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Start it on Test Nacho to fill in an EuroPromonet of Shopify.de/recorder. Welcome back to another exciting episode of Macon Plugin. Today, we are joined by a visionary leader and a strategic architect who has spent three decades transforming bold ideas into fundable realities with the staggering 60% plus grant
win rate and over a million dollars raise annually for our clients.
“She is a nationally respected expert in program design, funding, and sustainable growth”
for mission driven organization. It is my distinct honor and pleasure to welcome the transformative, the strategic, the unparalleled, the Solonetailer. Let's tell her how are you doing today, dear. We're doing great. How are you?
I am doing amazing now that I am here with you. You know, we met like a year ago, right, with Dr. Daniel, amazing leader,
herself, puts on amazing events for a lot of people.
And you and I like instantly connected, right? We were talking about, you know, our background and talking about life in general and our faith that kind of brought us together. So I'm honored that we can sit here and have a few moments together. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, you know, I ask all my guests this question about your be cause.
That thing that's deeper than your why, like your true mission and all the things that you're doing with granted success, far to ask you today, what's your be cause? Why do you keep doing
“what you do? I believe in the missions of the organizations I work with.”
Just about all of them are black centered, black run, nonprofit organizations. My recent client list is really black women executive directors. I actually do screenshots of the Zoom meetings, where it's just all black women on the screen. And I would say that's my because it's it's really meeting the needs of black women who are in the nonprofit space, very few are executive directors. And when they are executive directors,
many of them are founders of the nonprofit for whatever reason they position themselves as the executive director. That's a whole other podcast. And then a disproportionate number of them get terminated by their board. So yeah, so I'm real at my because black women that are in the nonprofit space. I love it. I love it. And I know you said this is for a different podcast, but I'd love to go there and have that conversation because you just said something that I want
everybody that's watching to pay attention to. So you found this nonprofit. Meaning you started this nonprofit. You then put yourself as the executive director. Things don't go so well in the boards like you're out. You're out of the business that you started, right? Talk to us about that. I want to get to the brevity of that of that topic. So what I'm finding is that because there's a need for a paycheck, many founders of nonprofits will position themselves as executive director in a
disproportionate number of them will be black women. So a lot of times with founders of other races, they'll position themselves as a founder and then get on the board. And then they hire the executive director. They work to hire the staff. We for whatever reason, we position ourselves to be the executive director. And we create our boss. That's the board. So what I found is that many of the black-centered black-run nonprofits will that are run by a black professional, a black executive director.
They put friends and family on the board. See, that's getting around like, okay, you know, I'm not going to get fired. But then you stack the board with people who they're there in name only. They're not going to raise money. They're not going to help with structuring the vision in the mission of the nonprofit. So then your nonprofit, you know, it eats along not having a substantial budget. So you have this catch 22 here, where as like, yeah, you're not going to get fired, but then
you don't have a strong board. And then if you do build up your board, many times you're going to
End up putting people on your board who don't look like you.
pushed out of your position as executive director. And you're seeing that happen more often than not.
So how what's your first conversation when you come into what organization and they're hiring
you or consultancy or advisory? What's that conversation like that you're having with them? Bad initial conversation. I really talk about, I talk about bringing in. I don't do board development. I know I have other consultants, other colleagues I do that. But the first thing I talk about is board development. And it's okay to ask board members to leave. In many cases, they're relieved. They're asking them to leave. It really are. You'll be surprised. And start
“getting your board together. But more importantly, you have to be comfortable with the fact that”
you could be let go as executive director. So the idea is maybe move yourself from being the
executive director to getting on the board. And so then let's look at maybe you becoming in
it consultant yourself and having your own business becoming a board member of the nonprofit you founded so that you're not beholden to the board as your boss. So that's what I say to a lot of that many nonprofit executive directors. If you, if you're a founder, get yourself out of that position as the executive director. And let's you're willing to get like go eventually and position yourself as a board member and look at starting a business, a consulting business. Because if you
create a nonprofit, you can create a business. Absolutely. Because you're doing the hard part. You're doing the hard part, right? Absolutely. And then I've had younger people come to me saying,
I'm interested in starting a nonprofit. And I say stop. Don't do it. You could do social good
and have a business. You could have it as corporation at LLC and still do social good. And then we're like, well, how do I get grants? You look for a nonprofit with a similar mission and they become your fiscal sponsor. There you go. There you go. So, you know, let's talk about the grant writing in the funding because there's not three people on the planet that I can name that are better than you. Right? I mean, that's that's your kudos. Those are your flowers. When and how did that
start for you? When did you know that that was a superpower you had? New, it was a superpower in 2015. But I wasn't willing to step fully into that lane. So, my journey goes back to when virtual
“administrative assistant became an occupation. I think it started around the mid-90s. It was listed”
as an occupation. And then I think the four hour work week that book popularized having, you know, people entrepreneurs getting a virtual assistant. This was around 2006, 2000s. I already started working remotely for small business owners, real estate agents, entrepreneurs like doing graphic design, administrative work, calendar management. And one of my friends, like you say, you're a virtual administrative assistant. So, I built a business around that. So, since 2008, I have been, I was
doing virtual admin work. Then then I started getting hired by nonprofits. And I noticed that I was doing event planning, social media, content creation, and management, and grant writing. Then 2015, I said, forget event planning. I'm just going to do social media and grant writing. And I saw on the horizon that social media content creation people were really getting into digital communications doing that. There were so many people getting in that field as doing
digital communications and social media. I was like, uh, grant writing. That's it. So, by 2018, I just leap of faith. I said, it's going to be grant writing because I was having 80% win rate then. And I was like, yeah. So, that's, that's when I did it. But I started off as a virtual
“administrative assistant. Wow. Wow. So, you started granting, granted success. Right?”
