E-031 Burnout in the Grant Profession with Lucy Morgan and GPC Friends
### Quick Episode Summary Grant Talks Podcast [#031]
*Intro ***.42***
*Fire Away Questions with Johna Rodgers, GPC, Bethany Planton, GPC, and Trish Bachman, GPC and Lucy Morgan CPA***8:16***
* Burnout in the Grants Profession Article***13:14***
* The Cost of Burnout in the Grant Profession***19:11***
* Tips for Dealing with Stress in the Grant Profession***25:56***
* The Last Word with Johna Rodgers, GPC, Bethany Planton, GPC, and Trish Bachman, GPC and Lucy Morgan CPA ***29.39***
*Outro Audio GrantTalks Podcast with Lucy M. Morgan CPA ***33:18***
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Introducing Johna Rodgers, GPC, Bethany Planton, GPC, and Trish Bachman, GPC
Intro: 00:04
Welcome to the Grant Talks podcast with Lucy Morgan. Lucy is the CEO and director of MyFedTrainer.com, a leading provider of grant management training and templates for federal grant recipients. This show is for grant professionals looking to gain confidence managing their grants. In an age of increasing complexity, you'll hear from leading professionals on the best practices surrounding grants, what's involved in successfully managing the grants lifecycle and how to make sure your grants are managed correctly. Now here's your host Lucy Morgan.
Lucy Morgan: 00:42
Welcome, everyone, to this conversation with thought leaders from the grants profession, Johna Rodgers, Bethany Planton, and Trish Bachman. Today’s topic is a real-world view of burnout in the grants profession, recognizing the signs. And I’m Lucy Morgan, your host for this session.
Welcome to three amazing grant professionals, Johna, Bethany, and Trish. All three of you are grant professional certified-GPCs. And all three of you are grant consultants. All three of you are co-authors of the article “Burnout in the Grants Professional-an Initial Analysis,” published in the Journal of Grant Professionals Association, volume 18. So, I’m encouraging our listeners to go out and check that out. We’ll have a link to that as well. [See Page 1 of the publication at https://cdn.ymaws.com/grantprofessionals.org/resource/resmgr/publications/journal/2020.gpajournal.final.pdf]
Now, I have talked a lot about grant journeys. And I know each of you has a unique grant journey. So, I wanted to start by introducing your grant journey to our audience. I’m going to start with Johna because we’ve talked before in some of our other podcasts.
Johna, you have over 25 years in the grants and nonprofits profession. You’ve been involved with over 195 million in grant awards. And you are currently a grant consultant, national trainer for grant writing, Grant Management USA, state technical assistance facilitator, and board member, and vice president of the Grant Professional Association, also known as the GPA. Johna, welcome, first.
Johna Rodgers: [02:13]
Well, thank you very much, Lucy. Appreciate it.
Lucy Morgan: [02:16.252]
And what do you think has been one of the biggest changes since you started working with grants?
Johna Rodgers: [02:22]
You know, one of the biggest changes is that there have been no changes in some places. You know, people are still people, and we still struggle to get information. But it has to be the technology. You know, some of us in the space I’m in, we remember when we had to go to the library, you know, this big building and find paper to do our work with.
And now, we have multiple platforms. For those of us who are consulting, we may have a client using three different platforms, and we’re having to learn the different ways to be at least savvy, and then we don’t have to be experts but savvy. And that’s just really changed some things. The character counts, the whole, you know, your client looks at you and says, “Oh, but it’s just a half-page we need to do.” A half-page is hard. You know, 20 pages is easy. Half page is tough. So, it’s just the technology, the boxes, the platforms, and all the tools now because they are so plentiful, keeping up with those.
Lucy Morgan: [03:22]
That’s a really good point. I remember those library days too. I was just talking about that yesterday and in some training about actually going and getting something called a book, not a digital book, but an actual paper book.
