start writing and go through that checklist of do I have this and then once you have that start drafting and you'll still find the holes but highlight those and go okay do I need to reach out to this person in this department or do I need to reach out to our accountant or our executive director for this information and if you can kind of do it in that way which is the process that I use when I write I find that it's less chaotic in terms of I forgot to do this because I did this thing first.
So I usually have and and every person is different.
Every organization is different.
So I suggest, you know, here's my checklist and the way that I do things, take that and make it work.
And what makes sense for you, because how I do things is not going to necessarily be the same for you.
So find.
Take this as a starting point and then, you know, kind of tweak it to make it make sense for your organization and how you need to do things.
Yeah, that's great.
Great advice.
I do something similar.
And in fact.
I will keep a folder with their specific information in it that I can reference back late and, and I've also learned that if you have to send an email to somebody and they respond back to an email, make sure you capture that and put it in your folder.
Yes.
I save every email into a folder.
I pretty much anything that's electronic I save somewhere, my, my cloud drive that I have everything on is ridiculous if you look at all the folders I have in it but it's.
It's ridiculous.
It's one of those things that if I put it in a certain, I have my system, and if it's this, if it's an email about a certain funder, it goes into that funder's, you know, folder, so that if there's a question, I can go directly to that funder and, you know, answer the question for the client, like, oh, what do we need? So that is the other thing, too, is having a Very, very good filing system, you know, keeping track of correspondence, keeping track of your data that you need to include in your proposals and things like that.
Make sure you have really strong, clear grant management systems in place for all of that, because if you have staff turnover and somebody leaves, you want to have that all in one place so the next person that's coming in knows exactly where to find it and can pick up you know, where the, you know, the previous person left off.
And that's, I've also seen that as a little bit of a struggle too with some of the smaller organizations that don't necessarily have capacity to track stuff like that.
So that's something that I also help organizations with is, do you have a system in place for this? And if they're like, no, we don't really know how to do that.
Then I can say, okay, let's sit down and talk about it and kind of come up with a system for them to start using.
To get used to using it and it becoming part of their process, and then once they've reached a certain point, they can say, okay, spreadsheets aren't working anymore.
We need to go something more comprehensive, like, you know, a fundraising platform like give butter or Salesforce or razor's edge or.
That's the other one that I was thinking of.
So there's all these separate ones, but if you can start learning and get in the habit of using something at least Excel based or, you know, some kind of database like that, then when you go to the point where you are in a database, it doesn't feel so overwhelming and you've already got that system in place.
You just have to adapt it to the platform that you move to.
Yeah.
I think that's great advice that, you know, creating a system, you can do a rudimentary system with what you have, but having the system in place helps, you know, it also helps, you know, what you need when you decide that you want to invest in something.
Yeah.
And that was when that.
When I was in my position at the opera that was one thing that they really wanted me to work on when I first started was coming up with a tracking system for all of their grants because they had like a calendar, you know, to track deadlines, you know, for applications and reports, but there wasn't really a tracking system in place for, What was the status of this application? Has it been submitted? Has it been declined? Has it been awarded, you know, pledged, received, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
And I think the first nine months of that position, I spent working with the executive director and the board of directors on this is, you know, and I just started somewhere.
And I said, okay, what out of this works for you guys, based on the information that you want to see in board reports and for, you know, accounting and all of that, what, you know, and for nine months, we tweaked it until we finally got it to where they wanted.
And after that, it became a much smoother process because if somebody came to me and said, Hey, have we heard back about this grant yet? I could go into that system.
And say we haven't yet.
It's still pending.
I have a note here that says we should find out by xyz date Because that wasn't in place before so I had to create an entirely Brand new tracking system just for that outside of submission deadlines because there wasn't one in place previously So that was something and I think I have done that at every single non profit job I have ever done Been in you know in a full time role i've had to create some sort of tracking system Because what was work, you know, what they had previously wasn't working or there just wasn't one in place at all.
So I think that's something that I've done with every grant writing position I've held in a non profit.
So it's something now that I add to my list of skills, I can help you create those kinds of systems to implement and then say, okay, now we need something that's more robust that can do X, Y, and Z.
Yeah.
I wonder if it comes from the job or if it comes from the personality that we are going into the job.
I, I also do systems.
I'm very passionate about systems because systems, I don't have a, a great.
Memory or anything, you know, people do find that I'm very reliable to get the information back, but it's systems that save me because I know that, like I do these things consistently.
I'm always, I'm one of those people that when my system works, I'm always like, Oh, thank God I have that system because that's, that's.
It saves me, right? Yes.
It's nothing that I do.
It's just that this is what always happens when I get this information.
This is what I always do with it.
When I have this information, this is what I always do with it.
And so when I need to refer back to it, lo and behold, it's always most of the time in the same and right place.
Yeah.
I've, I remember there was one instance where.
I don't remember which position it was that I was in, like with which organization, but we had to do like an update on all of our computers in the office, and so they were reinstalling everything, and our IT person came over, and because I had been looking through and I'm like, why can't I find anything? Like something, I was like, did something move? What, was there an update to this? It was like my email, and so he was coming over, he's helping me figure it out, and all he did, I don't know, clicked, and all of a sudden there it was, and I was like, Oh, yay.
Because I was like going into panic mode.
And he was like, why is your inbox empty? And I was like, because after I've either responded to the email or I've done whatever I need to do that is in relation to that email, I put it in a designated folder, whether it's a staff member or a funder or whatever it is, I put it in a spot because my inbox is also sort of like my to do list.
