21: Grant Writer or Freelancer? A Guide for Executive Directors

In this episode, Marcia Beckner sits down with grant writing expert, author, and Grant Writing & Funding podcast host Holly Rustick for a candid conversation about what nonprofit leaders need to know before hiring fundraising support.

They explore a question many Executive Directors and nonprofit CEOs are quietly asking right now: is it smarter to hire an in-house grant writer, or bring in a freelance specialist? 

But this conversation goes far beyond staffing models. Holly also shares her perspective on nonprofit burnout, toxic work norms, the CEO vs. Executive Director mindset, gender pay gaps in the sector, and why more women are building flexible consulting businesses that better support their lives and leadership.

If you have ever felt stretched too thin, unsure how to build fundraising capacity, or curious whether a freelance model could create more sustainability for your organization, this episode will give you plenty to think about.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The real difference between hiring an employee and hiring a freelance grant writer
• Why many nonprofits unintentionally overload staff and reduce fundraising effectiveness
• The mindset shift from Executive Director to CEO
• How nonprofit culture can normalize overwork, guilt, and blurred boundaries
• Why flexibility, pricing confidence, and business ownership matter for women in the sector
• What nonprofit leaders should consider before adding grant capacity to their team
• How some leaders successfully transition from in-house roles to freelance grant writing careers

Resources mentioned:

• Holly Rustick: https://grantwritingandfunding.com
• Check out her #1 Grant Writing Podcast: Grant Writing & Funding
• Freelance Grant Writer Academy
• Grant Professional Mentorship
• The Beginner’s Guide to Grant Writing book
• Marcia’s Burnout to Boundaries Session at Culture CARES®

👉 Are you catapulting towards burnout? Schedule a private session: https://culturecares.com/burnout-to-boundaries/

🔗 CONNECT WITH MARCIA

Follow Marcia on LinkedIn → linkedin.com/in/marciabeckner 

Visit the Culture CARES Website → culturecares.com 

Explore the Podcast → culturecares.com/podcast

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to Nonprofit CEO Spark, the podcast for bold leaders ready to navigate growth and change with energy and confidence. I'm Marcia Beckner, nonprofit founder, former executive director, and culture strategist with nearly 20 years in the social impact world. Each week I help nonprofit leaders stop spinning out, set boundaries, and design inclusive cultures where all staff can thrive. If you're ready to reignite your leadership without sacrificing your well-being, hit subscribe and let's spark your next chapter together. Welcome to the Nonprofit CEO Spark Podcast. I'm your host, Marsha Beckner. Today's guest is Holly Rustic, a world-renowned grant writing expert, best-selling author, and host of the top-ranked podcast called Grant Writing and Funding, which I had the honor of being a guest on a couple weeks ago. With more than 20 years of experience, Holly helps new and seasoned grant writers leave their nonprofit jobs behind and replace their full-time income by writing grants part-time from home. That's really cool. Through her signature programs, the Freelance Grant Writing Academy and Grant Professional Mentorship, she teaches grant writers how to master both the craft of grant writing and the business side of building a sustainable, profitable freelance career. Since 2023, her students have collectively secured more than $260 million. I'll say that again, $260 million in grant awards and generated over $7.6 million in revenue in their own businesses. She's also the founder of the ambitious $1 billion for good movement, aiming to help her students win $1 billion in grants and build $30 million in grant writing business by 2030. Holly holds a master's degree in international political economy and is a four-time author and has been recognized for her leadership and anti-human trafficking advocacy. She lives on the island of Guam with her daughter. Welcome to the show, Holly. Thank you, Marsha. I'm so excited to be here on your podcast this time.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

So as you mentioned, we've been on mine. So I love it.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

