185 How to Get Non-NIH Funding (ie How I Built My Career)

Looking for ways to diversify your research funding? Check out this week’s episode where Kemi discuss how to get creative with non-NIH funding! 

Tailored especially for women of color in academic medicine and public health, Kemi shares her insights on the structural differences between NIH and other funding entities, emphasizing the need for adaptability in grant writing. 

Episode Highlights: 

• Structural Differences between NIH vs. Other Funding Sources 
• The Importance of Diversifying Your Funding Portfolio 
• Writing for Non-NIH Applications: Key Strategies 
• The Role of Theoretical Frameworks in Grant Writing 
• Building Your Confidence and Passion for Your Work 

This episode is not just about securing grants; it's about reclaiming your narrative and empowering yourself to thrive in an evolving academic landscape. Tune in to gain insights that could transform your research career. 

If you'd like to learn more foundational career navigation concepts for women of color in academic medicine and public health, sign up for our KD Coaching Foundations Series: www.kemidoll.com/foundations. 

REMINDER: Your Unapologetic Career Podcast now releases episode every other week! Can't wait that long? Be sure you are signed up for our newsletter (above) where there are NEW issues every month! 

Transcript

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These foundations and these non-NIH entities, especially ones that are topic or disease focused, they sniff out the bullshit immediately. They are like, what are you doing here? Like they're trying to figure out why you're even here. And the way you're writing makes it clear to them that you don't know this area. So once again, to my unicorns, to my purpose-driven researchers, my folks who are like, I came here to study this population. I came here to make this difference. You once again are in a position of privilege because nobody can fake that funk. People can't fake how devoted and committed you are. It comes through in the specificity in how you can write about your problem. Once again, you have another edge here. You can see why I'm excited for y'all during this time and not scared and freaked out for y'all. Hopefully it's coming through. Hello, hello. You are listening to Your Unapologetic Career. Being a woman of color faculty in academic medicine who wants to make a real difference with your career can be tough. Thank you so much for joining us today. Hey y'all, I'm going to be talking about getting creative with non-NIH funding and for research during these times. This is definitely for my academic girlies, my women of color in academic medicine and public health. But per usual with my content, I think it has a larger resonance for anybody who has to pivot away from the status quo, especially during a time where everything feels like it's falling apart. I'm just gonna say it now because I need to get it off my chest. I just wanna say it now because I know you're never supposed to say this. I know that it just doesn't come across well all the time, but I'm just gonna say, I told y'all, I told y'all about this. I just have to say this. I told y'all about this in two ways. I told y'all about this last fall, right, actually recorded the podcast before the election, but it dropped after the election. I told y'all about this. I told y'all about what to do in the setting of a whole bunch of change in federal funding last November. And number two, the second way I told y'all about this is I have... been telling y'all about diversified and diversifying your portfolio and not putting your entire career and whether your career is going to be successful on one single entity. I have been talking about that since 2019, since all of this got started. So you're just going to have to excuse me. You are. You're just going to have to excuse me. You're going to have to take a deep breath. You're going to have to roll your eyes. You're going to have to do whatever you want because I have to take a moment to say respectfully, this is my bag. Respectfully, I have been talking about this for literally six years. So yes, I am going to talk about it again. I'm going to bring it up again. But I want you to know that I'm not talking about this because it's like, what's that word? It's like the flashy thing of the moment. I'm not talking about this because now all of a sudden there's all these interesting emergency workshop panels popping up about how do people get non-NH funding? I'm talking about this because this is what I do. Because I built my entire career like this. Because the reason why, though, I am also impacted by the NIH shenanigans, I also have millions of dollars tied up with those fools, I am not shaking in my boots and my research program is solid and the people I support are okay is because your girl has always had a diversified portfolio. That didn't come after I got successful. That was the way I became successful. So, This is clearly a timely topic, but it's always been important. And so I'm talking about it again. I'm going to speak about it again. So I try to think, how do I want to talk about this? There's a lot of different ways. And I think most of you are listening like, what tactics? I think you're like, break it down. I want bullet points. I need to know what to do. And I receive that. I respect that. And so in a way, this episode, it's going to kind of try to align with that as much as possible. Okay, so let's just start at the top. Let's talk about the biggest difference, in my opinion, the biggest difference between NIH funding and others, just like overall, right? Because I think that's where to start. I think that we have to acknowledge that almost every single way institutions and traditional grant teaching, grant programs, et cetera, in every single iteration, they are completely geared towards the NIH. They are like, you learn this for the NIH, and