Grant Writing As Story: Meet Natasha Goldman

Grants don’t fund ideas—they fund clear stories that solve real problems. We sit down with Dr. Natasha Goldman, an art historian turned grant strategist, to map out a practical path from fuzzy concepts to fundable proposals. Natasha shares a simple five-part framework—what, why, how, who, and how much—that helps teams decode dense RFPs, align their plans, and write with confidence under pressure.

The funding terrain has shifted. Foundations are swamped and more selective, which makes warm outreach and relationship building essential. On the federal side, opportunities are alive and evolving, with more space for industry participation alongside nonprofits and higher ed. Programs tied to AI, workforce, and economic development are gaining traction, while long-standing programs at NSF and NEH continue with updated priorities. Natasha shows how to focus on fit, guard your integrity, and only chase opportunities that match your mission and values.

Partnerships take center stage. Rather than competing head-to-head, local players can combine efforts, add wraparound services like child care and transportation, and present a stronger, scalable model. We break down how to set roles by team strengths, avoid timeline compression, and use low-stakes practice to master iteration before tackling high-stakes grants. Natasha’s $23M Good Jobs Challenge win for Boston illustrates what this looks like at scale—multi-sector coalitions, measurable outcomes, and childcare placements that exceeded targets.

If you’re ready to craft proposals that read clean, demonstrate broader impact, and stand up to tough review, this conversation offers the steps. Subscribe for more candid strategy, share with a colleague who’s chasing funding this year, and leave a review with your biggest grant challenge—we’ll tackle it in a future episode.

Guest Bio

Natasha Goldman, PhD, is President of WISSEN, Inc. and Visiting Researcher at Boston University. She is a higher education consultant, published scholar, and federal grant winner. 

She founded WISSEN in 2018. Natasha loves helping clients formulate grant projects and strategize their priorities. Among others, she has won NSF, NEH, DOJ, Fulbright, Dept. of Labor, EDA, and foundation awards for her clients.

Her book, Memory Passages: Holocaust Memorials in the United States and Germany, was published by Temple University Press (2020). She is a 2018 and 2020 awardee, along with co-director Page Herrlinger, of an NEH Summer Seminar for School Teachers on the topic of “Teaching the Holo

Like what you heard? Please like and share wherever you get your podcasts!

Connect with Ann: Community Evaluation Solutions
 
How Ann  can help:

·        Support the evaluation capacity of your coalition or community-based organization.

·        Help you create a strategic plan that doesn’t stress you and your group out, doesn’t take all year to design, and is actionable.

·        Engage your group in equitable discussions about difficult conversations.

·        Facilitate a workshop to plan for action and get your group moving.

·        Create a workshop that energizes and excites your group for action.

·        Speak at your conference or event.

Have a question or want to know more? Book a call with Ann .

Be sure and check out our updated resource page! Let us know what was helpful.
 
Music by Zach Price: Zachpricet@gmail.com

Transcript

Welcome And Series Setup

Ann Price 0:46

Hi, everybody. I hope you're doing well. Today on Community Possibilities, my friend Dr. Natasha Goldman joins me as we continue our series featuring wisdom from some of my favorite grant professionals. Natasha is a dynamic leader in higher education. She's president of VISIN Incorporated and a visiting researcher at Boston University. From winning federal grants to publishing groundbreaking research, Natasha brings decades of experience in art history, visual culture, and grant strategy. She's the author of Memory Passages, Holocaust Memorials in the United States and Germany, and a passionate advocate for teaching through visual culture. Get ready to be inspired by her journey from academia to consulting and be sure and have your pencils ready. She's going to share her brilliant yet straightforward grant strategy. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Community Possibilities. Um, so I've been sitting here chatting with my friend Natasha here. Um, and we were just saying how in 2025 you better start every meeting with a few minutes of check-in time. So we've been chatting and getting caught up and talking about the world. But anyway, hi Natasha, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here, Ann. I am so excited to have you on the show. I know I swear I say that every week, and I'm like, oh, say something different. But it's true. Um, so you and I met three years ago, I believe, at my first Grant Professional Summit. And oh my gosh, your crowd is so much fun. Um, I think I've said this before. I don't know if I said it on the podcast, but I love AEA. AA is my professional home. I um and I love our conference, but the summit like you guys don't take yourself too seriously. You're very serious people, but you don't take yourselves too seriously, which I think there's a lot of caring and sharing. Yeah, for sure.

Natasha Goldman 2:50

There's a lot of caring and sharing at Grip Professionals Association for sure.