I'm excited to interview you, learn more about what you do, and how you can directly impact the lives of the nonprofit CEOs and executive directors listening here today. So after hearing your own bio, can you give us a little bit more context around why you do what you do? And if you had an epiphany, like this is this is my life's calling.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Yeah, I mean, I definitely, you know, I've been in this space for more than 20 years writing grants. And um, and I really always just loved it. Like I kind of fell into it like many grant writers, we all fall into it. Um, and you know, there's not really I'm a grant writer pathway, like from high school, like you know, you've just kind of fallen into it. But I fell into it during the Asian tsunami back in 2004. Um, and I went to Indonesia to do some community work and ended up writing grants and without even knowing it. I just knew people in the community. They saw these big UN organizations. I was working for a really small startup NGO. Um, and so we were really in the community, but they saw these big UN places that were there, and they said, Oh, they have money available, but we don't know how to tap into those funds. Like, you know, there's a language barrier, there's all the things. And um, so I was talking to, you know, people in Indonesia, and I was like, okay, what do you need? Like, I can help, like, no problem. Like, I can help do that. So I started doing that, and and I've really felt like, oh wow, I help people get like a business restarted and and just was the liaison. Like I was like, I feel like I'm the liaison between money and mission. And it's always stuck with me, like that's what a grant writer is. And then I realized, oh, that's writing grants. And then I went to outside of DC and I got like trained, like at a back in that time, that was like 2006 by then, 2007. I was working at a virtual company, grant writing company outside of DC. And that was like, no one had ever heard of that too, right? I was like back in the day. So um started doing that, and then I realized I wanted, as you read my bio, I have my master's. I went to go to Europe to do my master's, and I was like, hey, can't I just like do this and keep working for you, but like work over there since it's a virtual business? Didn't know that was called freelancing. So it was called freelancing. So that's when I actually started freelancing. And I did that for quite a while. I've I've lived in many other countries. Um I've lived in the Middle East for a long time and was teaching there, but doing freelance grant writing on the side. Um, moved to Guam in 2011 and actually started working more inside a nonprofit at that time. Um, and I did that for several years, writing grants, eventually being the acting executive director when the executive director was off island and just kind of running and doing grant management, basically doing the thing, working three jobs and getting paid for one, right? As my okay, so let's fall into this. Okay, so that's really what it felt like. And I realized that when I was there at the nonprofit, um wonderful work that they were doing, right? Wonderful work. We really focused on substance use, um, assisting women with substance use. Uh, you heard I do I've done a lot of anti-human trafficking work, a lot of research, um, and uh really a lot of great work. But what I felt like was the culture of the nonprofit was almost you were guilted to work like crazy because it was for quote unquote the cause, right? And it was like if you're not working as hard as the executive director who was working all the time, then you didn't care about the cause as much. And that wasn't the unsaid said thing, if you know, if you follow me. And I, and as I was doing this for years, I saw it in other nonprofits because I was always at like different meetings and connecting with nonprofits and working with them. And I was like, this is the norm. So what I eventually did was kind of twofold. What some of the things I did was some more research to find out like, why is this going on? And what I really found when I was doing my research was in a way, even if you're a nonprofit, it doesn't have like toxicity in it, and you feel like it's a really healthy environment. Overall, nonprofits in general have the culture of toxicity because of the way they were formed. So if you go back to the civil rights movement, right, during that era, and when actually like 501c3s became incorporated and institutionalized by the IRS, they that was a way of the government controlling movements. So all of a sudden, that's why it's so hard to get grant money for like preventative services, but it's so easy to get it for project after, you know, to assist one person after the fact kind of a thing. Instead of assisting, it's so hard to get money for like restructuring entire landscapes and culture, it's because it's done on purpose. Like there's a lot of money for projects, there's a lot of money for after the fact. You cannot lobby as a 501c3. There's a lot of things that just because of the institutionalization of 501c3s have made it toxic. So this, the culture behind it. There's also the culture behind it, as far as like a lot of women before may have been working with, you know, really wealthy husbands and getting into charitable work, right? Quote unquote charitable work. And now, like carrying forward, like more, there's more women working in nonprofits overall. But we need to make money now, right? We don't felt like we're all this wealthy coming in and like social, social lights. Like we need there, like that's a career path, but there's still the toxicity of the culture that surrounds that systemic kind of you know origination of it through the work of women, it being unpaid labor. Um, there's still many pay gaps, gender pay gaps within nonprofits. I've done a lot of research. I can definitely share you some links with you and your audience. But just to showcase this as well, um, the larger a nonprofit gets, over a million dollars, let's say, the more of a gap there is between the number of women being executive. And smaller ones, actually, there's more women leading organizations. There's less of a pay cap. Once you get to more money, it changes. It changes dramatically. There's more men in charge, there's a more uh there's bigger pay gaps, etc. So this is something that's I've worked with Amy Cross even, and she does uh gender fair, and she's really stepped into like uh doing different reports on businesses and corporate and all of that. Like they have a whole app like to talk about like uh how gender uh fair your businesses are, like if you want to shop, but then after talking with me, she actually opened up a whole nonprofit arm where they're analyzing nonprofits as well. So, not only like the gender parity, but also just the institutionalization. So I know this is like kind of big and abstract, but I think I want to what I'm trying to do here is just paint the picture of the system because your executive director, your board might be amazing lovely people. I'm sure they are. Your nonprofit can still be toxic within lovely people, right? So it's not like we want to point fingers at people and be like, you're mad. Um, it's usually not like that. It's usually more of the culture and it's not really their fault. It's just this is the this is where we are. And I think now we need to really change what that looks like. So I know I talked for a while, so I'm gonna give you a minute here, but and I know I said a lot. So I'm gonna hand it back over in your lap.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Yeah. I love it. I love it. It's a lot to process. I'm processing what you just said regarding. Um, I would love to take you up on the pay gap information and links and put those in the show notes. I'm very passionate about that as well, and women and men being paid fairly, um, and understand there is still a gap, and that predominantly executive directors are women. Now, I have a question for you, and because I've been thinking about this a lot. It's about executive director versus CEO title for the role of the person accountable for the nonprofit success. What is the difference? Is do you find that there's like a different definition for a CEO versus an executive director in our sector specifically?

