Hello and welcome to Grant Writing Today.
I'm your host, Rodney Walker.
And I'm excited to have you for another wonderful day.
As we look at all things grants, there's a lot
going on in the grant community, and I'm excited to
be a part of it. I'm excited to be able to
share some information with you about it.
And on today's show, we're going to be taking
a look at a few of those things.
In fact, I'm excited to let you know that
this is probably one of the greatest times of
all times to be a grant professional. Why?
Well, I'll tell you, I remember when I was
first starting out in grant writing, it was at
the early stages of the Internet, and the Internet
was not what it is today.
Today with information being at your fingertips. Wow.
Can you imagine the people that had the right grants
where they actually had to go to a physical library
just to be able to get pertinent information?
In fact, just to be able to get funders
that would be able to fund your projects.
That was a hassle.
That was a big challenge because you
had to go to the library.
You have to go through these big books to find out
who was funding what the information was not as readily available
as it is today, where you can just go online and
click and begin to get information about who's funding what and
to be able to learn about so much in such a
short span and gather information just like that.
So that's another reason why it is a
great time to be a grand professional.
But beyond that, think about this.
We had some challenges, and these challenges
brought about some changes in our world,
especially as it related to COVID.
When COVID came about and people having to work remote,
it bought and urged in an opportunity for those grant
professionals to be able to work more from home as
well as a lot of other occupations as well.
But just think about it.
Being able to work, writing grants,
helping organizations to secure additional funds.
All in your PJs.
Just think about it.
This is really an incredible time.
And I'm excited.
The other cool thing that I would say to this fact
is it's such a great time because also when you think
about the fact that as a grant professional, you get an
opportunity now not to just work in the confines of your
local community, I mean, you can literally have clients all over
the world and hear me well, when I say over the
world, I never forget talking to a grant professional.
She was in Europe, and there was another one that
I was talking to that was actually in Australia, and
both of them well, one of them already had clients
in the US, and the other one was in Australia,
and she was wanting to tap into the US market.
So you don't have to feel the constraints of feeling like
you have to do grant writing in your own backyard.
Now, it's not a problem to do
grant writing in your own backyard.
But I just want to let you know
that the opportunity that the Internet has created
for us allows that to happen.
And that's just another reason of many why this is
an incredible time to actually be a grant professional.
Some of you have been writing grants for a long
time, and some of you are doing it for organizations.
Others of you are doing it
for a business, your own business.
And that's another cool opportunity.
Some people are doing it where they're
working for a company and they also
have their own business on the side.
So that's really cool.
And I like that because it just
gives you so much more flexibility.
Now, I'm going to let you know you've
got a lot of cool things happening.
And I want to just keep you abreast of things
that are happening in the grant writing world today.
But before I jump into that, I'm going to share with
you an article that is currently up online that you may
find worth reading as you just look at different angles of
what's going on in the grant writing community.
But before that, I want to just send out
a big welcome to all of those who are
members of Grant Central USA's Grant Writers Association.
We've had a lot of people on this up
and coming week that joined into our LinkedIn group.
And I just want to send a big shout out to all of you.
There's so many I'll just kind of go
through a few of the names around here.
But Shanna, I want to send a shout out
to you also to Catalina and then Crystal, Jessie,
as well as Tanisha, Karla, thank you for joining.
And also Shakira and then Poonam and then Nicole.
Thank you guys for joining.
Also, we have Carmen and then Jasmine and then Jessica.
Thank you guys for joining.
Tracy, thanks for being a part of our group.
And also Barbra. April.
Yes, I'm born in the month of April, April.
Welcome to the group.
And also Destinee, thank you for joining.
James, thank you for being a part.
Jennifer, thank you for joining us.
To write up many of you already done write ups.
And if you haven't had a chance yet, go over
to our LinkedIn group and look for Grant Writers Association.
You'll find us there.
Also, we have Erika, and then we have McKenna.
We have Gansham and then Manny.
Thank you for being a part, as well as
Dylan, all of you guys that have joined the
group, thank you for being a part.
We've got so much happening.
And one of the things that we're doing is we're
creating community, a place where people can come and talk.
Now, let me be honest with you.
Okay, I got a confession here's.
My confession for today.
There have been times in this whole
social media world where I've spoken at
people, meaning just putting information up.
And I want to say, you know what?
I'm looking back and I say that's not the smartest
thing to do, Rodney, you want to engage with people.
And I'm encouraging those of you that
are in our grant writing community.
Let's create greater community by having greater
engagement, conversing, talking, interacting with one another
versus talking at each other.
I'm talking as someone who was guilty of it and
saying, hey, in essence, that was the wrong way.
I want to establish real community and
have an opportunity to help others.
And that's just one small part of me being able
to help to make the world a better place.
And I'm hoping that you, my friend, are
helping to make the world a better place.
Grant professionals are some of the ones who do that
the best because we are coming along side of these
organizations and helping them to secure grant funding.
That grant funding, in turn, brings
money and resources to their organizations.
And that's the coolest thing.
So I want to encourage you to if you
haven't already joined, come hang out with us.
And on Thursday.
Yes, on Thursday. Every Thursday.
Now I'm hanging out.
We're going to have a meeting with retreat.
All those of you that have just named you are
welcome to join me on this up and coming Thursday.
And we're going to have a time set aside just for us
to hang out for about 15 to 30 minutes or so.
And that's going to be at twelve noon on Thursday.
I'd love for you to come and hang out with me.
I'd love to get a chance to know a little bit
more about you and let you get a chance to know
about some of the others that are in our group.
So if you're interested in that, come hang out with us.
We'd love to have you.
Now let me get back to some of the matters at
hand about what's going on in this whole grant writing world.
There is an article today that I ran into.
I ran out. Come on, Rodney.
Come on back home that I read into.
It talked about a doctor, Amy Wood, who was
honored with a National Humanities grant and fellowship.
Now this is just another angle to see how
grant money is acquired and how organizations use it.
This is over at Illinois State University.
It was some of the news today that came
out. And I want to tell you about it.
It was from my article that Rachel Hatch did, and
she talked about the $60,000 grant from the National Endowment
of Amenities that was received by this professor.
Now, you may not be in the University
space, but it's interesting to note that grants
also go to educational institutions such as universities.
And oftentimes professors receive grants as
a part of their studies.
Continuous studies.
And what's also pretty cool with that
to get Monies to do additional research.
In her case, she's got a one year fellowship and
she's going to be working on a book that is
going to be published over by the Oxford University Press
and that one year she'll be taking the time to
write the book and using that to get additional funding.
Are you a part of a College are you a
part of doing grant writing at the University level?
If you hadn't known about that or maybe
explored that, that's something worth considering and looking
at because, again, there are so many different
areas where people are securing grants.
That's just one example of another way
that you, my friend, can be involved
and connected with the grant writing world.
Hey, guys, my time is up for the day.
I got to get out of here.
I hope that you have gotten some information that's
helped you to just look at what's going on
in grant writing today from a different way.
I'm going to wish you the best. Remember?
Let's stay in touch and I'll look
forward to connecting with you soon.
Until then, take care, my friend.
Be brave, be bold, be brilliant. Take charge.
