And my husband was kind of feeling like, oh, you know, maybe you should try to, you know,
try to do something with it.
And I was like, sure, while I'm on unemployment, looking for the right position, like I'll
try to move it forward and see what happens.
And it just absolutely took off every time.
I mean, in the first six months, every time that I would even think about like applying
for a job, I'd have so many clients on a contract that I literally just couldn't, I couldn't
take on a job.
I had, they were my priority.
So I was like, wow, okay, I guess I'm filling a need gap.
So I'll just keep doing this.
Right.
Exactly.
And so that was during the COVID season.
Yeah.
So in terms of grants and getting these entities funded, were you also diving into like the
EIDL trend and all that stuff or strictly grants?
How does that work?
Yeah, just grants.
And I only work with nonprofit organizations, so we really just did like we did some Paycheck
Protection Act funding and things like that, some government funding that was being coming
down and like grant under stages or some credit, right?
They pivoted really quickly during the pandemic to move grant funding to nonprofits to support
people fairly quickly.
Usually these things take a long time.
It didn't really, it didn't.
So I found myself in a position where I was helping nonprofits who were really suffering
from the pandemic and the effects of it be able to get grant money very quickly and literally
save themselves.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a big thing I want to, I definitely want to dial in today and talk about, because
I know a lot of the visionaries that we, one, we tend to attract an audience of visionaries
who really care to give back.
And so whether they're for profit or they're nonprofit, in fact, I think a lot of them
have a question like, ooh, which am I?
Which makes the best route for what we're trying to accomplish.
I'm hoping we can kind of dive into some of that and explore that today too.
Before we dive too deep into that topic though, you've been building your own vision, as you
mentioned, at least since the 2016.
And you know, you, I'm sure you had other hopes and dreams long before that too, that
you were working on.
So what are, what are three resources that have gotten you to where you are today?
Three resources that have gotten me to where I am today.
I would say-
As a visionary, as a leader.
Yeah.
So education.
So I'm like really motivated by accomplishment.
I always think people are motivated by two things, money and accomplishment.
Well, mine is accomplishment.
So like being able to get an education and being able to continue to get an education
after I had children and you know, had other things, some of them had to work full time
was really great because it kept me moving forward.
Like I always say, if I could just like not work and just pursue PhDs all day, I would.
I love school.
So education was really, really important and a big resource.
I would also say professional networking groups have been hugely helpful.
And I say that, but I don't mean like Chambers of Commerce or things like that, like general
network.
I mean like niche, like grant writing networking groups or nonprofit networking groups because
they opened the door for me to get involved.
So I started sitting on boards, like being part of the board of directors for those groups
really early on in my career, in my early 20s.
And I was a board member, which really helped me understand how nonprofits are supposed
to function.
So it was a huge resource and it gave me lots of connections too.
So when I launched my business, people knew me, they were excited and they were able to
promote me and refer me and I had no issue getting clients because of that.
So that's two.
So education, professional networks.
And the third, I had a really great mentor who was my boss and she was also a grant writer
and she just never, she never let me quit.
She never let me stop.
She never, you know, she was like, you didn't win this one.
It's okay.
You got to keep going.
And when I was learning everything, she was just so patient and wonderful at teaching.
So I would say education, professional networks and finding a really good mentor.
Wow.
Those are awesome.
I'm a big fan of each one.
We've got some resources, visionaries that we'll put in the comments based on other recent
visionary leaders who said, said very similar resources.
And that's one of my favorite things is I don't typically read a book until like three
or five of my industry peers or mentors or idols have recommended it.
At that point, I'm like, okay, there's something about this that I need to dive into.
So this is, this is huge.
I will add to the professional networking one.
For those of you who are hearing that, like, oh my gosh, I'm going to dive right in.
One of my favorite quotes is people don't care how much, oh wait, that's, that's another
of my favorite quotes.
The one that I really want to move towards is it's not what you know, it's who you know.
But I would add to that.
It's not what you know, it's who you know.
And then it's what you know.
So Jody didn't go in there blind.
She went in with her expertise.
She went in with her desires to be consistent and reliable and really, really provide probably
value to that community.