Next, I’d like to introduce Bethany Planton and correct me if I’m saying your name incorrectly. She is also a GPC, SMS, SM, NPO. Bethany, you are the founder and CEO of BMPConsulting.org, a grant consulting firm located in Louisville, Kentucky. You got your start in the grants field as an AmeriCorps VISTA member. So, thank you for your service in that as well.
Since 2011, you’ve worked with more than 30 organizations to secure $6 million in government and foundation funds. You’re also a social media strategist, a Scrum Master, Scrum product owner, and a GPA-approved trainer. Wow. So welcome, Bethany.
Bethany Planton: [04:18]
Thank you. I’m excited to be here.
Lucy Morgan: [04:21]
And Bethany, since I saw the social media strategy part, I thought, well, you know, maybe you’d like to share how you think social media has changed the grant journey for different organizations today.
Bethany Planton: [04:33]
Yes, sometimes people don’t think of social media and grants going together, but they really can. Social media has made it possible; another avenue is possible to be able to connect with your funders. So, you can follow them, follow what they’re sharing out there as an organization. You can reach out to them and have conversations on social media, and maybe that helps get your foot in the door in building that relationship with them.
And then once you’ve built that great relationship with them, then maybe you get awarded. You can share the great news by tagging them on social media and giving, you know, them credit there and continuing to share the things they’re sharing because they may share your success story. You can share other things. If they are interested in your field, education, health, they might be sharing statistics or a good article that will apply to your followers as well.
Lucy Morgan: [05:28]
I love that focus on relationship building through social media. That’s so important. And last but not least, I’d like to introduce Trish Bachman, GPC, LMS. Trish is the owner of and lead grant consultant for The Write Stuff Delaware. You work with nonprofits based in Delaware.
I was really interested in your journey because you began your grant journey as a grant professional with a volunteer assignment with Mothers Against Drunk Driving. You know, I think for many of us, that was a place where it was really pivotal in our social awareness of the impact that an individual can make on a cause. And you also took an online grant writing course. You honed your skills working with grassroots organizations, providing victim services, advocacy, public policy, volunteer management, and grants administration.
Your passion for traffic safety would continue through work with the Delaware Office of Highway Safety, where you inspired hundreds of businesses to implement traffic safety programs, affecting thousands of employees statewide. Another place an individual made a huge impact.
In 2013, you took that passion for helping people and opened a consulting firm. You took that giant leap to assist small to midsize nonprofit organizations in meeting their mission through strategic grant seeking. And you also serve on the Grant Professional Association Program Growth and Development committee, and you’re a founding member and president of the GPA Delmarva Chapter, which you graciously explained to me is a regional chapter that includes Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. So welcome, Trish.
Trish Bachman: [07:08]
Thank you, Lucy.
Lucy Morgan: [07:10]
And Trish as a member of the Program Growth and Development committee at GPA, I wanted you to maybe provide one tip to someone who’s brand new to grants listening to our podcast today.
Trish Bachman: [07:22]
Well, one tip is really hard. So, I’m going to do three really close together and really fast. The first thing is to get training, get certification, and find a mentor. Find someone who’s ahead in your profession, where you want to be in your field if you’re working with federal grants, and find somebody who’s already experienced with federal grants just a little ahead of you. So that way, they can answer your silly, stupid questions and you won’t feel embarrassed.
Lucy Morgan: [07:50]
Those are some great tips. I know when I started in the grants profession, I felt so alone. And when I discovered the GPA, it was such a transformation to realize that I was part of a bigger thing. It really was transformational. So, thank you for those great tips. And I’m glad that we got a few bonus ones in there, not just one, but three to select from. So, there’s something for everybody. Thanks for that.
Trish Bachman: [08:15]
Thank you.
Fire Away Questions with Johna Rodgers, GPC, Bethany Planton, GPC, and Trish Bachman, GPC and Lucy Morgan CPA:
Lucy Morgan: [08:16]
Well, welcome back. And I’m going to start with Johna. You’ve done a couple of episodes before. And I want to also welcome our first-time guests, Bethany and Trish, to the “Grant Talks Podcast.” And you recently contributed an article in the Journal of the Grant Professional Association based on a survey of grant professionals about burnout in the profession. So, I have a few fire-away questions to further introduce you to our audience today. So, are you ready, Johna?
