Get Clients as a Grant Writer 5-Part Series: #2 Stop Calling Yourself a Grant Writer

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Grant Writing & Funding

Holly Rustick

495 episodes

1 day ago

Quit your toxic nonprofit job and replace your full-time income while writing grants part-time, from home! Join our students in the Freelance Grant Writer Academy to create Financial Stability and Flexibility through writing grants for causes you are passionate about: https://grantwritingandfunding.com/freelance-grant-writer-academy World-renowned grant writing expert and Amazon bestselling author Holly Rustick provides coaching that helps new and experienced grant writers replace their full-time income while writing grants part-time from home (or anywhere they want to live or travel in the world). She coaches changemakers to master grant writing and start to grow 6-figure+ grant writing businesses on part-time hours via her signature group program, “Freelance Grant Writer Academy." As an unapologetic feminist, Holly’s work in coaching female grant writers to master grant writing, find their cause-area niche, and navigate value-based pricing and nonprofit sales is breaking glass ceilings for women all over the world. Every week, she coaches thousands of people through the top-ranking podcast, Grant Writing & Funding, books on grant writing, and inside the Freelance Grant Writer Academy. Holly has 20 years of experience in grant writing, and began her freelance grant writing journey back in 2005. While teaching in Kuwait and Indonesia, and then earning a Master’s Degree in International Political Economy in Belgium, Holly saw the light of setting up a virtual-based business in grant writing back in the mid-2000s. Having secured more than $45 million of dollars for nonprofit organizations, and then setting up a multi 6-figure freelance business, Holly has a mission to help female grant writers break out of toxic nonprofit J-O-B-S and create high-level income while freelance grant writing. Inside the Freelance Grant Writer Academy, students have secured more than $225+ million in grant funding and $4+ million in revenue in their grant writing businesses within two years. To amplify this work, she is past-president of the Guam Women’s Chamber of Commerce and was appointed to the Guam Business Advisory Task Force as an advisor to the first female governor of Guam. Holly lives on the island of Guam with her beautiful daughter, Isabella. If you are interested in replacing your full-time income while writing grants part-time from home (or from anywhere in the world!) join the Freelance Grant Writer Academy! www.grantwritingandfunding.com.

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Get Clients as a Grant Writer 5-Part Series: #2 Stop Calling Yourself a Grant Writer

Grant Writing & Funding

14 minutes

4 weeks ago

Get Clients as a Grant Writer 5-Part Series: #2 Stop Calling Yourself a Grant Writer

Join the Free, Live Training, "Earn an Extra $10K in 90 Days Writing Grants at Home" on Tuesday, October 14th at 4 pm - 5:30 pm EST. Click here https://grantwritingandfunding.com/academy-webinar.

You don’t just write grants. You are a grant strategist.

You just aren’t positioning yourself as one.

We are seeing that Academy students who are leaning into positioning themselves as a Grant Strategist vs. Grant Writer are doing BETTER this year in booking out their businesses.

What a Grant Strategist Does in 2025-2026

Stays on top of changes in grants (at least in your cause area: i.e., DOE grants, etc.)
Attends new webinars for grants and makes ‘go or no-go decisions’ on grants for nonprofits
Meets monthly with clients and lets them know of updates, tasks, etc.
Prospects for grant funding
Creates strategies for their clients to develop relationships with funders (can be easy as a script)
Writes grants after talking through budgets, priorities, and work plans with nonprofits
And more…

If you already are a grant writer, you have already done the above. You just haven’t marketed yourself with the above OR given yourself the permission to take a beat from the writing and lean into the above more (even though you know it’s vital).

Here’s your permission.

Organizations need to focus on running their nonprofits/organizations. They need you to pay attention to the grant funding side.

AND Nonprofits and organizations are PAYING grant writers to be grant strategists in 2025 and for the foreseeable future.

We got the receipts.

It’s no surprise that overall our students (like any sizable sample size of grant writers in 2025) raised LESS grant money as compared to 2024 (obvi, with all the grant freezes, etc.).

2024, our students won: $138million in grants
2025 (to date), our students won: $48million in grants

That’s a huge difference and it makes sense with all the pauses at the beginning of the year. This is NO surprise as this hit across the sector. While some grant writers saw no impact, many federal grant writers got hit at the beginning of the year.

AND IT’S STILL A LOT OF MONEY THAT WE WERE ABLE TO WIN!

Literally millions of dollars. 🤯

BUT what’s super interesting here is the money student MADE in their freelance grant writing businesses, i.e. clients paid them:

2024, our students made: $4.1million money in their businesses
2025 (to date), our students made: $3.4+million in their businesses

This is MIND BLOWING as it proves that dollar signs are NOT the only reason organizations are hiring you!

We are ON TRACK for students to MAKE MORE MONEY in their businesses in 2025 vs. 2024!

Organizations need your mind as a grant strategist in 2025, and for the rest of time.

Find out more about the Freelance Grant Writer Academy: https://grantwritingandfunding.com/academy

Grant Writing & Funding