I say that because I see a lot of people going into niche networking experiences and they
disappear within two to three months.
And then you end up creating more fear and uncertainty around who you are than you would
have and it creates an uphill battle for yourself.
So make sure you're ready to show up and be consistent and reliable and be worthy of that
role and title of board member or activist and also take care of the referrals people
can send you.
Otherwise, you'll end up hurting yourself more than helping yourself.
Jody, way to do that right.
That's awesome.
Obviously, you wouldn't have the story you have if you didn't do that right.
You would have just been like, oh, these networking groups don't really, it ain't the networking
group.
It's not as individuals showing up and doing our part.
So I love that.
We're going to come right back.
We're going to dive in to funding via grants, how to get grants, who gets grants, why you
might consider nonprofits.
Can you set up a nonprofit in association with your for-profit brand or not?
Well, we'll be right back and dive in with Jody Riley.
All right.
Welcome in to Vision Pros Live.
With Jackson Callum, I'm your show host.
We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic
visions out there.
Hey, what's up, everybody?
Welcome in to another episode of Vision Pros Live.
I'm your show host, Jackson Callum, founder and CEO of First Class Business.
I'm really excited to have Jody Riley on today.
We're going to dive into a subject that is, I don't think there's enough experts out there
related to this subject, and it's grant writing and funding.
How do you move towards that?
That's one of those things that a lot of you actually have superpowers.
These are going to grant you the ability to use your superpowers at higher levels if you
just lean in to the matter and get to know it and understand it.
We'll see if Jody's the right person to guide you through that today.
I'll ask as many dumb questions as I can to expose what I do and don't know about grant
writing and, again, whether all of us should be going towards it or not.
Before I bring Jody back on stage and we talk about that, a couple of the other resources
that I am certain about and really love to be involved in, let's start with Dave Marl
of the Hard2Kill.org podcast.
Dave's helping 100,000 veterans lose 2 million pounds collectively, and I'm super happy because
I'm a civilian and he now lets me and others into that community as well.
It starts with a free community.
You'll notice there's an easy button to get into, the world's easiest workout plan.
He's an award-winning podcast, great leader in the influencer space, especially amongst
military veterans, and he's got a heart of gold.
I absolutely love working with Dave.
Come and join us and see how the heck he got me motivated to get into shape again after
eight years of avoiding it and managing to be the skinny fat guy for far too long.
He's got superpowers.
Let's get in there with him.
Also, if you know, if you've got friends that are military veterans, just introduce them
to Dave.
It's not going to hurt you, but it could possibly help them.
A lot of our military veteran friends suffer with PTSD and they end up getting out of shape
and it messes with their life.
We want to make sure that all of us are headed towards looking good, feeling good, and then
going and doing good together.
He does a great job of leading just that.
There's a program called Opportunities.
This is one of our homegrown opportunities.
In fact, Jody and I are going to talk about opportunities live on the show today and whether
it makes sense for us to move towards a nonprofit organization and maybe finally file the 501C3PO's
and all the things that are necessary for it.
Obrir la Esa Trabajo para Latinos is where it started, Opportunities for Latinos.
We've expanded to have opportunities for Filipinos.
We've also got opportunities for Indians.
What this is, is it's a virtual assistant training program and academy to help make
sure that we're helping great people become great virtual assistants and then getting
them connected to businesses where they can provide their services and create win-win-win
abundance for everybody involved.
I love running it.
Cynthia, who helps me behind the scenes on this podcast, is the podcast host of the Opportunities
podcast.
They interview Latino visionaries and leaders out there.
If you know of Latinos or you're Latino yourself and you want to come inspire the world, come
and join us and help us bridge the economic gap between North America, South America,
and rest of world.
Then there's the Water Project.
We do work with the Water Project.
I just really love what they're up to.
As soon as I learned about it, I decided, you know what, I don't want to forget about
this.
There's millions of people who do not have access to clean drinking water.
I have taken that for granted most of my life.
I've never been truly thirsty in my life.
When I came across this and I saw that they transparently show you which communities need
help and then you get to pick which community you want to give back to and learn about the
projects and how they build their sand dams or their borehole wells.