Johna Rodgers: [08:44]
Yes, I am.
Lucy Morgan: [08:46]
Okay. So, my first question for you is where did this idea to survey grant professionals come from?
Johna Rodgers: [08:52]
Well, I guess the short version there is that it came from all of us. It came from the three of us. It came from the field. We could see that people were suffering, but, you know, we knew we were or had over the course of our lives. So, when Bethany, Trish, and I, we sat down, and we started talking about this, we first said, “We just need to know more.”
There’s been a lot written about burnout for multiple professions; that’s literally tens of thousands of things in the research on other professions. But we could find practically nothing. And by that, I do mean nothing on the grants profession.
So, while we wanted to see the clear indicators of burnout, we also wanted to go that one step further. As grant professionals, what we always say is we develop a proposal is, how bad is it? How bad is the problem? And then, we can begin to address that problem. Well, we didn’t know how bad it was. We thought it was awful. And we found out, and I worked with words, that it’s "awfuler." It’s worse than we thought it would be. Right?
So, starting from that point, saying, “If we’re going to do work in burnout, don’t we first need to know that it’s really an issue and it’s widespread. And we have, through the work we did this last year, we have established that. We’ve written a double-blind peer-reviewed journal article that is a little academic in nature, and then we’ve taken our bubbly personalities, kind of, out and said, “Okay. Now, what’s the next step?” We know there’s a problem now. And so now we’re working on what do we do to help folks who are suffering?
Lucy Morgan: [10:38]
And I love that you’ve taken, really the approach that grant professionals’ take to problems, this problem as well. So, Bethany, what type of response did you get to the survey?
Bethany Planton: [10:50]
We were very surprised, floored, excited because we had 345 responses that took our survey. When we were developing it, we really did want to try to make sure it was, kind of, an easy survey. We didn’t want it to be really in-depth. There were a lot of questions of rate on a scale, or yes or no, or multiple choice. But we did have... The last question we put on there because we wanted to give people an opportunity to share.
You’ve answered a bunch of things that might, kind of, depress you about burnout. So, then we kind of wanted you to be able to, like, maybe get it off your chest a little bit. And so, we did have a last box that said, you know, if you want to share something, it’s anonymous, but we would read it off, and we still got on that. So, out of 345 responses, 109 comments on that part alone. So, we were just floored that people felt safe with us and be able to share their stories and then just help, as Johna said, awfuler this problem is in the profession.
Lucy Morgan: [11:49]
It’s almost been a little bit of a silent issue. I think people have been afraid to talk about it. So, that’s really interesting that people will share at least anonymously what some of the real issues are facing.
Trish, you know, we have the benefit of hindsight here, hindsight being 2020. What question did you wish you had known to ask when you started this survey?
Trish Bachman: [12:14]
So many questions. We wish that we had we still we had asked, could have asked. But in the beginning, when we were looking at it, we came up with ten demographic questions and then 11 that were experience. Of those, the thing that we did not ask was, do you have burnout? And the reason for that is because the definition differs by community versus research.
And there is a World Health Organization definition, which I’ll share with everyone. Burnout is defined as a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It’s characterized by three dimensions, feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job, and reduced professional efficacy.
Burnout in the Grants Profession Article
Lucy Morgan: [13:14]
Wow, it’s not just kind of a soft thing. I mean, it’s a real thing that a rare profession is facing. Johna, in the article, Burnout in the Grants Profession: An Initial Analysis, it said there were 21 targeted questions in this survey. What types of things were you looking to assess, and how did you decide which questions made it to the final cut?
Johna Rodgers: [13:38]
You don’t want to say when you’re answering something like that, that, “Oh, yeah, we came up with these questions just like that.” Right? The truth is, we really suffered through those questions. We tell everybody the writing was the writing and the editing was terrible because nobody likes to edit. But coming up with those questions really did take us quite a long time, multiple sessions back and forth when I felt looking at the questions, tweaking them, because we didn’t want them to be leading.