Founding VISIN And What “Knowledge” Means

Ann Price 2:55

Yeah, and this year more than ever. But yeah, so you and I met three years ago through our mutual friend and colleague, James Pan, who happens to be in my mastermind group. That's how you and I came to know each other. And I really um have enjoyed getting to know you, I gotta tell you. So uh I was telling you that I'm doing this series uh talking to a couple of grant professionals, and you each have a different um kind of window into the funding life, so to speak. And uh yeah, it's been quite the roller coaster for nonprofits, foundations, university folks. So I think you guys have a lot of knowledge and wisdom to share, and I know you do. That's right, kind of you. Let's see, let's find out. All right, we're gonna we're gonna find out. So I'm gonna ask you just to introduce yourself. Tell us how you came to be who you are, and you have a very interesting background, gotta say. That is so kind of you. So, Natasha Goldman, I'm president of This Un Incorporated. We are a grants consultancy based outside of Boston. How I came to be who I am. I grew up in the woods. My parents were graphic designers, and I we spent a lot of time, therefore, at the dinner table analyzing their artwork in relation to the organizations for whom they were making the artwork. So, did it fit the mission, did it fit the message that they were trying to get across? So, talking and interpreting and thinking about how meaning is made, and especially through different means, like visual means or written means, words, was always a really, really important part of my life. And also nature, being outside in the natural world, uh, was a really part of my life too. So I went on to study the history of art, and I was a double major in art and English literature in college, and then went on to get my PhD and had a stint in Germany for a while, did research there for a few years, and that really impacted my view of life, I guess, and quality of life and how one can live a good life. People work to live there, whereas in America, people sometimes um live to work, right? So it's a very different kind of attitude towards work-life balance in Europe. And um went on to be an academic for about 15 years and slowly transitioned over to grant work for a number of different reasons. I had put myself through college and graduate school and through that experience found myself writing a lot of grant applications to support my own research and to support my own studies. And at one point during my academic career, I found myself following my husband's jobs because he's also an advertistorian and a PhD. And one day at the gas station, I met a woman who worked in the grants world. She said, How are you doing? And I said, Well, you know, I'm I'm I'm teaching part-time, so I feel like I'm not making the most of all my skills, a little frustrated. My kids were little, um, kind of wanting something else. And she said, Well, why don't you do some contract grant writing for us? I just joined a firm in DC. So I started with them, so we all started at a gas station. I started with them in 2014, worked for them until 2018, and then went out on my own. So a lot of different kinds of stations and life experiences in the US, internationally, the academic, working for a corporation, going out on my own, having the experience of family and all the trials and tribulations that come along with that and many moves, um, I think have all contributed to who I am. You said gas station. At the gas station. At the gas station. Was this someone you knew? Literally pumping gas. Pumping gas in Brunswick, Maine. Was this someone you knew? Oh, so this was a woman I knew. This was a woman I knew who had worked at the college where I was teaching and had recently left. And she said, Well, I'm working for a firm that hires contract grant writers, so why don't you come work for us for a while? Okay.

Natasha Goldman 7:02

And I said, sure, I'll try.

Ann Price 7:05

There's piece of wisdom number one um relationships. Relationships. Pump your own gas and relationships.

Natasha Goldman 7:14

You never know where you're what conversation that you will have and where it will happen that might lead to something. I think it's just about being open and honest, right? And if she said, How are you doing? And I could have said, Oh, fine, thanks, and how are you? Right. Right. I decided to, I don't know, as Brene Brown would say, you know, be honest and show a little vulnerability here. And I did. And that resulted in a completely life-changing moment.

Ann Price 7:43

That is amazing. Yeah. Awesome. All right. So let's talk about your company. Let's uh yeah, let's practice my uh German here, Vissen, right? Correct. Oh, yes. Uh, thank you, Google. Um, so tell us what that means. Let's start there and then let's talk about what you do.

Natasha Goldman 8:04

Absolutely. So WISSEN means knowledge. And I lived in Germany for three years when I was doing my grant research, met my husband there. Um, and Germany just really impacted my life and and my work. And so that's that's how I ended up with the name VISIM. I think knowledge really fits what we do because we work with people to mine their knowledge to find their fundable projects. So, what do they know? What do they understand about the world? And how can we get those ideas funded? So that's really important as foundational to what we do. In terms of what my company does, well, as a grants consultancy, we offer grants training. So a general overview of grants that really one can take a series of workshops and apply that to any grant application. We also do more deep dive trainings in NSF, Department of Labor, Economic Development Agency, and so forth. So we have the whole bevy of different workshops, foundation workshops, state workshops, and so forth. So there's training. We do institutional assessments where we talk to various stakeholders in an organization to determine what their fundable projects are. So, what are they passionate about? Uh, what are they successful doing? Where are some of their challenges and how might grant funding help meet those challenges? So we create a report of fundable projects, we then match those projects to funders, and then leadership tells us which to pursue. And then we write those grants with the help of knowledgeable PIs who bring the intellectual content, and we bring all kinds of researchers and support staff with us as we write those applications. So that's the kind of soup to nuts for the pre-award phase that we engage with. We also offer services for business development. So for nonprofits, companies that offer services and they'd like to pitch their services in proposal form to RFPs that are out there. So for instance, a mounted mental health service agency might want to pitch its services to a county that wants um services brought to K to 12 schools and will write those proposals for the nonprofit. That's the other line of service that we offer.