I was just blown away by the amount of transparency.
Again, the reality that my goodness, what would it be like to not take water for granted?
These kids celebrate water like my kids celebrate Christmas Day.
My hope is that you will join me in this cause, whether you can give back or if you're in
a financial position where you can't, bring it up over dinner with a friend.
Tag somebody who might be able to help out.
We never know how far the ripple effect of just a simple act of sharing can impact other
people's lives.
This is an impact that will affect people for generations.
We're talking about kids that can spend more time in school and not have to leave for a
three mile hike just to find a source of water or parents or grandparents who have to do
that on a daily basis in the midst of trying to provide for their families.
So hope you join me on that.
If you have another cause, you'd love to see us talk about, well, there's 8 billion
people to help in the world.
So it's not surprising.
Drop it in the comments.
Let us know.
Let us be proactive in helping with more causes that are also near and dear to your hearts.
So without further ado, Jody Riley, thank you for joining me on Vision Pros Life.
Hi, Jackson.
Thanks for having me.
Absolutely.
I have a feeling you know of a couple of entities or causes that we might want to bring up on
this show and talk about and raise awareness for true or false.
True.
I was also very interested in your water project.
So I'll be looking of that right after this call because I have some, I have a heart for
Kenya and I know there's lots of projects in Kenya and some friends there.
So I'm going to probably get involved with that as soon as we hang up.
Yeah.
Cool.
Well, it's awesome.
It's not even mine.
That's the easiest one because I don't really get to help them build the water project.
But we do want to, I want to go next year and go and like visit one in person with our
videographer and take my oldest child and go do that.
And they're like, no, like this, these projects are out in the boonies.
And I was like, I understand what you're saying.
It's risky, but that's kind of what I saw about.
So we're probably going to try to find a way to make it anyway.
With that said, Kenya, if you know somebody who would be interested in this, also working
with us on the opportunity side, we're always looking for local leaders who are able to
jump in and help us with the process of training virtual assistants and seeing what's there
and creating win-win-wins with that.
So that's a side rail conversation.
Yeah.
A big discussion about that.
Yeah, I do.
I definitely do have a lot of contact there.
That's awesome.
Well, without further ado, you know, we kind of dove in hot and heavy.
What is your vision, Jody, for the people that you serve?
Okay.
So I've narrowed this down.
I know exactly what I want.
My vision is to be a no wrong door for nonprofits.
I love being the person that they can come to to get help no matter what, no matter the
budget.
I can give them something of value.
And I'm working to make that even better every day.
So that's my vision.
Because vision is one of those far reaching things you may never get to it, but you're
striving towards it all the time.
That's my vision.
I love that.
I think there's a huge difference for those of you listening in who may have misheard
what was stated.
It's a big difference between wanting to make sure you always take care of individuals and
put them on the right path and trying to be everything for everyone.
And so let's play with that a little bit, because some people probably heard like, oh,
you're just you're going to try to take over the world, you know, pinky in the brain style.
I'm looking at this and saying, wait, okay, you're I think you're saying that if somebody
is in a position where you can't quite help them, instead of just sending them on their
way and be like, oh, we don't help you more of a let's see what we can find.
Yeah.
Before we go around.
What do you what do you think, though?
I want your thoughts on it.
Yeah.
Other research like giving them other resources or connecting like if they're like, we need
grant, especially in the I'm really speaking in the world of grants like that's what I
do with grant writing.
So if they're coming to me and they're like, look, I really need help with grant writing,
but I have a zero dollar budget.
We have blog posts that can help.
We have our social media that where we put out grant opportunities.
There are ways to get free in our newsletter is full of resources like there are ways to
get free resources from us all the time without having to spend any money if you're like a
brand new organization.
So that's really what I mean.
And if an organization comes to us, even without like the egg with a need that's not related
to grant writing, we have built a great network of resources in the nonprofit community.
So we can almost always interest, introduce them or connect them to someone who can help
solve a problem or get them to the next level of growth.
Huge.
Awesome.
I love it.
And I think there's a lot of parallels between us with that regard.
We love predominantly helping.
We love helping everybody.
Our ideal client has a pretty good cash reserve in place already.