You know, as grant professionals, we know that if we ask a bad question, we’re going to get a bad answer. We’re not going to find out anything. So, we went into it thinking that way. What can we ask? So, we looked back at that definition, and then we, kind of, broke the definitions out into some of the symptoms. Right?
So, for example, one of the authors we cite a lot talks about cynicism in your workplace. Well, if I’m an employer, that’s a horrible thing. I do not want a cynical employee. So, we, kind of, tweaked at that a little bit. How do we find out how they feel about their workplace? And so, we just got... We went at it with a very intentional view of how do we get at the symptoms of burnout and question them about that, and then move forward?
But now, what we found is interesting, is just like many of us, in the survey, we could see some people doing what I did, which is the head smack, you know, years into burnout, into that sphere of burnout, where you go, “Oh, well, yeah, that’s me,” you know. And so, we think that we did that through the surveys that if we did nothing else, those respondents began to think a little more deeply about those specific questions we asked.
We have no idea where this work is going. And we’ve said from the beginning; we’re not the experts, we’re the questioners. So, we’re just going to keep asking those questions. And we hope that just even the survey itself helps someone to think a little more deeply about their own mental health.
Lucy Morgan: [15:50]
It’s so interesting, you know, how different personalities react to stress differently, clearly. For me, in reading this article and considering this topic, I am a person who needs to name their environment. So, everywhere I’ve lived, you know, I buy the little book that says, “This is what the plants are. These are what the animals are. These are what the fish are. These are what the birds of the sky are,” so I can name my environment. And that’s always been comforting to me.
And I think in our profession, being able to name what you are feeling can also be very powerful. So, Trish, you looked at the evolving view of burnout in society, which certainly has changed over the years, including the World Health Organization recognizing chronic workplace stress as a diagnosable syndrome. How is this view of stress in the workplace and burnout changed, particularly in the grants profession?
Trish Bachman: [16:45]
What I’ll say about that is that the definition differs by the place that you are. So, contemporary literature says that burnout and stress are one thing. And the research shows that it’s another.
The contemporary literature will tell you that burnout is something that is yours personally, that you can control personally. It’s a work-life balance. It’s, are you healthy enough? Do you need to be more fit or skinnier, or have better clothes? How do you manage your time? Maybe you’re bad at managing your time, and that’s why you have stress, or maybe you’re just not educated enough. Maybe you need another workshop, another seminar. Maybe you need to buy something that’s going to make you handle your stress and burnout better.
But the research shows us that it’s a workplace issue. It’s really to occupation, and it’s leading into other areas of your life. Unfortunately, it is affecting three out of four grant professionals.
Lucy Morgan: [17:48]
Wow. You know, Bethany, I think many of us are surprised that it’s taken us this long to get to this point where we’re talking about this. What do you think one of the biggest dangers of continuing to ignore this concept of burnout and sweep it under the rug is?
Bethany Planton: [18:04]
There’s a couple of different dangers. There are dangers for the individual as a grant professional because I mean, you continue to burn out, you’re probably eventually going to hit the wall and, kind of, you know, pull up your career, like, just go, “I'm done," like, and maybe, you know, leave your organization or leave whatever you're doing in maybe not the healthiest way, you know, where you're, kind of, burning bridges as you leave.
Or if you're not doing that, you might be hospitalized for the stress or, you know, get some sort of disease because you've stressed out your body so much that it can't fight off anything.
And for organizations, you might be losing your best workers, the awesome grant professionals who are, you know, making your organization better. And even if you hire someone else, you've now lost that higher-quality grant professional. You know, it takes several years to really get to know an organization, to build those relationships with funders. And if, after a couple of years, you're burning out, then you start over again and again with all that new stuff until you're really losing that high-quality work.