then I guess you can apply it other places. I have always been different because my career has been different. So the way that I teach about getting grants and writing effective grants and like being successful doesn't start with any institute. It doesn't start with that at all. It starts with your idea and what it means to you and how you frame it and how you argue with it. Having like a deep understanding of the optics and how what you are doing is perceived now and how you want that to shift or change. I just have to say, it's interesting to see this attempt at a pivot. But anyway, let me get into the biggest difference I see. So first of all, the biggest difference I see, if we just look at structurally, like structurally, what's the biggest difference between NIH funding and NIH applications and pretty much everything else, which I think I should define as like Other federal agencies like PCORI, I think is a big one right now. Everybody's very aware that they still have their funding and they're continuing and going forward and all that stuff. So that's a huge entity. Foundation grants, so both large and small foundations, Robert Wood Johnson. American Cancer Society is big in my world, disease-focused foundations, et cetera, that kind of funding, and even philanthropy. I will just sprinkle a little bit about that at the end, but even philanthropy. So when I say non-NIH, that's what I mean. So NIH versus all the others. So structurally, obviously the sections are different, okay? Obviously, like a lot of times, it's not always, but often the organization is different. And so if you've only learned how to like write an NIH grant in that way, you have to scramble your brain a little bit because the structure and even the words they use for things are different. All of a sudden you're being asked, how will you evaluate this? And you're not sure, wait, does that mean what are my methods? What's my statistical plan? What does that mean? So you have to literally start to break down your rigidity around the NIH language and start to think from this funder's perspective, what do they mean by that? So that's one structural difference. Another structural difference is that the review process is just, can be like a lot less consistency between the different entities, you know? So like the NIH is like one entity, but huge, right? Like so many different mechanisms and so many different institutes and foci, but like at the end of the day, the review process across pretty much everything is like exactly the same, which is why you can be so rigid about like, this is how you apply for an NIH grant, almost no matter what it is. But once you get out of that, not only are the individual funding entities different from each other in terms of their review process, their own internal opportunities can wildly vary in terms of what the review process is. So you have to create a whole nother step for yourself in applying where you are doing like a deep dive into this foundation, into how they put together their call process, into what specifically they wrote about the review process, and then literally what the review process looks like. Is this an LOI where I'm just like, I'm filing with somebody so that they know that this topic will be covered? Or is this an LOI that's going to be reviewed for content, scored, and only the top scores are getting through? Even that people don't realize. So they're submitting an LOI like they would to the NIH, not recognizing that this is not just an info. This is like, we're about to score you and only certain people get through. So the review process is less consistent, which means that you have to build in more time on your end to actually learn a different review process and understand what matters about that. We totally teach this in our coaching programs. We totally teach the importance and how actually literally how to do this so that you don't get trapped up And you don't miss things that might not be obvious, but they're there. They're there in the fine print if you read. So that's another thing. A third structural difference, and people might push back against this, but I'm going to stand on it, that I think overall, in general, there is a wider range of expertise on review panels. And I'm going to give an asterisk. I'm going to say it's like both extremes. Like you either can have a much wider range of expertise or a much narrower. On the wider side, the reason why I say that is because, especially a lot of foundations, first of all, it might not just be clinician scientists reviewing your proposal. Your proposal could be being reviewed by program administration, by patients, and by stakeholder partners. Your proposal can be being reviewed by the board of the foundation, not even close to being scientists, but are interested in topics. There can be so many different perspectives. on reviewing your proposal, that all of a sudden you are not writing to like the clinician scientist study section or the scientist study section that has been using the same effing rubric for like 60 years. all of a sudden you're writing to a much wider variety of people who are all very interested in research, but are gonna be coming at it to multiple different angles. So I feel like in the NIH-directed world, a lot of people are like, well, people might not know your expertise area, but you can rely on the fact that they are research-oriented scientists. On the non-NIH world, You can't. So not only may they not know your area, but they might not even be in research science like you are, or they might be reviewing proposals from all different kinds of research, like a genetics proposal, and then a health services proposal, and then a translational trial, like they're skipping around. So you have more work to do to make sure that anybody reading your application is on the same page with you. But that's, anyway, that's getting into like what you do differently, but