That's going to put them in a position for maximizing growth.
However, I had a client a couple of years ago and her lovely story was that she was
on holiday in the Dominican Republic doing the life coaching thing.
Yeah, that was what she told everybody.
She literally got stuck in the Dominican Republic and couldn't leave because she was homeless
and the Dominican Republic.
So the nomad lifestyle, look at me.
Everything's awesome.
Well, she was a great coach.
She had a very, very strong vision and a lot of inspiration.
Can you imagine being stuck in a foreign country and not being able to do anything?
And, you know, so we, but again, her vision, I heard the same fluffy vision she told everybody
else and I was like, this is powerful and I was able to get under the surface, right,
to this reality of what was going on.
Within 24 hours, she raised $21,000 for herself.
Oh my goodness.
Within 24 hours, she raised 21,000.
How?
I met her two weeks later to find out, because I was curious how she used what I taught her
and some guy in a foreign country wired her $21,000 to move her brand forward.
And so a lot of attraction combined with the right types of training, combined with the
mindset of, hey, I'm really going to help and bless people's lives can be powerful.
It's not financial advice for people.
That's not going to happen for all of you listening in most likely.
Like there's a lot of stars that have to align for that story to come to fruition.
But that's again, going back to you, Jody, there's a lot of people who simply aren't
aware of these superpowers that you have access to and what's possible.
I'm one of those who still has limiting knowledge in relation to, well, again, how do we maximize
this?
So let's go towards first, I've got for-profit companies.
I've got no nonprofit companies, but I love the help and opportunities.
Could it be a nonprofit maybe?
Am I wrong?
Am I right?
Where do we even begin looking at that reality?
So I think the first question you have to ask is if you have a passion for one mission
and it can't just be broad.
It can't be like, I want to help people or I want to help the homeless or like I want
to mentor kids.
You have to have a very specific mission that fills a need gap.
So there has to be a space where something needs to be done to help people.
You have an idea or a way to do it or to help animals or whatever you're helping.
I mean, like millions and millions of Latinos who have never heard of LinkedIn and have
never heard of Canva and never heard of Fiverr or Upwork before.
And if they do, okay, go ahead.
Yeah.
So it would be like a workforce development program for other countries.
So that type of a mission.
And then you also have an important thing, I think, for business owners to remember about
nonprofits is that you do not own it.
So it's different for us as business owners than what we're used to.
And you're also not, you're the boss kind of, but you're not really the boss because
you'll have a board of directors and they really get to drive the decision making in
the organization.
So here's what's fun for both of our perspective, all the people listening in, the moment that
you act like a business owner who owns it is the moment you're never going to win in
business anyway.
So let me just share that.
All you business owners out there, you're all on the path to 96% losing within 10 years.
So let go of the ego.
You're right.
We do not own it.
So I shift businesses all the time to this mentality of trying to create more of a democracy
with their business.
But I love to hear more details about, well, Jackson's settled down, right?
On the NPO side, what all does that entail or mean?
Or I guess we're going to have surface level first.
Yeah.
So it's a separate entity.
It gets a separate IRS classification.
There's rules about opening a nonprofit, operating a nonprofit.
Every state's a little bit different.
And then it's maintenance, right?
So you have to have board meetings.
There's that specific amount every year that varies by state.
Here in Florida it's three.
But most organizations are having a meeting monthly.
There's a lot to consider and raising money is never easy.
So like selling products or selling services, as we know, most of us know that our in business
is challenging enough, but actually getting people to give you money for social impact,
which they can't touch or feel, or sometimes doesn't even impact them directly, is a whole
new level of challenging.
And that's where growing comes in.
Let's get those ones though, because those ones we're actually quite good at.
But are there other challenges?
So let's say you have somebody that is just a nut job, great at raising money for some
reason.
Are there other things they need to be aware of in terms of raising?
Like, oh no, you can't take that $10,000 check because of X, Y, or Z. Is there red tape to
be aware of?
Yeah, yeah, big time.
So there are lots of rules about political activities and lobbying versus not lobbying
and what's considered political in the nonprofit states.
Nonprofits for the most part are nonpartisan and have to stay that way.