Services: Training, Assessments, And Proposals

Ann Price 10:14

Gotcha. Gotcha. And you know, and I just love the way you um kind of phrase your work. Because, you know, I too uh wrote several grants or helped write grants while I was in graduate school. And nowadays I don't do that. People used to ask me, oh, do you, you know, will you help us write this grant or that grant? And I'm like, you know, I'll write the evaluation section for a current client, but I'd rather I'd rather them work with professionals like like you and the other folks that we're gonna be talking about because you actually kind of know this. And it's really kind of open up my whole like view of what a grant professional actually does. It is not just, you know, sticking numbers in a report. We're gonna talk about that because you have a very lovely kind of philosophy about the way you think about grant writing. So um, let's talk about I hate to talk about 2025, but we gotta talk about 2025. People keep saying, oh, well, you know, 2026 is coming, yay, but I don't know. I'm not so sure how I feel about that. But what has this year been like for your what your clients?

Natasha Goldman 11:27

I would say that the reaction to 2025 was at first clients were a little frozen, especially higher education clients. So I should say we serve institutions of higher education, college, universities, community colleges. We serve municipalities, hospitals, and then smaller nonprofits who have a variety of missions. So we cover a lot of different areas, everything from uh STEM to humanities to workforce development, economic development, labor, you name it. We haven't done NASA, um, but we've done a lot of the federal agencies and we've done state. Um, and so we cover a wide range of topics. So, so first I'll say that. The higher education clients were a little frozen at first. They weren't quite sure what to do. Yeah, I can understand that. Which grants would really open and accept applications and follow through and review them and award the money. Money was being clogged back for various reasons, as we know, that made people very confused. Uh, so higher ed was a little bit frozen, I would say, for the first half of the year. And then I felt that they started to open up again and they were ready to write grants again, taking into account the red flag words that we all know that we have to avoid. Um, so that happens on that front. The nonprofits, smaller nonprofits especially, kind of surged forward because foundations are foundations that are giving out funding. But there was just a lot of new education to do because the landscape changed. The foundation funders are flooded with applications more than ever before. That was always the case, but more than ever before, they're flooded with applications. And so we've had to do a lot of training with nonprofit applicants about how to ready themselves to approach those foundations, how to contact them, how to talk to them, how to get their attention so that one can get an invitation to apply, which is often the case that one needs an invitation. Or if one is allowed to send an application, one still wants to have a kind of a warm connection and try to get a phone call before sending in the application. So we spent a lot of time prepping our clients for that change and that intensification of those activities.

Ann Price 13:39

Right, right. You kind of like moved right into my next question, which was how have you kind of leaned in to help um the organizations that you uh do serve and just kind of thinking about that theme of foundations, because I was just on a another call just a little bit ago, and and I think we're all talking about that, right? Everybody's running to foundations. Everybody. Uh, and and then some of them are kind of closing up, like they're kind of, you know, you know, the they're uh what is what is it called? You know, um circling the wagons, so to speak. Like we're only gonna find the people that we have already that we've already served, which is an evaluator, kind of like, okay, that might be okay if those are, you know, organizations that are really, you know, have good outcomes and all the other kinds of things, right?

2025 Funding Shifts And Foundation Realities

Natasha Goldman 14:25

Yeah, yeah. So so how have we, you know, how have we addressed the situation? So one is definitely more training, training on how to do outreach, really detailed hand holding training on what steps um applicants have to do to get the attention of potential funders in the foundation space. So we've done a lot of trainings in that area. And then just training overall we've ramped up, um, helping, showing, and it's a lot of hand holding and empathy really for the applicant. You know, more than ever, applicants are under stress. And when we do the workshops, I think that our attitude has shifted. It's not just about getting the information across and making sure that they understand the content, but it's become a lot more about making sure that they feel empowered, making sure that they feel happy, confident. You know, the goal is really to help them feel confident that they can go forward and tell their stories and apply for funding and feel good about that. And so I've put a lot more emphasis on that with my team in the past year. I think we always did that, but in the past year it's been really important because people are under such a great deal of stress. And also just expressing, you know, if we're dealing with an institution that is primarily Hispanic serving, to really show a lot of understanding of the pressure that people are under, right? And and and conveying that in new ways, I think has been uh really important for everyone involved. The other thing to realize, though, is that the feds are posting like crazy. There aren't a lot of federal grants out there, they're just different than before.

Ann Price 16:00

How how how so? How are they how are they different? I'm curious about that.