there can be that wider range. Now, on the other hand, and sometimes simultaneously, which is really interesting, non-NIH funding entities can also have a much narrower range of expertise in that if it's a foundation, especially like a disease specific foundation, they know that area. They don't just know the science of it. They know the politics of it. They know the patient issues. They know stakeholder stuff. They know regulation. Like if you're trying to go for a foundation award, say you're doing, I don't know, something in digestive diseases or something, you're trying to go for that foundation. They know everything about that. So you can't be hand-waving about stuff that's active in the field because they're very keyed into what's going on. That also changes how you write because you're not writing to a group of people who might know the methods and the science, but they don't really know what's going on in the world of that disease. No, you might be writing to people who are right on the ground, know exactly what's going on. And that also changes how you write. So that's the other thing that's structurally different. Simultaneously, this wider range of potential review, and then also this more like narrow range of potential review expertise. Number four, I think we're on number four, structurally different between NIH and others, random timelines. So I know, I mean, yes, the NIH will sometimes have like a random call and they'll give you six weeks or whatever, but like then you get behind the scenes and you find out that like most of these random calls start off with like an interest panel. And like, if you're in the know, then you know what's coming and you just find out about all this nonsense. But anyway, outside of those random calls at the NIH, like we all know the NIH schedule, right? February, June, October. It's like that you just have these like standard sets of timelines and then also like this standard kind of like post-study section review, then the funding council, et cetera. Whereas once you go out of that world, the timelines can feel very random to you on two levels. One, when things are due, like when things even come up, which is why I have told y'all to sign up for these email lists of these different places that you might be interested in because otherwise, how are you going to know? People aren't going to necessarily send you things in time enough for you to even know the opportunity exists. So, Random timelines in terms of like when things are happening, but also the review timelines can be very different, often much shorter. So like you turn in an application and they're telling you the answer in four weeks. And this is like, this could be a$2 million application. You're finding out immediately, or you can have a situation where you have, there's like a rolling application where you're like, what does this even mean? Like you can literally turn it in anytime you want. It's so funny, clinician scientists, scientists, like research faculty, how much they like completely break down in the setting of having no deadline. They're like, what do you mean I can turn it in whenever? What does that mean? And like all of a sudden it's like becomes impossible to put the application together because there's no external deadline, which goes to show you how if you have not developed your skills of having your internal deadlines mean more than anybody's external deadlines, it will be very difficult for you to navigate this new world. another skill we teach and get that grant. Anyway, so random timelines, that's another thing. And then lastly, another structural difference between NIH funding and like all the other ways that you can get funding, mostly, I mean, non-NIH federal entities like PCORI, I mean, big foundations like Robert Wood Johnson, but also small foundations like disease-focused foundations and even philanthropy, because I keep adding that because sometimes y'all philanthropy can actually come in the form of like grants, like competitive awards in a way that you might not recognize. So you might be thinking philanthropy is only like getting Melinda Gates to randomly give me$2 million. But actually there are a lot of foundations that they kind of have a grant structure, but ultimately what they're doing is philanthropy if you really understand what they're doing. So all of that goes in there. So the last difference I wanted just to highlight at the top when we're talking about structural differences is is one, you know, the indirect rates definitely vary. And it's funny, this used to be like the primary thing that people would be like, oh, well, I can only do NIH grants because the indirect rates are capped and all these other things. And now look where we are. Now look where we are. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm trying to pull back on that. I told you so. I really am. Okay. That's going to be my last one. I'm going to pull back. Anyway, the indirect rates will vary. And also how these grants are structured in terms of what you can use for what can be different. So for example, there are some grants where they're like, you can use up to 10% of this grant for like administrative things. Like they don't even give you indirects, but they're basically like, this is the grant and 10% of it can be used for the random administrative stuff. Other grants just simply have a different kind of cap. Like it's 40% is the cap, 15% is the cap. So like understanding that and knowing if you need to get permission or like a special letter from your institution is something, it's an easy step to skip. if you don't realize that. And then the last thing is that there can be these odd requirements for the non-NIH grants, meaning that because they're so driven by their own institution, you have to really make sure you understand what they want from you. There can be grants where you have to attend a certain conference every year because you have the