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Yeah, I that's such a good question, Marcia, because I I feel like some people use them interchangeably, but I don't think they're exactly interchangeable, as to your point. Like I think there are different definitions. And I remember um, oh gosh, who was I talking to? Sarah Olivieri. Sarah, I don't know if you know her, but she's in the nonprofit field with Pivot Ground and she does a lot of work. And she was like saying, we need to stop calling that person the executive director and start calling them the CEO all the time because it really does change. CEO is more business corporate speak, right? ED is more like uh nonprofit speak. So in a way, yes, they're kind of like similar. But I think when we give, let's let's be real, a nonprofit is a business. It's a business, right? And and and I think even using the word ED or executive director, um, and I'll use it sometimes just because that's what people are used to hearing, but I do think it's better to start using more and more CEO because then you're really positioning them differently. Like a CEO does sound more business, it does sound more corporate, it does sound more like um the title, you know, they're working with, and there are a little bit different um like definitions of that. An executive director can feel very much like, okay, that's just like, you know, you're just not really running a business, you're just running a charity when you are in fact and you should be. And I think that will even help your mindset as that person in that role redefine what you do because executive director can feel like I'm wearing a zillion hats and I'm just working all weekend and I'm doing whatever it is just for the cause. CEO, when you call yourself a CEO, suddenly there's a bit of a mindset shift that happens, and you're like, okay, I'm running a business, I need some systems, I need to have, you know, clear things, I need delegation. Like all of a sudden, it really is a change. So I'm so glad you brought that up because it might feel subtle, but I think it's really big.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Yeah, that is one of the things I'm trying to do with this podcast. I mean, mine is called Nonprofit CEO Spark, but it's a lot of executive directors. And when I started my own organization, I was an executive director. I didn't know better, but truly I was a CEO because I was responsible for the financial uh profit and loss statement, for the income, for the payroll, everything a CEO is responsible for. But the executive director, I think, as an identity is more humble and it's more demure, uh, you know, versus a CEO for a lot of people in our industry who are just full of heart and passion and aren't doing it for the power or status, are uncomfortable with the CEO title.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Yeah. And it is, and uh, you know, to your point, like you can be a CEO that's compassionate and empathetic. And, you know, like all of that, but there is like this kind of like tabooness to be like, oh, we have to be the martyr, we have to be humble, we're not doing, we're just doing it because this is like whatever, like like you said, like I'm passionate, but you can be a passionate CEO too, and you can still have boundaries that actually will help the organization. As I mentioned, if you're working all weekend because you're just passionate and you're feeling like a martyr and you've got to do these things, and and your entire staff is gonna operate like that and they are gonna become burned out, bitter, they're gonna feel guilted to stay with you. I wouldn't even say loyal, I would say guilted. And do you want that type of environment? Or do you want one where sure you might be working weekends, but set your that's your vibe, but like set your emails not to send until Monday morning, right? Like, do you need to tell everyone how humble are you?