So your own political views cannot play a part in your nonprofit's operation.
Besides that, there are considerations for who you take money from and then how you use
that money.
So let's say we're working in a program in a school and Budweiser decides to send us
a check.
That may be a check we don't keep because we're running a children's program.
If that makes sense.
Speaking of, I was so upset when the Dr. Seuss, I'm still mad about it, Cat in the Hat, right?
They made a big old plug for beer with Alec Baldwin.
I was like, what the heck, man?
I'm like, why would you?
Or Mike Myers, I don't remember who it was.
I was like, oh, Lisa Children's movie.
What are they doing?
So I'm grateful for regulations like that.
Okay.
Yeah.
So I think they're the biggest challenge because it's different when you own or operate.
You talked about how you use it, right?
So let's say, I don't know, Bill Gates or Bill Jones decides he wants to invest $10,000
in a program.
How do you use the 10,000?
Does that get a regulation on it from others or is that between me and Bill?
Board and Bill, right?
Sorry.
It's between the organization and Bill, right?
So if Bill sends you a check and says, okay, here's a $10,000 check, but you can only spend
this on calculators for a student.
Bill says that?
Yeah, Bill can say that.
Good.
And then you can...
But what if Bill's not an idiot and he's like, hey, you guys run this organization better
than I ever could.
Why don't you all put this to good use?
Are there still regulations?
No.
Well, there are.
You have to use...
There are common sense regulations.
You have to use it for the good of the organization.
You have to use it for the mission.
You have to do what's right, duty of obedience for it.
You have to do what's right with that money.
But at that point, that's what we would call unrestricted funding.
So you can spend it as you see fit as long as it makes sense to move the mission forward
for the organization.
So guys, the reason why this is so important to figure out...
Two, one, it's like get unrestricted funding.
Right?
And if you can't dive in heavily to understand how to do that, it would be my first observation.
Two, be careful with funding.
If you're new to it, you don't have the financial strength and backbone to understand just how
fast you can burn through money and not achieve something important.
Setting these healthy boundaries are something we cannot take for granted.
I'm a big fan of this book, Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson.
And he set up these girl schools throughout, if I remember correctly, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
And it was really controversial because it was in the middle of the Iraq war and all
that too while he was doing all this stuff.
And so his story was very heroic.
And then he had a board member come out and write a book, a counter book or counter document
called Three Cups of Deceit.
And my heart shattered for him and for the organization.
And granted, I wasn't behind the scenes on it.
This thought it was a really, really trashy way to try to whatever.
If you're upset about the unrestricted funding and all of that, these are realities that
can occur and stall out or hurt and crush the nonprofit entities that you launch.
So having somebody like Jodi and Jodi, thank you, your passion has hit me.
Oh man, she's going after all these different angles and things that, no, I probably would
not look at as responsibly if I don't work with a leader who understands to protect me
from these types of scenarios.
And you can't always protect yourself from all of them.
Every major nonprofit in the world that I've seen, you look up their name and the word
scam, you're going to find all sorts of dirt associated with everybody from Jesus to Gandhi.
We can tear anything down.
It's not hard to do.
But that doesn't take away from the value of the programs that we may be creating.
So I hope that if you are on this path, man, this is really good info, but that's kind
of scary.
Like I'm going to Christian you to death, carry your cross, do it anyway.
Go for it.
Or realize that again, you don't have to be Christian to go after it.
Believe in what you're doing enough to make it happen.
Bring it to fruition and work with people who can protect you in the process.
So Jodi, let's go towards a new subject.
Nonprofits and grant funding more directly.
Where do we begin?
Well, there's a lot to it.
So if you can imagine, it's my full time job and I have six employees.
So there's seven of us, that's our full time job.
It's a lot of work to understand the grant process.
Every funder is different.
We talked about the illustration of like, if someone gives you a $10,000 check, how you
spend it, the rules and all that.
And that's great when you just have a private donor that does that.
And you can usually negotiate things fairly easily with that individual because they understand
your program and they're passionate about it.
Otherwise, they wouldn't have written you a check.
Grant funders, they don't know you as well, right?
And their rules are set in place before they write you a check or give you a grant.