The Cost of Burnout in the Grant Profession
Lucy Morgan: [19:11]
So, there's really a lot of cost to the profession, not only to the individual but also to organizations that people are getting to that point of where they're considering leaving the profession, you know, rather than having organizations address ways to reduce that type of an environment.
Johna, let's dig a little deeper into this topic. Can you share some of the common experiences of workplace stress that you were evaluating in this study?
Johna Rodgers: [19:42]
Well, grant development, in general, is extremely deadline-focused, and we know that. And it's, sort of, this joke among us, right? If it's not on a deadline, we're not going to get it done. You know, give me a deadline, we're good.
But that's part of also the pressure, that underlying pressure of getting the work done but it's also in some of the kind of, communities and pods we've talked with, it's always that idea of also that idea that the employer has a more and more and more. Hooray, you want a grant or hooray, you want 100 small grants or hooray, you brought in 50% more than last year. So now what are you going to do for me tomorrow?
And as one of our... Actually, more than one of our respondents said in the open response questions, it never ends. It never ends. And so, the expectations, whether formal or informal, are impossible. They are developed from the top down, not in some way that helps us contribute. And that's part of that lack of control that we find in burnout. We don't have control over what our work product's going to be. A lot of times, it's thrown at us.
So, we say as my compatriots have said, you know, if I work harder or better or faster, if I find a new time management method, if I find a new piece of software or an app, I'll be able to handle this because we don't understand that it's really not us.
And quickly, I'll mention one other contributing factor, and that's the funder themselves. The funders... You know, yesterday, I had a phone call about the TRIO grants that are coming out right now. And all those federal grants are going to come out all at the same time, and they're going to have a 30 or 60-day window. And it's what, 200 pages with attachments and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Or it could be that right before Christmas, you submitted a little LOI, and it was just a small thing. And you submitted it on the 22nd of December, and you come back from Christmas, and now you have two weeks to churn out the bigger proposal that goes with that LOI.
Those are funder issues that impact us, you know, that may be out of our control. But again, it's an education thing. If our bosses and workplaces knew more about what we do, if the funders understood better, then maybe we can make those cultural changes.
Lucy Morgan: [22:11]
And it really sounds like there are some structural components in this whole equation that need to be addressed.
Johna Rodgers: [22:17]
Absolutely.
Lucy Morgan: [22:18]
Well, Bethany, I, for one, you know, I'm an analytical, and I love looking at things both objectively and, of course, subjectively. But I love that we could look at this objectively as professionals, but I know some of our audiences are probably looking to cut to the chase. So, what are some of the common challenges that people are experiencing related to burnout?
Bethany Planton [22:42]
All kinds of challenges. You know, each organization has its own belief, and we're thinking through what that might be for our future research. But some that, you know, come to the top of our heads, what Johna was mentioning, these sometimes-unrealistic deadlines, sometimes it's just multiple deadlines at the same time, not that each vendor would know that.
But within your organization, you're just trying to, you know, submit five grants within five days or, you know, something along where it's just one after another and not having time to recoup. So, part of burnout is not necessarily that there never will be times that you're really busy. Like, we all are going to have that. Every profession has that. But it's the time to not be able to recoup from that to, like, maybe have some time off. So, you worked really hard for the last couple of weeks, why don't you take a little time off?
In the grants profession, it always seems like, or it's just, we've said again, one more thing to do. Let's do... You know, we got another grant to get in. And we've got a report to get in. We need to do a site visit. Like, it's just the continual deadlines and processes that you have to go through.
Lucy Morgan: [23:50]
Yes, I was writing an article the other day about the celebration of success. And I had to remind not only the audience for that article but also myself that we don't celebrate success by giving ourselves more work to do. Too often, that is how we celebrate success. Here's some more work to do. Yay, get my little. Yay. Get my little virtual clapper out there.
Well, Trish, I think this is a topic that has a universal impact across so many roles and responsibilities, not just in the grants profession. What do you think some of the most surprising consequences you discovered with this survey were?