SPEAKER_02 14:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Yeah, yeah, I've worked at different nonprofits and some of them, you know, the the CEO or or leaders are texting you at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday about something that's not truly urgent and could avoid it. Yeah, very, very normalized there, but they had a really toxic work environment. And there's other organizations out there that if they if the CEO and the leaders who set the tone can can establish boundaries for themselves and a work life balance and a workload balance, then they give permission subconsciously to the rest of the team to do the same. Exactly. And ultimately everyone's more energized and more productive in the end, which is what we want, right? High performance, high productivity, high rest, and health and well-being, all of it.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Yeah, you know, um, there was a study, um, actually, an actual pilot project that my friend uh Sean Kosovsky did, and he's a big nonprofit ED person too, or his CEO, but he was running a national uh climate change nonprofit and all across the states, right? It's national. And what he did was he went to a four-day work week with them and he ran it for his whole, like all of these branch places all around the states, right? And they shifted to a four-day work week and they saw more productivity, decreased meetings, obviously, but there was more and people felt more energized. It was just, it was massive. So I do think that there is this shift going towards like how can we do it? I don't think it's big enough yet. I I feel like there was more chatter around COVID, and now that is kind of like back to normal, like into the office. Um, there's some pushback from that. Like, and and that's what we're seeing is actually a lot of nonprofit EDs or CEOs, um, fundraisers, et cetera, quitting and then freelancing instead or going into consulting. Because I don't think I feel like there's not enough of transition, like we should have a new norm, and it really kind of shifted back in many ways. I mean, yes, there's some work from home and stuff like that that's more than before, but I don't know if it feels like we haven't changed the structure, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Right. It takes a long time to change structure and systems from the civil rights era, like you were saying. I mean, there's definitely more improvements, but it's not where it needs to be for a lot of women these days and just people in general who want to devote their career to changing the world. So that's a great segue because I want to talk about what you do. And what you do to from my perspective is you're an advocate for health and well-being, and having the person who is a grant writerslash executive director may want to turn into a you know, a full-time grant writer, freelance is to really it's really about like taking your own destiny into your hands. And yeah, if you're happy in your nonprofit job with an amazing team, like you do you, you do that. However, if you cannot find a good balance for your own life, health and happiness, as well as working for a cause you care about, there's Holly here saying there's another way. So I want to hear about that. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