Talk to us about that business. I know you do so many different things with in that business. Right? It's not just the grant writing piece. But talk to us about granted success and what you're doing there. Okay. So, in granted success, we do grant writing. And even there, there's different here. Sometimes people come to us with an idea already and how they want to approach the proposal. They want to get funding for an existing program to expand it. So, I then work with them
and pulling information from previous proposals. But more importantly, I look at their outcomes. This is a running program. What are your outcomes so far? Because that it funders are now looking at outcomes. They're not looking at a whole bunch of narrative and fancy marketing information and proposals. They now have strict character limits and word limits on applications now. So, you can't be
Worthy.
In some cases, they come to me to create a whole new program. So, now I'm writing the grant proposal.
They're asking me to create a new program and ask a funder. Hey, this is new. We haven't implemented this. But this is what we want to do with your money. And so, in that situation, I have to show the
“need for that program and have projected outcomes for that. So, that's what I have to do for that.”
And can some clients will ask me to serve as what I call a fractional executive director. I come in as a part-time executive director. Now with the goal to become one. So, I don't have any skin in the game to, you know, to take over the position and to get higher full time. So, I am, I'm able to be objective and tell the organization what is needed, moving forward when they do bring on a full time executive director and what areas, what challenges they need to address
to move the organization further along. So, there's that. And then my favorite service is what I call the grant ready elevation on it. And that is where a nonprofit comes to us. They're said, well, you know, we haven't won any grants or we haven't applied or, you know, we're just nervous about it. And my partner and I look at four pillars in their organization to determine their winability for a grant award. And so, we look at their internal controls and operations. The second
areas we look at their messaging, then the third area is their digital footprint. And following the fourth area we evaluate is their current grant ready, you know, excuse me, grant writing strategy as well as their fundraising strategies. So, those are the four areas. And we give a score. So, we look at their strength and weaknesses in each one of those areas. And then we give them recommendations based on those strengths and weaknesses. And then with the recommendations,
we create a timeline to tackle those recommendations. So, it's like a many strategic plan
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“You know, earlier I talked about giving you your flowers. And I believe in statistics and numbers.”
And so, you know, you've got a 60% win rate. More than 60% win rate. All on your grant writing,
you know, securing over a million dollars annually for your client. What's one pivotal strategy
that you consistently implore that kind of allows you to make that happen? Because that's a phenomenal number. I know people that haven't won 10% of the grants that they apply for. And you've got 60+%. Well, you know, because I've had control, I can say no to a client. Plying for a present on RFP. And I review it carefully. I review the eligibility requirements. But more importantly, I review the end of the RFP. The end of the RFP has what's called
term in conditions skating what you are required to do if you're awarded. And I say to client, are you going to have this insurance in place? Are you going to have this in place? Like you got to meet these. And if they say no, I say you have no business applying. That and that's actually really my win rate was like one time was 80%. It got lowered at 60% because I was running a client's insisting that I still apply another area of weakness for RFPs when you apply. The funder will have
what's called their focus areas. Their priority areas. And if what you're proposing is not really in line with their focus areas or priority areas. And I've had clients like, well, make it work. You know, you're a great writer. Make it work. Look, I'm a great writer, but I am not Jesus.
“I cannot make this work, but hey, if you want to waste your money and pay me, I'll take it.”
Yeah. But then it lowers my win rate. Yeah.