Natasha Goldman 16:04

It used to be, yeah, it used to be in federal grants that for the most part they were only nonprofits were eligible to apply. Now industry can apply.

Ann Price 16:13

Oh, interesting.

Natasha Goldman 16:14

Yes. So private industry applicants can apply for grants. For NSF is a good example. Industry is now welcome to apply for grants. They can partner with nonprofits, and nonprofits can apply as well, but industry is all of a sudden allowed to apply. That's a huge change. So, what we're seeing in the federal grants that are being posted, anything having to do with AI is highly regarded by the feds. Anything that has to do with industry, workforce development, economic development, um, any kind of technology use, all of those things are highly, highly regarded. Things like coal. We're not going to be writing any grants for coal because of our own ethical reasons and the mission-driven to do good things for the world. But there are there are coal grants out there, right, for the coal industry. So, you know, if you read Project 2025, uh, you knew it was coming down the pike, and it's it is it is down the pike. We're the we're at we're in the pike, right? Yeah, whatever the pike is. Yeah, we're we're in the pike. So the federal grants are posting, right? And that's important to keep in mind. And so, you know, National Science Foundation, IU is improving undergraduate STEM education, is a big one, you know. They're they're still running. NEH is still running grants, more focused on American history than before.

Ann Price 17:34

So it's I just I just gave you the mommy eyebrow. We don't post this on YouTube, and I just yeah, all right. Well, we won't go, we won't go there about why I gave you the mommy eyebrow, but I think you could probably read between the lines, but anyway, yeah, that's so um, that's really interesting um to me. And I love the way you have found like positivity, like for your company and for your clients. And I also heard you say, and this is my line of demarcation, right? This is where I I won't be helping you with coal grants because that kind of goes that definitely goes against my my values. I love that because I do think we all have to like we have to survive and we have to feed our families and all those things, and we have to keep our organizations alive and we have to we have to have integrity.

Natasha Goldman 18:24

Yeah, we we put together actually a monthly federal funding report that's subscription-based. And what's really fun about it, I think, is that it's arranged according to eligible applicants. So if you're higher education, you click here. If you're workforce development, you click here, if you're healthcare, you click here. And other reports out there that I know of don't do that. And then we ask what we call the guiding question. We ask a very simple question so that the reader knows, should I even bother to read on? Like, is this going to be relevant to me? And um, yeah, there's just there's a lot of opportunity out there. But there was at one point when we was working together with my staff putting together the monthly report, and you know, we came across the call. And I said, you know what? We're just not gonna put that in there. We're just not doing that. So you make decisions for sure.

Ann Price 19:11

And I don't want to um, I don't want the listener to lose that because what I heard you say, oh, they can sign up to get that newsletter, right? They can go to your website, correct?

Natasha Goldman 19:21

Yeah, absolutely. Right. Absolutely. Yep, yep. So that's a monthly document that comes out with the Fed opportunities.

Ann Price 19:28

That's awesome. I get that, by the way. Um, so any other lessons learned that that we have not already talked about?

Natasha Goldman 19:36

Lessons learned for 2025.

Ann Price 19:38

Yeah.

Federal Trends: Industry, AI, Workforce

Natasha Goldman 19:39

Yeah. I think it's, you know, really thinking about partnerships more than ever before as well. Partnerships have always been important. Um, but when we think about the grant space, how can one partner with another applicant or a sub awardee to apply for a grant? Because the funding is limited, the funders are getting More and more applications. So if you can partner with someone regionally or locally, then you're lowering the number of applications that that funder is getting from your locality, right? Which increases your chances of winning. So partnership is really, really important. If you can cut out the competition by inviting someone in, cut out the competition by inviting someone in, even if it means you have to change a little bit of what you do. A great way to do that is wraparound services. You know, if you're offering a certain kind of a service or a program, offering wraparound, it could be, you know, whatever someone is doing, they might need a food pantry, they might need transportation vouchers, internet vouchers, um, help with child care, help with finding housing, help with career searches. There's all kinds of wraparound support and other nonprofits who might benefit the services that you as an applicant might be offering. And it's really important to try to wrap those in to help each other out, but it'll also make the applicants' application stronger. The dollars are being stretched, they're serving more people, reaching more people, and that's a good thing. I think we'd have to see more partnerships develop. And um that's something that my takeaway from 2025 as well.

Ann Price 21:16

Okay, thanks for that. So, what are some of the biggest mistakes clients or your clients um make when it comes to grant writing, would you say?