And I'd even press you to say, even if you're happy, even if you love love where you're at right now, you should all open a side business. Like, and why you should do that is because you have skills that you can still access. You can get a client on the side. And if you're an executive director, that CEO, or you work in finance, you know the nonprofit's budget. You know how fragile it can be, right? And I think what we saw in 2025, we're now recording this in early 2026, and you know, we saw like a lot of nonprofits like had to streamline their budgets. We saw a lot of people get laid off come into our programs, right? Looking for that. And they had no, they had nothing, right? They had no business experience, right? And they had no clients, they had nothing saved up because a lot of nonprofits, let's be real, there's no French benefits or they're very slim. The pay isn't very high for many people, for most, I would say, nonprofits, especially if they're smaller. Um, and you know, no savings, a cost of living is going up, like all of that. So they were really feeling stressed and like, what do I do? Right? Desperate. Like, what do I take? What can I do? And we don't want you to feel that way. You shouldn't feel that way. You have the skills and ability to be able to have some savings, to have a client, like just even one on the side, you know, even if it's 10 hours a month, very minimal. But if you have boundaries and it's a healthy workplace that you're nonprofit, you have time for that, right? So there that's the whole thing, too, is like you can have something that you just have a client and you're just writing a grant or two, or whatever you're doing with your skills that you can serve because nonprofits, they're looking for that too. A lot of them, they had to slash their budgets, or they're smaller, or they're just looking at very lean budgets right now. And guess what's the highest percent of a budget usually is personnel, right? Personnel takes up a lot, fringe benefits take up a lot. If they do want it and they are trying to get those fringe benefits up, like that can be expensive. Having an office space, paying for computers, right? Managing them, just like the mindset that goes around that. So to have somebody that can come in with a specific skill, whether that's like doing fundraising events, doing grant writing, right? Um, doing donor development, um, there's marketing, like there's so many different specific skills that you can like get really, really good at doing, or you already are, but you're wearing 5,000 hats at the nonprofit. But what is the one thing that you really love to do? And then sell that, like that, and help a nonprofit that can't afford somebody full-time, right? And that it might not pay as much as your full-time position, but it's not going to be as many hours. And you can have multiple clients. So you can do this very, very on the side, which I and I recommend everybody do. Because I my my kind of spicy saying is that freelance grant writing or just freelancing in general is more stable than a J-O-B, right? There is like, I don't, there's the, there's kind of like this myth about a job or a J O B, I like to call it right, being stable. And I'm like, why would you bet on everything in somebody else's hands that you don't even know the full story? Because I've worked with enough nonprofits, like so many nonprofits as a freelancer, to know what the budgets really look like, to know what the decisions and the conversations really are. And I can tell you, nobody is secure. Nobody. So you might feel like it, but you know, because they're not talking to you. But the reality is, you know, like to have something on the side and to be able to serve more people is something really, really important. And if you're really looking to get out of like a toxic, like it is a really toxic environment, you know, one thing that we do actually help change in our freelance grant writer academy is we can even help you position your current job. We can help you quit it. Like, but first we just help you like reprocess it, um, being able to track all your time, see what you're doing. We have even like this is how you would have a conversation with the ED or with the board. So if you are an ED, you could have a conversation with the board. And a lot of times it's just like having conversations to be like, look, I'm doing all of these things. Here's all this. I've been tracking this, and this, but this is what you hired me to do. But I'm doing all these other things. And now I can't reach my goals that you want me to do because I'm not spending a lot of time here. Like to actually have the data and to have a conversation and be like, you want an ROI, right? You hired me for a reason. I'm not able to give that because I'm doing all these other things. So if this is really important to you, we need to have me stop doing this, delegate it to somebody else, put it off on the sideline. Like, I don't need to be doing these things. So I think that's so important just to start. And we even like, if you want to stay, stay. But I also recommend take another client, but get your job more like better. Get it better, get it cleaned up. And a lot of people what they end up doing too is taking that full-time position and turning it into their first anchor client. So we have so many people that do that. And they're like, you know what? I love the place, it is great. But honestly, it's better for me just to do consulting with them and then to have a couple other clients. And that's just so much better because I don't need to be doing all the other stuff. I just need to be doing this main things that you know, like grant writing, obviously that's what we we teach, that gets the highest ROI and that I can really use my skill set. So, and then other people they come in and they want to go full-time, and you know, we love that as well. But what we really see too, going back to the gender, and then I'll hand it back over to you, but going back to the gender gap, we've done research to show that 82% of freelance grant writers, um, GEMS Grant Easy Management Software has done a lot of um different soft or surveys on this to show that about 82% are female freelance grant writers. And um, so we are having a lot of people that have not been paid as much as they need to get paid, right? As females, a lot of them too. Um, we have, you know, a lot of women coming into our programs who have little kids or they're taking care of loved ones, and they need the flexibility. I would say flexibility is one of the most important things, even over finance, but finance is up there too. But um, definitely having flexibility is so important to people right now. Punching in, having to explain why they need to work more money or get a raise, like that's taking way too much energy. Like they just want to have their own businesses. But a lot of times they'll pull that kind of mindset, right? We talked about systems and all of the things of being women coming into this, um, about that and they pull it into their business. So we do actually a lot of coaching too, to be like, here's how you actually price your services. We work through a lot of mindset. Um, you know, stop throwing discounts before people are asking for them. Like, don't do that. Like, you know, like and digging down, like, why is that happening? And really getting to the core root of a lot of this, and we're completely transforming the sector. So um consultants, you know, freelance grant writer, especially women, can have better boundary-driven conversations with their nonprofit clients. And a lot of times the nonprofits are like, wow, you have boundaries, you have things, and you're empathetic, you're compassionate still, you're still a nice person. And we're gonna carry this into the nonprofit too. We're gonna carry this into our culture. So I think that's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