So the management of that money is very different and can be a burden to organizations that
are prepared to manage funding.
So what I would say like the first step is to ensure that you're, what I call it, grant
ready.
You're ready to apply for the grants, ready to manage the grants, ready to ensure that
you've got the logistics in place to do what you said you were going to do in that grant
application because grants are not free money.
And I think that's a common misconception.
People say like, oh, just get a grant, just get a grant.
We just need grant money.
Well, that's great.
But grants are like loans that you have to pay back with social impact.
Like you are repaying that money with social impact.
That's cool.
I like the way you put that.
Keep going.
Okay.
All right.
So you get your grant money, you're paying it back with social impact.
Hopefully you're doing a really, really good job of that.
And then what happens is funders build trust in you.
So again, like let's use our loan kind of vision.
You get the loan, you pay it back with social impact.
Suddenly other lenders, other funders are seeing you're doing a good job and you're
literally building credit with that.
You're building credit.
Then you can apply for bigger loans.
So it's just like when we start out when we're young and we're 18, we get that first credit
card.
It's like you get that first thousand dollar grant.
You do what you're supposed to do with it.
You do a good job of telling your story on social media or podcasts, wherever you can.
And then you ask other funders to support your organization.
And since you've built credit and you're now credible, you can ask for more money, get
more money, build your impact, grow your program, build capacity, change lives, da da da da
da da.
And it keeps going from there.
So grants can be a fantastic tool for growth of nonprofits.
I would say there's like a three legged stool of funding that nonprofits need to sustain.
One is private donations.
That's the first thing we covered.
Two would be grants.
And the third would be what I call a social enterprise or some kind of fee for service
model, something like that.
So grants are super, super important part of it, but they take time.
It takes time to build to the point where you're ready to take on grant writing, grant
management, all the things that come along with it.
And that's where we come in.
Like my company.
So it either takes time or we come to an entity like you.
Is that well said though?
I mean, I know there's, I know it kind of pushes towards ego.
I'm not trying to do that, but is that really like if I'm in a position to where I already
have the private funding, right?
I'm ready to kind of move things along and I want to do this the right way.
Are y'all kind of the one stop shop to help with that?
If I'm able to foot the bill, you know, or is that, do you still need us to put more
things into place before that happens?
So you still have some responsibility and what we commonly do with clients is we start
to gauge their grunt readiness right from the very beginning.
So we'll have a call and usually we talk about like, all right, let me pause.
We still have responsibility.
I don't even want to say some, I'm going to say we still have responsibility.
Like we need, we need to do our part.
We still need to build, but I just want to make sure.
Am I clear?
Is that kind of like the dream client position to where it's like, if I'm at that stage,
we're good to go?
Or do you typically wait to work with the entities before they're already 501 C3 and
they're already off to the races and they've already had five years or they're like the
water project might be a better client for you, for instance, than my rink-a-dink opportunities
thing.
So the best clients, the ideal clients for any, to bring on any kind of consultant, I
wouldn't need to say the grant.
Any consultant is a nonprofit that's probably at least two years old.
And I say that because in my world, grant funders are going to look for the perfect
example.
This is past financials.
They're going to ask for, most likely going to ask for two years of past financials.
And if you don't have that because you are new, you're just not going to, you're not
going to make it to the second round of that grant opportunity.
So there's not a whole lot of point in engaging services with us if you're not about two years
old and with some impact under your belt, because they're also going to ask for metrics.
They're going to say, how many people did you serve last year?
How many animals did you favor?
How many acres of land did you protect?
And if you don't have the metrics for that, you can't tell a story to those funders.
You're unlikely to get funded.
So could we come in from the very beginning and help?
Sure.
But from more of a grant readiness strategy building capacity and not necessarily grant
writing.
We would start to maybe look at that around the 18 month mark of operations if your nonprofit
is doing well.
Yeah.
So yeah, okay.
I got it.
And so in that case, you're like, guys, suck it up and go get private funding.
Go do your job and go show people that you're actually going to do this.
And it's not a pipe dream.
And then as you guys do that, we can help you build all the other infrastructure stuff.
The word everybody avoids with vision.
But it's so important.