Trish Bachman: [24:30]
It all comes back to my work, working in the grassroots, working in Victim Services, working with such a diverse number of businesses when I was at Highway Safety. And in all of those things, all those different situations, sometimes we have a tendency to push through whatever our personal discomfort is, try to be all things for all people, try to do the job, try to do your best.
We find that a lot of people in the grants field are not only very detail-oriented but also have perfectionist tendencies. And we all, like, want to be the best, but really the best of everything. And that's a tremendous amount of internal pressure.
So, what we were seeing in the survey results was a large number of people who had stress-related diagnoses and even some who were hospitalized for that internal pressure that they are putting on themselves that affected their health.
And then they have been, you know, maybe you're not eating properly, maybe you're not getting enough exercise, or maybe you're internalizing the stress and don't have healthy ways of getting that out. But the most surprising part is that with all the contemporary literature that there is and everything that's out there, only half of the people could recognize symptoms of burnout in others, which means that they can't even identify symptoms of burnout in themselves.
Tips for Dealing with Stress in the in the Grant Profession
Lucy Morgan: [25:56]
Wow. So, again, sometimes it is naming the environment that we're living in. Well, as we start to wrap up this conversation, I'd really like to get some practical advice out there to some of our listening audience.
So, I'm going to ask each of you, what is the first piece of advice you'd give to someone who's starting to feel some of the burnout symptoms that are mentioned in this article, such as exhaustion and cynicism? So, let's start with you, Johna.
Johna Rodgers: [26:25]
My first bit of advice is to talk to someone, preferably your supervisor or boss, in a safe and healthy way, not after you've hit the wall, not in tears, do it professionally, short conversations, and taking the time to say, not just that, "I can't handle this load anymore. But we love our numbers. Gee, did you know that I just spent 175 hours on this federal proposal? I had no idea it would take me so long to do that."
But helping educate that boss on what it is, we do. And if it's not the boss, because we know, sometimes the boss ain't it, then find another professional you can talk to within your organization, but get it out. That's my first piece of advice. Get it out.
Lucy Morgan: [27:14]
Thank you for that. Bethany, how about you?
Bethany Planton: [27:18]
We talked a couple of times on here, where burnout is a workplace issue. But that doesn't mean we don't have some individual responsibility in it, and we shouldn't let other people walk all over us. And so, my advice is to set up boundaries.
I am known as the "Boundaries Queen." I love boundaries. And so, boundaries look different for each person but sending up those boundaries around your work. So, maybe you don't want to work on the weekend, somehow, you should only work the amount of hours you're supposed to work. So, you know, I think the world is getting a little more open to not all being, you know, in the normal 9:00 to 5:00, Monday through Friday, but don't work a lot of overtime. You know, set those boundaries of when you're going to work.
Don't respond to emails when you're not working. Don't even be... You know, don't be checking your emails. Step away from the computer. Don't eat at your desk. Like, you know, just the little breaks even during the day, where you can take a break and set some of those boundaries so that you're not just working all the time and your body and your brain has some time to recover.
Lucy Morgan: [28:26]
And that's a great piece of advice. You know, we're in a profession where we're helping people. And I think anytime you're in a profession of helping people, sometimes in our mind, we equate saying “no” with not caring. And that's not the same thing. But sometimes we like to think it is the same thing. That's some great insights as well. Okay, Trish, you're up.
Trish Bachman: [28:48]
Take a vacation. Take time away from your desk. It might be when you're working, and you're a little frazzled, you need to walk outside. There's someplace away from your desk, 5 or 10 minutes might be all the break that you need, and then you'll come back with a refreshed perspective.
But take a vacation—schedule time for yourself. If you do it at the beginning of the year, do it quarterly. Take some time off. But guard that time, put it in your schedule, use "out of office," and stick to it.
If you have trouble holding yourself to those dates, then get yourself a reservation, buy tickets. Do something that will hold you accountable for that time off. And plan it ahead; that way, you're not like, "Well, I can't get away because of this new grant deadline." No, go ahead and set those dates.