Natasha Goldman 21:24

I think that um, you know, and we kind of coached them through this on the outset. If a client has the sense of we need money and we need money now, grants are not the way to go. That's you want to do development and donor fundraising for get the money now. The grants world can take a long time. You know, a federal grant turnaround can be anywhere from three months to nine, 10 months before you hear back. When you're talking about a state grant, usually maybe five, three, three to five months. For foundations, you have to do that initial outreach and warm-up. It can go very quickly in four months. It can take 18 months. So you've got to be ready to build in that time. If you want it and want it now, we have to manage expectations a little bit. Grants take longer, especially with foundations because of the warming up period. So that's that's a um that's a correct, I wouldn't say it's a mistake, but it's a correct, it's a correction, it's a it's a course correction that we have to help clients understand from the outset. And usually people get it as soon as they understand these are the timelines that um that we're working with. So they get it. I think that another um thing that happens is people are at capacity and they don't realize that as the we call them the PIs, the principal investigators, right? The people with the intellectual content about the project, you do have to meet with your consultant, with your writer on the base on the you know, on the cadence that they're suggesting. Um because they need the content from you and they need it in a certain order sometimes. And if clients are constantly canceling meetings, the deadline doesn't change. So we've still got to meet the deadline, and your writer has created a schedule most likely of what will be addressed when in the weeks leading up to the deadline. So if a client is constantly canceling meetings, then that's usually an indication that they're really at capacity. The problem with that is even if they're super smart and they really know what they want to do, grant writing is iterative.

Ann Price 23:30

Say more about that.

Natasha Goldman 23:32

So you're starting out writing what you're doing, and then you explain why you're doing it usually and how you do it. And as you tackle those different parts of the application, you also have to go back to one of the other parts and revise to make sure everything is aligning. So if you wait too long, it compresses the iterative steps. It doesn't allow you to go back and change and fine-tune. You just have to go forward. Right. And so the margin of error is really, really high, even if the even if the client is so smart and so on the ball, if they're compressing the time and and and not giving not giving the project the thoughtfulness it needs and the iterations it needs, um, then it makes her a weaker application. And that's a real mistake.

Ann Price 24:22

Yeah. Oh, that makes so much sense. I I have the same problem with some sometimes with my clients too, right? We're trying to um we have an evaluation report deadline, the funder wants it by a certain time. Those those dates are not flexible, right? And um, you know, sometimes there's not a there's not enough time to do the data cleaning.

Values, Eligibility, And Monthly Funding Report

Natasha Goldman 24:43

You know, it's it's kind of like yeah, if you're building a kitchen and the contractor wants to come and tells you what they're gonna be doing on what week, but the house is locked and they can't get in, well, you're not gonna get the kitchen done by the time you wanted it done. Exactly. It's just not gonna happen. Right. Yeah. So think things do need their time. And so that that's a um that's a mistake. And the other mistake is baseline data. And we try to tackle that at the outset. You need your data, you need to show who you're serving and what are the results of your programs to date. And and helping clients through that. Um, sometimes they have it, sometimes they don't, and and they need time to get it. It's really important to get that because in order to address your baseline and determine how you're going to make improvements, you have to know what your baseline is. Um, so the data is uh the data can be a challenge. Right. So these aren't really mistakes, these are sometimes just course correction and education. It's really educating the client that these are things to think about and look out for.

Ann Price 25:40

Yeah, I think it's also capacity building, right? If it's if if if if we have a mutual, let's say we have a mutual client, one day we're gonna work together. And uh they don't have baseline data, that tells me a lot about their technical capacity.

Natasha Goldman 25:54

Yes. Yes.

Ann Price 25:56

So they're gonna need a lot of help. And just kind of getting back to that whole iterative conversation. Um, when um when the timeline is compressed, I think this is what you were alluding to, the ability to take a step back, right? Like, I'm gonna put this grant application down or this evaluation report, whatever it is, I'm gonna put it down for a couple of days and I'm gonna come back to it fresh. And then sometimes you see how things are not linked up like they need to be, right? That storytelling aspect. So that's where I want us to go next because what I love about you is you talk about grant writing as a story, and that's how I talk about evaluation. People think evaluators are just like we're just number nerds, we're just crunching the numbers, and we stick it in a report. That is, I think we're a lot alike that way, in that we are all about storytelling. So talk about kind of your philosophy of grant writing as storytelling and and how that kind of leans into your model that you've developed.

Partnerships As Strategy And Wraparound Support

Natasha Goldman 26:57

Absolutely. So my philosophy is that every application, whether you're applying to the Department of the Defense or your local community foundation is asking you five questions. What, why, how, who, and how much. We abbreviate that as a whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I know it's very silly and it makes people laugh, but it is the what, why, how, who, and how much. Now, every federal agency, every state agency, and every foundation will ask you those questions. The problem is that they will use smoke and mirrors and obfuscate the questions. It's not always easy to tell what they're actually asking you. So part of what we do in our workshops is we'll take an RFP, like an NSF, let's say, and we'll go through it and we'll say, okay, here is where brother asking you what you're going to do. Here's where they're asking you why. Here's where they're asking you how. We do the same thing for NIH. We'll look at an NIH, the NIH guidelines, and we'll say, okay, this is the section about how. This is your why. Because if you can simplify their questions, then you can answer them more succinctly and more convincingly. So it's understanding the what, why, how, who, and how much of every applicant's story, and then demonstrating to them how to look at the RFP and understand where those questions emerge. Now, foundations can potentially ask, according to our research, 108 different questions. 108 different questions. How answer they will fall within the five categories. Outside of only how who and how much.