That is really cool. I mean, I I had a client recently who I met, and she was an executive director of an organization. And when I met her, she was going through some very distressing HR situations where one of her staff um filed an investigation against her, and she didn't do anything to deserve that. And the whole legal process went through. They wasted tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees, and she was so at the end of her rope when I met her. And then we coached together for the next year, and she decided I really love grant writing, and she did exactly what you're doing, and she decided not to leave while things were bad, but we worked together to turn that culture around so that when she recruited and hired her successor, that that person had a very healthy culture that they were walking into, which is amazing for succession planning for the organization she cared about so much. And then after the year, when she hired this new person, she became their full-time freelance grant writer. She had aging parents, she had young children, so she needed that flexibility and she could still do the work for the cause she loved. And it was just a win-win-win across the board. So, what you're doing, and I would like where there's so many more people out there like her, I know that are hopefully finding your program because you can really help them shortcut how to how to price their services, where to find new clients, how to systems that can make them so effective. And so I'm really I love the work that you're doing and and sharing it. Um, question. So, how if you're an executive director, let's say you're not looking for an out to to turn become a freelance grant writer, but you're think about your own own organization, and you either need to hire a grant writer because your your plate is already too full, or you need a freelancer. How do you decide between hiring an employee versus freelance? Such a good question.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Um, and you know, I think once again, it goes back to a lot of things, but I'll give you some pros and cons, and I think that will be helpful for people out there. So definitely, I mean, you got to look at your budget. Like, let's be real. Like, you know, you have to look at your budget because one of the worst things you can do is hire someone. And I even know this like running my own business. If if I don't have like the sustainable income coming in, and I want to like, just because they're like this unicorn person and they're lovely, and I'm gonna, oh, you know what? I didn't even figure out what I was gonna pay them on my job application, and now they're coming in asking for this, and I say, well, how much do you want to get paid? And it's way more than I think it's budgeted, but they have all the qualifications, so I'll pay them. Then I'm getting into a spot where I feel good for a minute, and then I start to have buyers' remorse because I'm like, I really can't afford this, they're not hitting all the marks. Maybe they're not that spectacular, or they really are, but now I've saw one little tiny flaw and I blew it out of proportion because really I'm stressed about the money in the back of my head. But you know what I mean? Like I've been there. So I think first and foremost, y'all need to know what your budget is. And one of the most ethical things that a nonprofit or any organization, in my opinion, can do when they have the job application open is put how much they're actually gonna pay. Right. I think that is one of the most ethical and transparent things that you can do. And I get really frustrated when organizations don't publish what they're gonna pay. And in that way, if somebody applies with a PhD, you don't need that. Maybe you just need a bachelor's, or maybe you don't even need a bachelor's, you just need a certain set of skills. They still agree to that price when they came in. There's no weirdness, right? And you're like, cool, that's great. I don't really need somebody at that level, but that's awesome that you came and you want to be a part of this. But there at least there is the expectations are set from the beginning. It's not weird, they don't feel underpaid because all of a sudden that's what they they decided to take, right? And I think so. I just want to like level set with that. The other thing, too, is really understand what you need. A lot of times you think you need an employee because why you think you need an employee is because you feel like they can fill any gaps that you need. And I think that's really unhealthy too, because you can't just have someone just do anything and everything, right? Like then you're gonna, they're gonna, they're not gonna be able to do the main thing that you need them to do. So really figure out what you needed them to do. So it's writing grants, don't make them run your fundraisers and do all your events and marketing.