Once I've responded, I can now move this off to the side because I've responded to it.
I've done what I needed to do, and that system has always worked for me, and it's something that helps keep, you know, it's like when you have too many tabs open on your computer, it's like too many tabs open in my brain, and I have to sort things out, and that's one of those ways that I track to make sure that all of the information, especially when it comes to emails or anything, you know, with files, They, once I've responded in the way that I need to, they immediately go into their designated folder.
And if I don't do that, that's when bad things happen.
You don't want bad things to happen in the world of grants.
So, I mean, that's also lessons learned from, you know, being in school as well.
Didn't back that up and you lost almost an entire project.
So now we're going to back things up in multiple places.
So, you know, those are lessons learned the hard way and you don't want to repeat.
So when that happens, you go, okay.
Time to tweak the system.
I don't want to do that again.
And that's usually what I do when something in my system doesn't work anymore.
I go, okay, time to tweak it.
What works.
And that's one of the best things you can do, whether you're working with a consultant or you have a full time grant writer, or even part time have systems in place so that.
If you're a grant writer if you're thinking in specifics of grants, if that person is out for whatever reason, they're out sick, they're out on vacation, and you have to submit something because they're not there, have those systems in place, have those standard operating procedures that somebody can come in and look at that SOP and say, okay, this is how to do this.
That way it's there in place and you're not Everybody's not panicking because it's like, Oh, we need to submit this.
We know this is 100, 000 grant that's coming to us.
We cannot miss this deadline.
So those are the things that I also share with clients as well.
Make sure you have those systems in place so that if I, as your consultant, I'm not available because I'm you know, on vacation, you know exactly the steps you need to do.
And that's something that I will work with people on.
And media, that's one of the first things I do with clients.
This is going to be our system.
This is how we need to do things so that in the event that I'm not available, you know exactly what you need to do and you can do it successfully and not have to go into panic mode.
Yeah, I think that's such great advice.
Where can people find you, Casey? I am on LinkedIn for sure.
What is my link? I had it earlier.
I had it bookmarked.
Did I put it somewhere? Yes.
So, for my business page on LinkedIn, it's linkedin.
com slash company slash summit.
Dash grant dash consulting.
So there's a dash in between summit grant and consulting, which I know does not make any sense when you can't see that visually, I'll make sure I put that in the show notes.
Yeah.
And on, I'm also on LinkedIn, my own personal profile, I'm listed as Casey and Bryan on LinkedIn.
Yes.
And isn't it Nicole or Nancy? Either one.
All right.
Sounds good.
And any final pieces of advice you want to share? Oh, I'm sorry.
Oh yeah.
No, no, no.
I was also gonna say, I am on Facebook as well.
My it's facebook.
com.
Summit grant consulting, and that's all one word on that one.
And then hopefully launching very soon will be my website, which is summit grant.
org and my phone number and email are on, I have a landing page for right now while it's under construction.
So that if anybody goes to that page, they can see.
You know, another way of contacting me if they, if they're interested in working together or if they just want to do a consultation and, you know, chat through some things.
So my contact information is on there if they visit the website right now.
All right.
That's perfect.
And any last pieces of advice you'd like to give all nonprofits listening? Yeah.
So, one of my big things celebrate all your small victories.
Every single time.
Oh, I love that.
It doesn't matter how silly it feels, but if you celebrate the small victories, it helps the process.
You know, even if an award came back declined, you know, that's okay.
You submitted the report, you know, you submitted that grant award, you know, that request, and it could have been one that was super in depth, and it took more than two weeks to do, like an NEA grant or, you know, something like that.
So even if it comes back declined, look at the process that you went through and say, okay, out of that process, what was the victory? And for you, it could be, hey, I conquered that budget.
That I couldn't do last time that I struggled with and spent way too long on, but now that I've done it before I did it this time, and I did it in half the time, so those are the things like that.
To me, it just kind of helps not just you as a grant writer or consultant, but it helps the team as well.
Just kind of have that sort of.
Okay, we can keep going.
We have the confidence.
It was a no this time, but maybe next time it'll be a yes.
You know, let's find those things.
So that's, I think one of the things that I really like to do is just celebrate your victories every single time.
Doesn't matter how small they are, how big they are, you know.
I love that.
And if you're a, if you're a grant writer or a consultant or development team and you come back declined, I've learned this as well.
Always ask if the is.
able to give feedback.
Unless they explicitly state no feedback is provided, the answer will always be no if you don't ask.
So at least reach out and say, is there any, you know, any way possible that we might be able to get some feedback on our proposal so we can, you know, better prepare for next, the next deadline.
They might come back and say no, but like I said, if you don't ask, the answer is still going to be no.
So those are probably my two things.
Don't be afraid to ask for feedback on grant, anything grant related, and celebrate your victories.
No matter how big or small.
Thank you so much for that advice.
I absolutely love that advice.
And I think we all need to celebrate our victories.
I like to think about that every day.
Like what was my victory today? Because I do amazing hard work.
I do that every night before I go to bed.
I just write down like the top three things that I found were to be.
Maybe not necessarily a victory, but it was a positive aspect, something positive.
Like, I remembered to pack my lunch or I remembered to you know, set my alarm to do X, Y, and Z.
So like those things, like even when it's not work related, I like to find those positives in the day because then it helps me not focus on the negative, but focus positively going forward into the next day.
So that when I sit down to start on the next day's work, I'm already in a positive mindset when I wake up.
Yes.
Thank you so much, Casey.
And to our listeners, I want to thank you for listening today.
Have a great week.
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