Over the past few years, we’ve done a Day in the Life of a grant writing consultant (both for me and one of my team members, Alisha). But the truth is, I no longer do much grant writing consulting myself.
What I want you to know is what it’s now like for me as a Grant Writing Boss. I own a grant writing consultancy, and I have grant writers on my team who do 99% of the writing. My role is to provide the overall strategy, give feedback as needed, manage the client relationship, and bring in new clients.
My days are very different from what it looked like when I wrote grants by myself or even when I had part-time consultants on my team.
Now I have one full-time grant writer, a part-time consultant, and soon will be ready to hire another full-time grant writer.
I think this might be an appealing position for many of you, which is why I don’t call GWBC the Grant Writing Freelancer Academy or some other moniker.
No, I want you all to be bosses.
I don’t want you “trading your time for money.”
I want you to have unlimited financial potential by having a team.
So here is what a DITL for me looks like now.
I am going to include what I do before work because I believe it impacts how I show up in my business.
1. Wake up at 5:30-6 am.
2. Work out, journal for 1 page, plan my day, meditate for 10 minutes.
3. Get my son ready and myself somewhat ready and take my son to daycare.
4. Come back from daycare to eat breakfast and finish getting ready.
5. Check for meetings and classes I might be teaching that day.
Most of these begin in the afternoon so that I have the first part of the day to get focused work done.
6. Then I start my work to-do list for the day.
I know it’s cliche to say every day is different, so I’ll provide a snapshot from a recent day that represents the types of tasks I most commonly focus on as a business owner.
Today, my tasks include:
Grant Writing Client Management and Prospecting
- Respond to existing client emails and my team’s emails about client next steps. I had to check on one current client’s hours to make sure we had enough remaining for the month to get some new projects done they had suggested. I also had a client who needed to pause for a month and wants to start back up in the Spring, so I had to communicate how that would work.
- Email prospective clients back to set up meetings or follow-up with them after meetings about getting signed up. (We got an email yesterday from one of our current clients’ collaborators saying they wanted to hire us, so we are super excited about that!)
- Follow up with current clients on outstanding invoices.
- Meet virtually with a prospective client, deliver my pitch, and then send them a service sheet with all the details of how we work with clients.
Online Education Promotion
- Respond to support emails or prospective student emails. I have another contractor who normally answers the support emails, but when we get very specific questions about someone’s fit for a program I’m launching, I personally respond. So I did that.
- To promote my online education (Grant Writing Boss Club), I wrote a new blog post (right here!), email to my list, and social media posts. I also had to update my calendar availability to provide more time to meet with prospective Boss Club members. (Book a 15-minute chat with me here to find out of GWBC is right for you.)
- I also went live on Facebook to promote Boss Club, explaining who is right for it, what the membership does for you, and what the curriculum is. Check it out here. I got cut off at the end, but this video is 20 minutes of info on GWBC.
Administrative Tasks
- Yesterday (1/17) was the 2022 Q4 tax payment deadline, so I mailed those out yesterday. Today, I had to move money from my business savings account to my business intake account to fund the checks I wrote.
- Today I had to make my annual SIMPLE retirement account contribution (due 1/30 if you haven’t made yours yet as an entrepreneur), so I transferred five figures from my high yield savings account to my personal checking account to pay for that. When I’m able to make large transfers/deposits like that, it always feels good. I used to have a SEP account before I had employees, and that allowed me to contribute a lot more, so know that if you’re looking into retirement accounts to set up for yourself as an entrepreneur.
So that was my day! It was a pretty full day with several different types of work categories.
Not every day looks like this and your days won’t look exactly like this if you’re new to grant writing consulting. (There will be client work, of course.)
Join Grant Writing Boss Club by 5/5
If you want to learn more about what it takes to be a Grant Writing Boss, Grant Writing Boss Club enrollment is open now through May 5, 2023. All the details are here.
See you soon!
Dr. Krista Kurlinkus