grant, it's required. There could be different kinds of restrictions around travel and or meetings. Some grants that are like, oh, because you have this grant, we expect you to be here or present your work or whatever. So those are the kinds of things that you need to be aware of and up on. And that if you know about them, if you spend the time to understand what those things are, you can also work that into your application to make it look even stronger. But again, this is a different mindset than the standard NIH rubric. That's just the structural change. Now that I've gone over the structural differences, this is where the rubber really hits the road. Because sure, you can know about these structural differences, right? But what do they mean? What do these differences mean? How does it change how you have to approach how you work on a grant and how you get it done? What does it mean? So I am going to give you what I can give you reasonably in a podcast here. I'm going way more in depth in the KD Coach community where we're going to have a KD Coach-wide workshop in depth on this because I want everybody to win. That's gonna be in July. But for the purpose of the podcast, I'm gonna kind of go over some things, some notes that I think are important if you're gonna embark on this non-NIH creative pathway, which by the way, I think is the only real way to create true freedom in your career is to not have any one entity be like the linchpin of whether your work survives or not. That just makes sense, right? I think the problem is, The only reason why we came to this point where people's entire careers are racked up in one institute is because people assume the NIH is too big to fail. Science is apolitical. Science is independent. It will never be. And it's so funny because if you're like me and you've ever studied, I don't know, if you study health equity, if you study racism, if you study topics that by definition are political, you know that it's never been true that science is apolitical. You've already known that, oh, there are certain topics that the NIH just doesn't fund, like women's health, all sorts of things. So we've never had the luxury of believing in this fantasy of the apolitical science. So a few consequences of the structural differences that we just talked about. Some of them are positive consequences. But other ones, I think, take a little bit more work to do. So one positive thing is that often, this is not 100% the case, but so often, I think one of the huge thematic differences between NIH funding and other things is that for other entities, the burden of having to prove the project before you do the project is lower. And I wanna be very clear about this. This does not mean that the burden of rigor is lower. It does not. It does not mean that the projects don't have to be as good. It means that you don't have to have done 75% of it to get the study section to approve the end. It means like the kind of things I was told all the time. Well, can you basically prove that it works before you apply? So then your preliminary data proves that it's already going to be successful. So then you can get the grant. And I would always be like, how is that science? Like, I don't know what that is, but it's so conservative and it's so ridiculous. And I'm not the first person who has talked and written about how the way that the peer review at the NIH is designed and the way that the machine works actually de-incentivizes creativity in science. It de-incentivizes new ideas. It de-incentivizes high-risk ideas. It much more incentivizes incremental, predictable studies that don't do a lot to change the needle. Okay, coming back from that rant. So because you're no longer gonna be in that world and it's not NIH funding, you have more space to propose something before you have to prove that the something that you want to do to test already works. And that can be nice, especially for those of us who work at the intersection of multiple ideas, for those of us who are very creative thinking outside the box, It's important because we don't have the privilege of saying, well, for 15 years, people have already done this and shown that it works, so I'm going to slightly pivot it into this area. We are often building the entire foundation of the argument from scratch. So it's very helpful to not have the burden to have to prove that something already works and already exists before you propose to do it. So that is a helpful consequence of the difference between the NIH and the other funding. The second thing, though, that goes along with that. The second thing, so you don't have to say, okay, it already works or whatever. You can pitch something that is truly new and truly innovative is that y'all have to be superb writers. You have to write your butt off. off. You don't get to hide behind a bunch of tables and preliminary data that already prove that the thing that you are studying or going to experiment on is already going to work. You've got to write your ass off to rise above the fray and be able to get funded. I stand by this. I am always surprised when I read successful NIH grants. And I'm like, this is so boring. Where is the persuasive argument? Where is the beautiful theoretical foundation? Where is the journey you are taking me on to understand A to B to C, just dry, sad numbers, not exciting. That is not the non-NIH world. You got to be a great writer because persuasive writing is so key. Okay. So that's another consequence. And so if you are, this is now where I want to speak to my folks who are kind of on the outside, who've always been like, well, nobody really understands my research. Well, it's always difficult. I'm not like a stand. I'm somehow I'm outside. I'm marginalized in some way or somehow I'm a first only different. Shout out to Shonda Rhimes. Something is different or distinct or I always feel like I'm kind of like the underdog moving forward. This is great