Ann Price 28:39

So I can see how just having the focus on that, those five questions kind of um, I don't know, just like pulls away the curtain, pulls away all the extraneous things that one of your clients doesn't really need to think about, right? Like don't get distracted. This is what you need to focus on. Right, right, right.

Natasha Goldman 29:00

So what we'll do is we'll work with them in a workshop, let's say, on a simple, fun case study, and we'll make things up together. So one client did um bring unicorns to campus for mental health. Cute. Right. Another client did install a cappuccino machine in the staff lounge. Another client did plan a birthday party for the CEO. Like it can be any project, it doesn't really matter. And then we go through the what, why, how, who, and how much. And it's interesting that even in simple projects, when you get to a point where someone's working on they're like, well, wait a second. If I put this in the how, then that's gonna change the what, isn't it? So even in these simple projects, we find you sometimes have you sometimes you're writing your how and you realize you want to do something, but you didn't say you were gonna do that in your what. So you got to go back. And so that demonstrates for them live what to expect in the grant writing process. That's why it's iterative. Because as you're writing your what and your why and your how, you're gonna be adding details and you're gonna realize we might have to go back and add something. And that's where that iteration and building in the time needed is important. So you give yourself the time to be able to go back and make sure that every part reinforces the next part.

Ann Price 30:23

Gotcha. And you know, when we did our uh our session together with James at GPA, we kind of did this with our with our group, right? And I remember you saying that, like, nope, we're gonna give them something not related to their project at all. And I can see, right, that kind of probably lessens the anxiety, lessens like you know, probably just all the intellectual stuff that might get in their way of learning the concept.

Natasha Goldman 30:47

Yeah, I mean, if so for and especially because if they if they do that assignment, that that sort of hands-on learning um task in a workshop on their own project, well, it can take us two months to do that with the client. You can't do that an hour because they're gonna get so lost in the weeds of the details and the emotional burden of the whole project. Whereas if they're writing about, you know, building a garden for a local country school, they have no personal investment in it. It seems easy. So let's try to tackle it, right? Um, so it shows them and it's meant to help people build some confidence that they can do this. And then once we get into the, you know, their projects, of course, it becomes a lot more complicated. Um, but at least they have some tools to understand and pull apart those different sections.

Ann Price 31:35

Right. And you can always go back to your framework and say, to remember.

Natasha Goldman 31:38

Yes, we say remember when we did that, remember when we wanted to install the cappuccino machine, and then we realized that we need someone to staff it, right? So that has to go in the who section and in the budget, right? So we'll say, remember when we did that in the workshop. We do that all the time.

Common Mistakes: Timelines, Capacity, Data

Ann Price 31:54

Yeah. Yeah, it's really similar. So if I'm teaching, say, logic models to uh a group of folks who are um not familiar with evaluation or think they hate it, whatever it is, we're doing that, that capacity building work, similar to what you do. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna have them design their project. I'm probably gonna say, plan a party or you know, you need to buy, you need to buy a new car or you need to buy your kid a, you know, whatever, or what what right? We're gonna give them something simple to teach them the steps. And I think you're doing something very similar.

Natasha Goldman 32:28

Yeah, yeah. We also trained clients if they're if they're in a team of people that they're bringing to a project to really think about who's good at what. Are you a visual thinker? Are you a graph thinker? Are you a word thinker? Are you a mapping thinker? How do you think about things? Because you don't put the person who loves tables and doesn't really like writing onto a writing task, right? So really understand how people think and what they enjoy doing, and that will make for a stronger application.

Ann Price 32:59

Right. Yeah, what what their natural skill set so you would do Absolutely, yeah. So you would do that kind of thing where you're training a team and maybe they're gonna be applying the concepts to write their own grants. So you like you help them do the thing, you know, learn to do the thing, and then you also do the thing for your clients, correct? Right?

Natasha Goldman 33:20

So so there's kind of two models. Either someone just wants the training, in which case we're it's the same workshops that we give for the clients when we write the grants. If we're doing it for a client and we know we're writing the grants, we want the team to be prepared and to understand why we're asking what we're asking during the meetings. So doing the workshops and helping them understand how to do it prepares them for working with us because they'll understand where we're going with our questions.

Ann Price 33:51

Gotcha.