Okay.
This is really helpful.
And I love like you're talking about having a grant credit score.
Basically, we talked about, you know, we go out and we're 18.
Jodi, I think you and I were very blessed and lucky to go out at 18 and get credit cards.
I had a sister who trained me up on how to do that.
And she taught me all the right things.
I followed all the things I needed suited to be irresponsible enough with credit cards
to get them.
So with grant, we grant credit scores, if you will.
Have you coined that?
No, but I use it as it's such a good illustration to explain to people when they ask about grants,
like how it works.
And especially when people come to me and they're like, oh, I need a grant.
I need a grant just to get going.
And I'm like, no, that's not how it works.
Yes, I know.
It's so helpful.
I love it.
Whether you adopt it or not, I might be using that more and more often now myself because
it's such a great way to illustrate what needs to happen in order for us to get funding with
grants.
It's like, no, duh.
Now, OK, so I'm going to play devil's advocate on this a little bit further now.
So one of the things that drives me crazy is that oftentimes the expectations of the
world or the desires of what the world wants to see are different from what actually needs
to happen for goodness to occur.
What do I mean by that?
I don't want to pick on anything political, but sometimes, you know what?
Remember the Titans.
I found a safe one.
When the football coach remember the Titans, right, he's having a killer season.
They're doing awesome.
He's got all of these he's got mixed races playing ball together and like the school
is starting to change.
And if they lose one game, he loses his job.
That's what it's all boiling down to.
It's just that one vanity metric of like if he lose and the refs are trying to cheat and
get him fired.
So the other guy gets back in and it's a really tense, dramatic reality.
Well, we don't face the same social pressures in today's world in some parts of the country
and in some realities, but it is it's harder to play the game of knowing what expectations
the world has or the grant programs have compared to what we feel we need to do to move forward
the mission of a company or a nonprofit.
How do you balance that?
And how do you do what's right while still trying to impress the people who are potentially
funding it?
Yeah, so I think one of the most important things you can do is build your grant readiness
portfolio and as a part of that, do some visioning and build a strategic plan.
And I there's this magic tool called a logic model that everyone hates except grant writers.
It's amazing.
It walks you through the lot of tools that people hate.
You say on logic, logic model is awesome.
And so you're you use tools like that to build out your program and say, OK, this is the
thing that we want to do, start with the end in mind.
This is the change that we want to see.
How do we get going back through all the little tiny steps that we have to do resources, activities,
things like that to get to that major step.
And if you've done all that and it is a well thought out evidence based program, then at
that point, what I recommend is approach the funder and start to build a relationship and
say, hey, I read through your grant application and I get it.
You know, I get what you're looking for.
But hear me out.
I work with these people every day.
This is what I'm seeing.
The need is this is our innovative way of addressing it.
Would you be open to funding something like this?
And this is why.
And I would say eight times out of 10, the funders are going to listen to you.
They're going to one, appreciate that you involve them in the conversation because they
don't want to just write you a check.
They want to be a part of your organization.
They care about what you're doing.
Otherwise, they wouldn't be funding it.
And two, it really just creates an environment of goodwill where you asked first, you didn't
just send an application and like, oh, they'll get it or they'll figure it out or if they
don't figure it out, you know, they're idiots.
They really appreciate that beginning conversation thing like, hey, what about this?
What if we build this together?
It's innovative, it's new, it's different.
Would you be willing to do this with me?
And I think funders really appreciate that.
And then that I mean, building relationships and having conversations with funders is so
key to grant writing.
It's a huge part of the strategy part that I talked about.
Really, really important.
So I think that's a that's a great conversation to have.
You are an absolute rock star.
Like seriously, the passion that you speak with, it it oozes, you know, it inspires,
it lightens, it brightens this subject.
And it's the type of energy that is contagious in a good way.
Right.
Something that's like, OK, awesome.
So this was visionaries.
This is more of like a a live in person interview.
Like for hey, I'm looking for somebody like Jodi, you know, without like I didn't realize
Jodi was the one that we're kind of looking for.
But she's now, you know, top of our list in terms of like, OK, you know, cool, let's explore
this.