for you. Because you already have been positioned, probably for a long time, to have to convince people that what you want to do matters, is important. And that's exactly what you're doing in these kinds of applications. The reason why I see people run into problems is that they approach these non-NIH applications with entitlement. Like, well, obviously we should get the award because obviously the science is sound and obviously this work has been done for 15 years and obviously this isn't the next step. You know how foundations react to that? Next, where is the excitement? Give us interesting. So that's another thing. You have to be a fantastic writer. Another thing is that you really have to know your stuff cold. This goes along. There's no hand waving. What you have to do is basically get them to the point where they're like, it would be insane for us not to fall. Like I want to know the end of this story. Like you done tell me the beginning. You've told me the middle. I am dying to read the end. Like give her the money because I want to know how this ends. That's the energy that you're creating in your application. You're literally building that energy into your application. So if, especially when you're applying to foundations that are disease specific, et cetera, it's going to be really obvious if you don't know what the hell you're talking about. If you're one of these people who are jumping, being like, oh, well, this is really fundable right now. So we'll write a grant in here. Oh, but then this is really fundable now. And you're constantly pivoting to the winds. You're not going to do well here because these foundations and these non-NIH entities, especially ones that are topic or disease focused, they sniff out the bullshit immediately. They are like, what are you doing here? Like they're trying to figure out why you're even here. And the way you're writing makes it clear to them that you don't know this area. So once again, to my unicorns, to my purpose-driven researchers, my folks who are like, I came here to study this population. I came here to make this difference. You once again are in a position of privilege because nobody can fake that funk. People can't fake how devoted and committed you are. It comes through in the specificity in how you can write about your problem. Once again, you have another edge here. You can see why I am excited for y'all during this time and not scared and freaked out for y'all. Hopefully it's coming through. All right. This might be mine. I'm going to add one, but this might be mine. Honestly, I will say this might be one where you're like, that sounds like you, Kami. That might not be the case for the foundations, for PCORI, whatever. But I am going to tell you, you should have extremely strong theoretical arguments. I mean that you should basically make new philosophers out of those reviewers. Before they see a single number, before they see a single piece of data, you should have their perspective on your problem wrapped around your finger to where they are like, oh, I have not thought about this problem that way. And now I do. And I wanna learn more, but I already wanna tell people about how I'm thinking about this problem differently. Strong theoretical arguments, strong theoretical frameworks, that's what they do for you. They orient the reviewer, they orient people who are reading your application to how you think about your problem. That is so different than, I have accumulated the burden of evidence and research beforehand to demonstrate that there is a problem here, and I have also given you preliminary data to show that I have basically already done this project, so it has zero risk of failure. Please give me money. You see how that's totally different? Why do you have to do this? Why do I recommend that you do this? Because again, if you think about the much wider perspective of a review committee, where you're also getting people who may not have any medical training, who may not have any scientific training, but are deeply passionate about their area, who might be more politically oriented, all the different things, if you think about that, they're not in the numbers with you. They're not in the data with you. They, however, are in the mental argument that you're trying to make. If you're assuming that that's a given, you're in trouble. You in trouble, girl. So strong theoretical frameworks, not this research is based on this theory, moving on. I mean, can I read your figure and like get in your mind immediately and be like, oh, I see exactly how you're thinking about this. Can I read the background and almost predict, okay, these are the five main problems we need to deal with. Like that level of strong theoretical frameworks and arguments. Many of us, to be honest, are really anemic on this because these are not things that were emphasized, especially for clinician researchers, I will say. These are not things that were necessarily emphasized in our training. Unless we got additional graduate level training and we spent time working with frameworks and theories and understanding how to apply them, we are weak in this area and you're gonna have to go ahead and strengthen that muscle. Another thing we talk about in our coaching programs. All right, all of this to say is that if you haven't noticed yet, what all of this leads to internally is that you have to be your strongest cheerleader, for your idea. You have to believe in what you are doing so strongly. You don't believe because you ignore the data and facts, no. You're not in denial, but you have to believe in it so much because you know your stuff. In fact, you know it so well that you know all the problems with it. You know all the problems with it and you have taken the time to say, Despite all of these problems, all of these limitations in the study of this, despite how difficult it is to study this, for example, despite how small a group that I have to