Natasha Goldman 33:52

Then there's training for those who wish to write applications on their own. So then we're talking, we put a lot more emphasis on team building and the roles that everyone will play and the skills and so forth, but we're also covering all the content. Oh, that makes so much sense. Yeah. Yeah. So people can either take it and run with it, or they can take and say, gosh, I think I could run with it, but I don't have the time, so I want you to write it for me. Right. You know, that happens a lot too. Right.

Ann Price 34:19

Yeah. And if, you know, getting back to kind of the mistakes part of this conversation, I think the mistakes that I have seen, um, and you kind of alluded to this, is how stressed out um the folks really are. Like they are up to their eyeballs, and they're trying to write grants to keep, you know, the doors opened or to fund the research project, whatever, whatever very important thing it is. Um, and that doesn't always go well. You know, because they don't have, they don't necessarily have the capacity or the time or both uh or whatever. So and I know resources are tight. I'm I I understand that. I do understand that, but I can see where um kind of having that tier level of help would be just so important, whether it be go on Natasha's website and get resources, right? Or have her come in and do workshops for you so your team can do it, because maybe you're not maybe you're not quite ready to have someone do it for you, but you know, right? I can see kind of uh, you know, entry level for folks that you work with.

Natasha Goldman 35:25

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, yeah. I love that. Yeah.

Ann Price 35:29

So I think we've been touching on this whole the whole idea of how the model kind of keeps focused on the story. Yeah, yeah.

The Five-Question Story Framework

Natasha Goldman 35:38

I think the story is, you know, part of the what is what have you been doing up to date and what do you wish to do going forward with the grant funds. So that's important to talk about the history of of what you've been doing and what the successes are, and then the how sometimes people get stuck on that. It's really the nuts and the bolts. Who is doing what when? How is this work going to happen? Um, and and we go into all those details. And everyone learns so much from this process because they've never sat down to really think through all the steps or the steps of the logic model, right? Who is going to do what? What will that result in, and how is that leading to the ultimate goal? And they haven't necessarily thought about the project in that way before. So we end up discovering with the people we're working with that they are uncovering so many details and nuances of their projects that they hadn't realized they were addressing, especially when it comes to broader impact.

Ann Price 36:37

Yeah.

Natasha Goldman 36:38

So a lot of times they're thinking they want to impact their population, but funders want you to impact a broader set of ideas or regions. They want you to impact your your region, they want you to impact the nation, they want you to they want other people to be able to borrow this model and use it. And a lot of times applicants have not thought that way before. And it's so much fun to show them.

Ann Price 37:03

Yeah. Yeah.

Natasha Goldman 37:04

This can scale. You can do a white paper, another community college can do this project. If you prove it successful, you'll have an impact. That's so exciting, I think.

Ann Price 37:13

Yeah.

Natasha Goldman 37:13

That really, that really is about change. And that's that's really fun.

Ann Price 37:17

So a question I didn't put on here, but I just thought of, um, especially when you say that's so exciting. So where you give give us an example of um either a project that just lit you up or a win that you had for your client that you're just like so friggin' proud of. I know you have them.

Natasha Goldman 37:38

Yeah, I think that the, you know, one of the projects that I'm really most proud of is the city of Boston hired us to write a Good Jobs Challenge grant. And that was um the predecessor to what's now called the EDA Tech Hubs. And Good Jobs Challenge was really meant to train, give people wraparound support, like we talked about before, um, get them free training and get them into guaranteed jobs. And that project, that award was $23 million, and it focused on three industry sectors: healthcare, child hair, and child care, and clean energy. It was like conducting two symphonies or three symphonies at one time. So many partners, you know, I would say probably almost 200 partners in letters of commitment that we needed between trainers, wraparound support, and then um employers. And telling that story about how each of those sectors and the partners within the sectors would work together to produce the results that they wanted to achieve was very exciting. It was just very exciting to be working on that scale and to get to know all the individual community colleges that that do the training or the nonprofit organizations that do the training, and then getting to know all the support services that could help the trainees as they to make sure that they got through and then getting into employed positions. It also sometimes involves a lot of creativity, uh, especially for clean energy, what's coming down the pipe, how much how how might um energy jobs be affected in the future and what kind of job skills will be needed. So there's all needed, and so there's a lot of creativity that's involved as well. And I'm very, very proud of that. The results of that are just coming in because it was awarded in 2022 and wrapped up in 2025, and the childcare sector just reported that they actually not only met their goal, but they um did more than that. They wanted to employ over 800 um individuals and they are well over a thousand. So that means that they were able to train at no cost and provide support services and get people employed in good jobs in childcare, which helps so many people.

Ann Price 39:50

Yeah, I love that so much. Good for you. So, um, Natasha, what's giving you hope these days?

