For years, I have felt called to make Grant Writing Made Easy even more accessible to nonprofits and individuals with low incomes/income instability.
I used to sell the course at the discount of $497 or 6 required payments of $97. Without the discount, it was $997 or 12 payments of $97. I did this because when I first started selling the course, I took Amy Porterfield’s course on selling online courses and that’s what she said to do.
Ever the good student, I did as instructed. I knew the course was worth the money, and the feedback I received from my students supported that price.
With time, I realized that the small nonprofits that I most wished to help couldn’t always afford this price point.
So I experimented with different prices and membership offerings, finally landing on our current pricing. I’ve been able to sustain this pricing for over a year now, so it seems to be working.
With the economic downturn, I’ve received more and more requests for scholarships or free memberships to the course. I wish I could afford to give the course away to everyone, but right now the price point can’t support that.
I’ve never talked about how much it costs to run and promote my courses because I don’t want you all to have to think about that on top of your own funding struggles. I also don’t want to be interpreted as complaining.
So with that in mind—that I’m extremely grateful to do this work for a living and serve you all—I just want to be up front about the financial limitations of the business.
We have had a huge influx of new students over the last 3 months. I think part of that is due to the pandemic, but it’s also because I’ve been putting a lot of money into ads for my free grant writing webinar.
The more students I have, the more expensive all of my software becomes. Rates are based on number of videos, users, subscribers, views, etc.
Also, the more students I have, the more people power I need to help you all with support issues. That’s why I have just added a Learner Support Specialist to the team.
I have closely tracked and analyzed my numbers for the last 3 months, and I know for sure that I am offering the best price on my courses that I can (and I know they’re lower than my competition).
After asking my current Grant Writing Made Easy students and receiving support for the idea, I have decided to implement a Pay It Forward program that will allow those who need it to apply to receive a free membership to Grant Writing Made Easy.
Here’s how the Pay It Forward Program works:
If you are financially unable to purchase Grant Writing Made Easy but need to learn how to write grants for your nonprofit or academic research, you can apply to receive a free membership to Grant Writing Made Easy.*
Course membership awards are not guaranteed and are dependent upon determination of need and funding availability.
By submitting an application to the program, you agree that if you are some day financially able, you will also donate to this program to help someone else get the grant writing training they need.
If you want to support a small, underfunded nonprofit and know that they will one day return the favor to another small, underfunded nonprofit, you can make a one-time donation to the Pay It Forward program and witness the exponential impact your dollars can have.
If you would like to learn more, apply, or contribute to the Pay It Forward Program, please visit the page linked below.
I hope this new program helps you if you’ve been wanting to take the course and can’t afford to do so at this time, and please remember that for this to work, we need contributions to the fund.
As awards are made, I will be announcing them here on our site and on social media. I also promise to regularly report, with screenshots from my payment software, the dollar amounts of donations to the fund and how many memberships were awarded.