look at might be, for example, despite the issue with this current measure, for example, I am 100% certain that we must do this because this is what's going to come out on the other side. You have to be the strongest cheerleader for that. You don't get to hide behind tables and numbers. And this is logical. You don't get to hide behind that. Again, why those who are purpose aligned, value driven, have know the kind of impact they want to make, have a leg up because you already feel that inside. It might have been tried to be squelched out of you in service of trying to appease the NIH. But let me tell you something, you better relight that fire because nobody else is gonna do it for you. You have to be your strongest cheerleader. Do you know what the attitude feels like? And I wanna be clear, this is not how the grant reads, but the attitude, the attitude of writing for these non-NIH potentials, the attitude feels like this. It feels like, hey, this is the study that I am going to do. I'm going to do it because I just told you all the reasons why it is so critical. Period, the end. I am absolutely going to do it. Are you going to be the partner who will do it with me by giving me the money? That's how it feels. That's the degree of passion and commitment that you have, which is why, once again, in our coaching programs, we teach people how to get your idea so fucking clear. excuse my language, so strong, how to get, how to think about your idea as a foundation for so many other things, that that is not a question. You have that energy going in. You're not trying to pivot here, jump over here, glom onto this co-I group, do this, invert yourself here, all to make these different entities happy. You are grounded so strongly in the impact in your questions that you have, and you understand how to communicate about that. You understand how to think about, this is my vault, my foundation. This is like my trunk of my tree. And all of these potential grant applications are just branches, but nobody can mess with this foundation. Because you are so clear on that, you can actually have that attitude and have it come across as strong and inviting and appealing. That's the other way your application stands out. People are like, this one. I mean, yeah, these are great, but this one, I shouted reading this like, yes! And I didn't even know about X condition before, or I didn't even know about this thing before. That's the energy. And so all that to say is that like, these are some of the structural differences and then the internal differences that are different. And so my thesis where I'm landing here is that if your work is based in purpose, If you are value aligned, if the work that you are trying to do literally aligns with the values that you have, like the impact you are trying to have on your career, you're not trying to get funded because you need money. You're not trying to get funded because the next step is to get a K or the next step is to get an R or it's all about the prestige. These are not things that are bad. It's not wrong to enter a field and be like, you know what? I just want to do well in this field. Tell me how to do well in this field. I'm going to check my boxes because I get a lot out of being successful. And that's cool. And this research is interesting enough to me and it works. There's nothing wrong with that. But those aren't my people. That's not who I'm talking to. I'm talking to those of you who are burning with the need to do your work because you came to do that good work in the world. You came to do it. So you're like, okay, I will do this academic thing because this is a platform that I can do this work and it works for me because I'm kind of a nerd and I love the science stuff. Those are the people I'm talking to. You are actually very well set up in this space. And if you don't think you are, if you have inhaled too much messaging about how all of this is the end and there's no hope and the NIH is whatever, we might as well put our head down and wait for four years if it's going to be four years. Like if you've inhaled all that and you're like, What are you talking about? I want to tell you that is the system talking to you. That is institutional mindset. And it is absolutely 100% time to wash that away. Okay. To get reprogrammed into all that's possible. Me personally, that's my story. I started off as faculty member knowing, okay, I need to get grants. I know I want to do research as part of my career. I know that they're not going to support me forever to have some protected time to do so. I need to get research. And the first thing I did is not only focus on a K. That's the first thing I did. I was like, all right, let's line it up. Money is money. Let's go. And so over the course of my first two or three years, I taught myself how to apply to all these things. And your girl got all the grants, all of them. To the point where it didn't even make sense for me to get a K. They were like, you got more money than a K would give you. You might as well just keep going. So I am speaking from experience. I'm not speaking from this crisis moment. I'm speaking from the fact that you can build a career outside of the juggernaut of the NIH. And if you believe that and you're a woman of color faculty member in academic medicine or public health, I invite you to apply for our flagship coaching program, Get That Grant. We're in. The entire program, professional development coaching in a group setting, 24-7 access to our coaches and a killer curriculum that your girl wrote out of my experience and launched in the middle of another very chaotic time called the COVID-19 pandemic. All of that settles on this idea of the principles of owning, protecting, and executing on your value. not how to write a successful K, not how to transition from K to R. There's nothing wrong with those things. I am just telling you that we have never been about the specific funding