Iteration Through Playful Case Studies

Natasha Goldman 39:56

What's giving me hope? Let's see. My garden, I love gardening, nature is. Still an important part of my life. So I planted my tulip bulbs recently. Um, I'm very excited about that. The idea of things going to sleep in the wintertime and I see my garden going to sleep, right? And then it is going to wake up in the spring, and that just really excites me and gives me hope, that sense of renewal and regrowth. I think that uh what gives me hope is a lot of people just having wonderful conversations and seeking human contact. Um, with the onslaught of social media and everything that's available technologically, I think people around me are enjoying more and more seeing folks in person again and having really in-depth conversations in person. And I'm finding that even if there's political differences in the people that I'm, you know, talk to, we can still really have productive conversations and see each other's points of view. And I think that that's that gives me hope. It really does give me hope that people have different, you know, political parties and ideas, but there is space for conversation if people are willing to make it. And that that does give me hope that that that can happen. And just the hard work that that I see everyone doing, you know, everything from my clients to the schools that my kids go to, to how my town takes care of its town, to, you know, so many things in the world that people are just working really, really hard to make sure that they're doing the best that they can do. And that always gives me a lot of hope. It really does.

Ann Price 41:31

Awesome. So I've been asking this question a lot lately. What is one piece of advice you have for community leaders doing social change work?

Natasha Goldman 41:40

Yeah, I think that um it's really listening. It's it's really listening to partners and to the target population and to one's colleagues, tuning in to where the pain points are and how those have changed. And understanding the subtlety of the changes that people have had to encounter. It's really listening and being in conversation with people. That's most important, I think, and forging those relationships to be able to achieve goals.

Ann Price 42:13

Yeah, I love it.

Natasha Goldman 42:14

Because if you don't, you can't achieve the goals if you don't have the relationships built in. It's not just about the numbers. We talk about how important the data is, and it is so important, but one has to go about getting the data in an empathetic way and an understanding way, understanding of the challenges that people are facing, right? Patience, all those things are really, really important.

Ann Price 42:36

Yeah, and I I think it has to be done in a way that is not just extractive. We're also giving back.

Natasha Goldman 42:42

Yeah.

Ann Price 42:42

Yeah.

Natasha Goldman 42:43

All those and education and always keep learning, learning, listening, and educating oneself.

Ann Price 42:49

Yeah, for sure. So the question I ask all of my guests, my favorite question, when you look to the future, what community possibilities do you see?

Natasha Goldman 43:03

I can see a lot more of innovation around partnerships. I mean, I think that's a theme that keeps coming up with me, and that's because of the success that I've seen in grant projects that involve partnerships. I think that uh communities have to be able to understand how different populations and organizations can work together and really leverage their assets and their experiences, their lived experiences and their skills. To me, that's really most important. People have to talk to one another and understand where they're coming from and what they bring to the table.

Ann Price 43:38

Yeah.

Natasha Goldman 43:38

What's unique about them and what do they want to learn?

Ann Price 43:44

Seek first to understand, right? Yeah. So how can uh people learn more about Vincent and get in touch with you?

Natasha Goldman 43:52

Well, thank you for asking. Our website is www.natashagoldman.com. This and is also on LinkedIn as a company page, and I also have my personal page, and then you can also email me at info at Natasha Goldman.com.

Ann Price 44:07

Yeah, and don't forget to sign up for that newsletter. It's gonna newsletter. Yeah. Yeah. Natasha, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you, Anne. It's been a pleasure.

Natasha Goldman 44:18

Really, really happy to be here today.

Ann Price 44:20

So much good information you provided.

Natasha Goldman 44:23

I'm glad. I hope it's helpful. Wonderful.

Team Roles And Training Models

Ann Price 44:27

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Take care. Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in to Community Possibilities. You know, this time of year is a great time to pause, reflect, and set a new direction. I hope you're ready to start 2026 refreshed and ready to go. There's no better moment to invest in yourself and the work you care about. Here's to beginning the year with clarity and purpose, ready to do your best work yet. As someone devoted to making a difference in your community, I know how rewarding and challenging this work can be. And I know firsthand how much heart, energy, and care goes into every project you take on. I know you struggle with questions that leave you wondering whether you're making a difference. You might be wondering if you're reaching the right people or during reporting time, you and your staff struggle to find the information you need to show your work is effective. I want to help you be more thoughtful and intentional so that you can get off that struggle bus. I created powerful evidence, evaluation for non-evaluators, an online course just for leaders like you to answer these questions with confidence. My online course simplifies the evaluation process, giving you practical tools to understand your work and help you see what's working so you can make informed decisions going forward. In this course, you're going to learn practical evaluation methods with easy-to-follow techniques that anyone can apply. You'll learn to understand your results, collect and interpret data, and assess your program's performance. You'll be able to take immediate action by applying these insights to improve your program right away. And oh my gosh, the workbooks that come with the course are gorgeous and so easy to follow. Head on over to Community Evaluation Solutions.com to find the course and lots of other resources you can put to use right away.