unknown 29:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

Let them write grants, please, right? And let them do the research and let them get really good at that thing because that's gonna be the highest return on investment that you can get from that person. And if they don't have training, because you're maybe you're like, okay, well, I'm gonna make this like we'll train you and you don't have to have grant writing skills and you can just learn, please pay for training for them. Please get them training. Okay. So let me just level set there. Now, freelancer or staff, right? That's kind of the thing. So, what you can look at is a staff person, yes, you might have a little more flexibility with them. Cool. There are gonna be, you know, if you have an office and you need to have that culture where everyone's there and you're chatting all the time, like one thing, check yourself because you're probably running too many meetings. Okay, two, like, you know, and that and that, but that might be a part of like your vibe. I get it. But make sure it fits your budget. Now, with hiring a freelance grant writer, what I can say is okay, one more thing I want to talk about grant writers is if you think a staff grant writer is going to be more loyal, I kind of touched on this before. I don't think that's true. I don't think loyalty is the reason you should hire a staff over a freelancer. The reason why is because I know freelance grant writers, for me, and in my program, we work with hundreds, you guys, hundreds of freelancers, and they love their clients. They want to keep their clients. You will become a client. They do renewals every single year, right? You can do multi-year renewals. You can do something that it's more like, oh my gosh, I don't want to lose that client. What do I need to do? Right. Versus somebody who's like, oh, this is a job and now I'm tired of it and I'm cruising jobs during the day using your internet. Like, no, it is completely different. I actually think like consultants are more loyal. I really do. Um, so I want to level set there. But as far as like a freelancer, some of the some of the pros is that one, I kind of mentioned this before, you're not having to pay for their French benefits, you're not having to pay for their healthcare, you're not having to pay for their taxes. I mean, they embed that in their prices and they should, but you're not having to like manage that all the time, do payroll like that in that way. A lot of consultants that are mature enough where they will bill you every single month and you will just be set up in their systems, like you can do it that way. Um, and you can you don't have to pay for that office, right? You don't have to pay for the air con that goes to the office or the heat that goes to the office, the internet that crashes, um, their computers that crash, like all of the extra things, their holidays off. There's none of that. So overall, you're reducing prices. So even if you saw somebody and you're like, okay, their monthly retainer is like, you know, you know, it might be $4,000 a month, that seems high, but I would argue that's actually way less than you're paying a staff person when you look at all of those benefits. Um, and guess what? They get to hang out and do the thing they're really good at, writing grants. So, and we work, once again, with so many um freelance grant writers, some of them just specialize in foundation grants, some of them just specialize in certain cause areas, right? And they're writing those certain grants all the time. Some of them, you know, focus on federal grants, some of them do a generalization and they do all different grants. So you can find somebody that meets the needs of your nonprofit to get the most competitive grants. A staff writer, they're just kind of writing grants and they can be very skilled as well. But if you're throwing them different things all the time on top of all the other things that they're doing, it can be really hard. But if you have somebody who's like, I have clients and this is what I do, I write hundreds of grants or whatever in this cause area or these types, like they're very specialized at what they do. And biggest big, I think one of this is actually one of the biggest bonuses for a freelancer over a staff hiring somebody is you don't have to manage them. Right? You're not like here, write this grant or here that, you know what I mean? It's more about like freelancers, like consultants, they will facilitate the meeting. They will come in with the agenda, they will manage, here's what we're working on this month, here's where we're at, blah, blah, blah. Like just the brain space that this clears up for you as a CEO or executive director, because you're having to manage and delegate and do so many other things that this creates like, oh, they got me. They got me. So I think there's a lot of really good things as far as like just the financials aside, the expertise and how competitive grants are, you want the most competitive person for the amount of time that you put in. I will have warnings here. Um, if you're looking to hire a consultant and they have hourly pricing, if they don't know their pricing on a discovery call, if they take way too long to get back to you, they probably aren't very seasoned, right? So do check those kind of things as well when you're hiring. And we have a grant writer directory that y'all can go look at. We have it where if you want to look for somebody in your state, or like I mentioned, like a certain cause area or whatever, and you can check that out too. Um, so we have that on our website at grantwriting and funding.com. If those people listening out there are interested in hiring, um, that is a great resource. And we vet people on our website too. We've reviewed at least four of their grants, um, or they've had to at least won four grants, and we have vetted at least one. So we do unlimited grant reviews in our program. So a lot of them are actually getting grants reviewed for their clients through us and do our training as well. So everyone listed on our website is in our program. So that's really cool that we're able to know that they have the training behind them as well.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

That's so amazing, Holly, what you provide in this area of grant writing. Um, I want to get all your details on how people can get a hold of you, and we'll also put them in the show notes. But just for people listening, what is your uh website address and is there a certain program that you recommend EDs or future freelance grants, grant writers go to first?