I love the truth.
that building organizations need to sustain it as well, too, right? Which I think is really important
because once you have funding, what are you going to do to keep the business moving to keep the business tied to the mission that it was started for? So what are some key elements for you
“that truly define sustainability for the nonprofits that you work with or I guess to say it better?”
What do you look for in those businesses before you agree to say, yes, I'll work with you? Yeah. I'm I'm finding now. And this is thanks to Dr. Darnell, really evaluating my clients better. And it's a red flag for me if they don't have multiple streams of income revenue coming in.
And I've had executive directors look like deer staring at headlights when I talk about,
are you are you doing feet for service work? Are you, is the nonprofit positioning themselves to provide technical assistance and as you you're allowed to make money? As a nonprofit, you are allowed to generate revenue. You are allowed to create a service and charge for it. And that's unrestricted funding. You can spin it on whatever you want, whereas with a grant award,
“you can only use that money for what the funder stated in the RFP that you could use it for.”
Most cases is programmatic expenses. They allow a certain percentage to be used for salaries, but not much like what? 20% maybe. But with if you create fee for service or you do a technical assistance initiative, you could use that money for whatever your board says you could use it for. Another thing is maybe the nonprofit publishing a book is selling that. You could create merchandise, you know swag that you could sell on your website. So many more importantly, having private donors,
your board should be donating. Your friends and fit, your executive director, get your friends and family to donate. So for the person that's watching for that and I'm going to go to who you said, like your core because is to the black female entrepreneur who now is like I want to start a foundation. I want to start a nonprofit. Give me two or three things that you want them to consider. I know you talked about saying wait, is that something you really want to do? Like let's
talk to her specifically. What do you want her to consider right now before she says yes, that's what I want to do? I want her to consider how she's going to position herself in that nonprofit. I would want her to position herself as the board chair, not the executive director. I would want to her to consider. I really want her to do market competitive research. Who are your competitors? If you create a nonprofit to serve youth, do you know how many nonprofits are out here serving you?
What's going to make your nonprofit any different from any other youth organization out here?
“You have to do market research as if it was a business. Third, what income streams are you going”
to create outside of grant writing donors? That's amazing. Those are some some beautiful tips.
Some amazing tips. So now I want to turn the floor over to you for a moment. So to us about what you have going on where people can find and follow you, like this is the moment for Miss Taylor to give herself her flowers now. Well, I am. Act. I have a business page on LinkedIn, granted success ink on on LinkedIn. My profile's there, Alana Taylor. I must have been one of the first Alana Taylor's to join LinkedIn because it's Alana Taylor. For the URL, yes, how must have been the first one?
Giving away my age here. And my website is grantedSuccess. And then the grant ready elevation audit we created a separate website for that. That's grant ready now.com. And then my email address is A Taylor at grantedSuccess.org. Ladies and gentlemen, one, I'm going to have descriptions and links all of that in the show notes and the descriptions on YouTube as well. Do me a huge favor. Go to the site that we have listed here that Alana just talked about. Shoot her email. Like, if a guest
on my show gives you their email and you don't take advantage of it. That is shame on you. I can promise you reach out to her. Pick her brain. Go see the services that she offers on her website. She has a lot of affordable services. I would definitely take a moment and schedule a consultation because it's worth it. If you have a nonprofit, you have a mission. If you have a foundation, I would
Start here because there is no one better on planet earth than Alana Taylor.
from me directly. So Alana, I appreciate you more than you know. It's been an honor to spend time
“with you. I can't wait to see you again. We have to be in person again soon. Just just honor for”
all the things that you do. In real quick, you know, a teacher is also a student based on all that you know around leadership. What advice do you give to someone who is serving as a consultant
in the nonprofit space? Yes. So a few things. The first thing I'm going to tell you which you kind
of already know is everyone isn't for you, right? No is a complete sentence. You heard me say that in person before. So you can have a heart. But that also doesn't mean that they should be a client. A lot of times with consultants and coaches are heart gets in the way. And we want to do and give and give and give. But then we forget that we are for profit on the other side of that.
“So always understand that. But then from a coaching standpoint, I'm going to tell you the best thing”
you can do is being present. Making sure that you show up for your clients. I would say one of the biggest things that I get from my clients is they just love the fact that me and my team are available, right? Being available. You don't have to know all the answers, right? But being available, being transparent about that, that would be my advice for sure. Thank you. I appreciate that.
“You've got it. To all the viewers and listeners, remember your because is your superpower.”
Go unleash it. That's another powerful conversation on Mick Unplug. If this episode moves you
and I'm sure it did, follow the show wherever you listen, share it with someone who needs that spark and leave it review. So more people can find there because I'm really rush. And until next time, stay driven, stay focused, and stay unplugged.