institute. We've been about you as a valuable entity that can be successful in many different environments. And the reason why... I built the program like that. The reason why it looks like that is because it's my experience. It's interesting. I have gotten advice along the way, like, well, why don't you do like NIH templates or why don't you do this or that? And I've been like, because it's not congruent. It's not authentic to the program I've built. And it's also literally not authentic to my experience. And now the experience of so many of our faculty members, which is like, you can have success many different ways and we're not going to put you in a box. I never felt that way about meeting the NIH because honestly, the NIH has always been deeply disrespectful to the areas that I want to research. So like, it didn't feel good to put myself in that kind of position. But your girl has a research center, multi-million dollar grants, doing interventional national clinical trials, changing practice. If that's your goal, then we are here for you. I really invite you to go ahead and click the link to apply to get that grant. If you're a woman of color faculty member in academic medicine or public health, and you are trying to refine your focus, you are in the right environments and taking in the right supportive messages during this time. I am deeply aware of how incredibly chaotic and terrible and sad what is happening right now is. Deeply aware. And that is why... I feel even strongly that this is the time for cultivated community and a focus on how you can use the faculty position you have to actually make good in the world. Because to be frank, to keep it a buck, if you are not doing that, what are you doing? If your faculty position is designed to hide and stop doing the work and I don't know, spend all the time in cynicism and whatever. What? Are you kidding me? That's what we came here to do? No. For me, it's a no. If it's a no for you and you're a woman of color faculty member in academic medicine or public health, go ahead and click the link in my bio. Go ahead and go to the website, chemidol.com. Go ahead and apply. We are enrolling right now for our July cohort. It's going to be fire. The reason why I know is because The last time things were like this and I felt this way was our July 2020 cohort because the pandemic was raging and everybody was like, why are you even thinking about coaching? Like what's happening to the world? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And let me tell you that cohort will go down in history forever. Their outcomes, their results are to this day remain unmatched. And you know why I think it is? Because GTG was built in chaos. So this is our moment. All right, y'all. That's what I wanted to share with you. For those of you who are already in the KD coaching world and you're like, this is great, Kemi. Let's keep going. We're going to keep going. So we're going to be doing an in-depth workshop on non-NIH funding, strategies, tactics, whatever in July. I'm going to be answering all of your questions. I'm going to be showing you examples. We are going to have receipts. We're going to deep dive in because we are going to be fine. So we are working on getting that scheduled. And obviously, we're recorded. Obviously, everybody can catch the recording who is in the Katie Coach community. It's going to be open to everybody. We have a lot of programs. It's going to be open across the full suite of programs. Get that grant fully funded, liberate, visionary. Everybody can come. And we're going to make sure that we all have the community knowledge to navigate this time. And we are going to make sure that our energy, our precious energy during these days is used to support and keep our work alive and not used to be a part of the cynicism and pessimism and frankly, cowardice of our institutions during this time. That's the tip we're on. If you're on that tip, I will see you there. If you enroll in the July cohort, you will be at that workshop as well. That's what I'm going to do. Regardless of where you land, I wish you Clarity with how you use your energy right now. I wish you calmness to understand that you are here on purpose, that your life is not random, that your position right now is not random, and that it is possible that the kinds of things that you have cared about your whole life that have taken you to the place where you are right now was all on purpose to figure out how you are going to be most helpful. and most impactful during this time. And nobody can tell you what that is but you. But I know for me, I am doing that right now. I know the impact of the work that I do in my community and for my people. I know that, I'm clear on that. And I am here for everybody who knows that where they shine, where they do their best work, what they want to do is to use science to do good in the world. Come on in. Women of color only. All right. Love y'all. Bye. Take care. Thank you for tuning in to the Your Unapologetic Career Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode and want to keep the conversation going, here's what you can do. First, subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you prefer so you never miss an episode. Your support helps us reach more listeners like you. I'll see you next time. For those looking to enhance their careers, you can join our career foundation series for exclusive tips at www.kemidol.com slash foundations. This also comes out monthly and is a great way to keep your career on the right track. And finally, if you're a woman of color faculty in academic medicine or public health, definitely get on the Get That Grant coaching waitlist. That's at www.kemidol.com slash gtgwaitlist. We can connect in all types of ways. You can follow me on social media at my full government name, Kemi Doll, K-E-M-I-D-O-L-L, for daily inspiration and updates. Thank you again for being part of our community.