Let's see what we can do with this, because we've got a number of different very passionate
individuals who could use help like this.
But I don't I don't touch subjects and I don't explore doing things that are outside of my
expertise.
I just say, I know once like we're going to need to find that person at some point.
And then we start engaging with the conversation if they like what we're up to, then awesome.
We create the win win.
Very similar to how you talked about these these grant that the funders want to potentially
be involved in and work on projects and understanding the value of the story itself.
And there's so much overlap, too, for the rest of all the other entrepreneurs out there.
You're not nonprofits.
You're looking for a profitable business.
Honestly, like this conversation mirrors exactly what I wish all of my business conversations
felt like and we're focused on whether you're for profit or not.
The essence of success was all throughout this particular interview.
So I'm going to ask one final question before we wrap up.
And that is my favorite question on the show.
If this is the last opportunity you had to share with the world, what powerful lesson
can other visionaries learn from your experience?
OK, what powerful lesson from my experience, I would say that would definitely be to believe
that you can do it and just know your place and to know that you're feeling like when
I started this and I saw that I was filling a gap, I stopped.
I stopped doing other things and I said, OK, this is where I'm meant to be.
Like, this is what I should be doing.
Obviously, I'm needed here in the space and I leaned into it with everything I had and
brought others with me that I felt could be a part of my vision.
They're still on my team today.
And we support so many nonprofits.
And I came from a nonprofit world.
It was a hard transition to back out from like in-person services where I was like doing
the work on the front line to like being the person behind the scenes that's supporting
the executive directors and the leadership of nonprofits by writing grants.
I'm still making an impact.
I have to rationalize that with myself all the time.
But I'm filling a huge need.
I'm supporting their work and I'm helping them.
And I had to really change my mindset on that and say like, this is where I'm needed.
And maybe it's not the, you know, what I thought I was going to be doing my whole life, but
it is perfect for me.
And as you can see, I'm very passionate about it.
I love what I do.
It took a while to get there though.
That's what I saw.
Like even had you not had the right thing to say, I would have just doubled down like
Jody's emulating everything that we look for.
Oh, I'm right in the leaders.
And it is that it's the passion combined with the expertise combined with the need.
I mean, you've done so much work to refine what you're focused on.
And now that expertise, you know, can bless lives in a way that others who aren't quite
connected to it just can't.
You know, it's very hard to find people who are, when you're starting out on the road
to success, it's very hard to find people who light up the way you do, you know, in
relation to what it is they want to accomplish.
And yet it's finding those types of leaders that allows us to get to the next level and
that are willing to and like willing to carry us forward when we fall short and that appreciate
us at our best when we show up and do our best.
So yeah, it's like it's a win-win opportunity.
So those of you listening in, we're going to have down below the show some action steps
that you can take in order to get in touch with Jody and see what she's doing over at,
excuse me, my voice is going to InnoVentGrants.com.
That's InnoVentGrants.com.
She's got clients, she's got services on there.
The best thing you can usually do visionaries is just reach out to the human being behind
it all or the team members.
And I like to assess two things.
How do the team members reflect the process?
Do they carry the same type of energy and abundance or do they feel controlled?
You know, do they come across as like not as bought in and then two, how does this leader
treat everybody?
Do they only want to cozy up with the best of the best or do they make room for the abundance?
So appreciating everybody involved in the process.
And that's one of the things I'm really excited about with Jody is Jody did that with Peyton.
She's now done that with me on the show as well.
And she's made time to dive in deep on some of my personal projects.
So let this be a ray of light into your own discoveries if you're looking at grant writing.
Also we will add down below that the other resources we talked about, some more information
on pursuing your education, professional networking and the art of finding the right mentor.
We have a fantastic guide related to that as well that we'll put in there.
Lastly, our last call to action, top right corner says be our guest.
If you've got a vision, if you've got something you want to bring to life, it can be a nonprofit.
It can be for profit.
If it's designed to help others, we would love to have you on the show.
We'd love to hear about your vision and we will see you guys all on the next episode
of Vision Pros Live.
Jody, thank you so much.
This was amazing.
Thank you for having me.
So nice to meet you.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time
and attention.
I hope you have an excellent time building out your vision.