SPEAKER_01 35:16

Yes, thank you so much. Yeah, definitely go to grantwritingandfunding.com. As I mentioned, if you guys are listening to this podcast, you're podcast uh listeners. So we also have a podcast, grant writing and funding. Um, and yeah, definitely if you're interested and you're and you're new to this, our freelance grant writer academy is perfect for you. We also have we provide grant training with all the unlimited grant reviews, a grant um and a lot of grant training. And then we have also all of our business acumen. So we help you really understand like what type of service you would provide for grants. We help you quit your job or get the job straightened out. We also help you with your pricing, your offers, and getting your first clients. Um, and really what we want to do is replace your full-time income within a year with this program with getting you started and getting some clients on the side. You don't need that many. You really don't. Um, and you know, we help you with that. So yeah, definitely they can check it out. And our grant professional mentorship, it's usually when you're a little bit more mature and you're consulting business and you're ready to scale. So I would definitely say start with the academy if you are new to this. But you can listen to uh our resources out there. We have a YouTube channel, grant writing and funding, like all of our stuff is grant writing and funding. So do check us out. And um, yeah, we have some freebies and newsletters and stuff like that. So we would be happy, happy to share. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

And Holly has written the book. It's called Grant Writing, it looks like. Is that the name of the book?

SPEAKER_01 36:35

Grant writing. Yeah, the beginner's guide to grant writing.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

So if you're the beginner's guide to grant writing.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

Yep, it's on Amazon, so check it out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

So you are the ultimate expert in this. Thank you so much. As we wrap up, is there any last piece of advice or starting point or tactical thing that that an ED or freelance grant writer can take on quickly?

SPEAKER_01 36:58

I mean, I think if you're listening to this and you're thinking, like, maybe, maybe you're feeling here's the here's the thing, too. You're probably burned out if you're listening to this. Okay, like as an ED. And that's cool. Like, that's gonna happen, but we need we need to stop that now, right? There's resources to do that. I feel like sometimes there's a knee-jerk reaction to like, I'm just gonna burn it to the ground because I'm so burned out as well. So I would say check out the resources that Marsha has. Um, there are ways to create better boundaries within the work that you do. Um, but I also recommend while doing that, get a client.

unknown 37:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

So I'm still like, because especially like I want women to have retirement. I want you to have those things. And if those things just aren't in your nonprofits budget, like it's not because it's toxic, it's just not there yet. Like, we need to write some more grants, we need to do some more fundraising. We need to do, you know, we need to get some money in the door. You're running a business. But at the same time, you need to also understand like you have kids or a future or whatever that you need to put aside for. And that is not selfish. That is actually very empowering to do, and it's very important. So, yeah, that would be my final words. Is, you know, just kind of take some time, journal a little bit, see where you're really at. Is it really just burnout right now? If it is, there are things you can do. You don't have to get to the point where you're just burning it to the ground, but give yourself a break. I mean, you tell your nonprofit, look, I need a week off, I need to recalibrate, do some thinking, do some journaling, check out our programs, see what's right for you, and you can change where you're at for sure. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

And and to that point as well, you know, the next step, if people are really burnt out, and I know a lot are that are listening to this, um, you can go to culturecares.com and schedule a burnout to boundary session with me. It's a 90-minute, very private, confidential conversation that we'll have around where you're burning out, where your doubts are. Do you want to leave your job and go into grant writing? And, you know, I have lots of resources, as well as Holly does, to help you. And the most important thing is that you don't stay there and that you know that you're worth having a very empowering career that you love while you're also taking care of your own health and well-being. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

The causes, when you're healthy, then you can have so much more impact. And we call all of our students change makers. Like, we know you guys are changing the world dramatically. And so many of you that come into the program are able to earn, get so many more grants and money and help with change for so many more nonprofits and organizations and cause areas because you have your health back, right? And that's so important. So, yeah, so good. I love that you have that session. That sounds awesome.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

Yeah, thanks, Holly. Well, so happy that you were here. It's wonderful connecting again and um to our audience. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Nonprofit CEO Spark podcast, and we'll see you again next week. Thanks for listening to today's episode of Nonprofit CEO Spark. If you're ready to turn burnout into boundaries and build a healthy, happy culture where everyone, including you, can thrive. Visit culturecares.com to learn how I support nonprofit organizations like yours. If this episode brought you value, share it with a fellow leader navigating stress and overwhelm. And remember, you are meant for great things, and you don't have to burn out to prove it. Until next time, keep leading with courage and confidence.