The Last Word with Johna Rodgers, GPC, Bethany Planton, GPC, and Trish Bachman, GPC, and Lucy Morgan CPA.
Lucy Morgan: [29:39]
That's some great, great tips as well. So, thank you for that. And I'd like to give each of you the last word. Is there something I should have asked but didn't? So, let's start with Johna.
Johna Rodgers: [29:50]
I'm not sure there's anything you didn't ask, but what I'll add is that we don't have all the answers. I just want to make... You know, we are still learning, and we are open to anybody's suggestions of things that we can do, other questions we can ask as we continue to dig.
So, I guess the question I would say that needs to be asked is what's next? And we're going to let the journey take us where it does as we learn more and as others join us.
Lucy Morgan: [30:22]
Thank you for that. Bethany, your last word. Is there a question I should have asked but didn't?
Bethany Planton: [30:27]
I think you've covered it, Lucy. These are great questions. Really followed what we had written in our article, and we appreciate the opportunity to be on the podcast.
Lucy Morgan: [30:36]
Thank you so much.
How about the last word with Trish? Is there a question that I didn't ask that I should have?
Trish Bachman: [30:42]
Well, first of all, thank you for having this conversation with us. I think that the more conversations we have, the less taboo it's going to feel. I know sometimes we feel like we're solo, like, we're the only one. And when I first got started in grant consulting, in grant writing, I didn't know anybody else who did it.
So, I think the most important thing, and I'm glad that you brought us together because having conversations about this, about how uncomfortable it is, it can be embarrassing, but it shouldn't be embarrassing because we're all experiencing it.
Lucy Morgan: [31:16]
And I love that takeaway, that you are not alone. I think that there's one thing I hope people will take away from this podcast, which is to recognize that there are other people out there who care about them and that they are not alone in this part of the grant journey as well.
If someone would like to find out more about you and what you do, Johna, how should they get in touch with you?
Johna Rodgers: [31:38]
I'm on most of the social media outlets, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook. So, reach out that way. Also, you can probably find me through the Grant Professionals Association. I'm not hard to find, unfortunately. Yeah. And I wrote on my post-it note, as Bethany was talking about boundaries, I actually said “no” to Bethany yesterday. That's how good I'm getting.
Lucy Morgan: [32:03]
Awesome. Setting boundaries. Very important. Bethany, since you have been teaching Johna how to set boundaries, how should people get in touch with you within those boundaries?
Bethany Planton: [32:17]
Within my boundaries, so you can find me at BMPConsulting.org. That's my website. It also has links to where I am on social media. I'm mostly on Twitter @bethanymplanton.
Lucy Morgan: [32:32]
Thank you for that. And Trish, how about you? What's the best way for people to get in contact with you?
Trish Bachman: [32:38]
Well, I'm at thewritestuffdelaware.com, that's W-R-I-T-E. You can also find me at @TheWriteStuffDe (on Twitter.) Thank you.
Lucy Morgan: [32:50]
And we'll put a link to that on our article as well at https://cdn.ymaws.com/grantprofessionals.org/resource/resmgr/publications/journal/2020.gpajournal.final.pdf
Trish Bachman [32:54]
Oh, you can Google me.
Lucy Morgan: [32:58]
It's hard to keep track of all of the various places that we are with, you know, all the new social media all the time, so I totally get that. I totally get that.
Well, thanks again so much for participating in the "Grant Talks Podcast." Listeners, you can find all the episodes out on granttalks.com. And thank you for tuning in.
Outro: [33:18]
To learn more about how MyFedTrainer.com makes grant management more manageable, visit MyFedTrainer.com. That's MyFedTrainere.com. You'll find all the Grant Talks episodes at GrantTalks.com. That's GrantTalks.com.
More About Johna Rodgers, GPC
For nearly 30 years, Johna Rodgers, GPC, has helped organizations of all sizes solve problems. For 20 years, she has worked as a full-time grant professional, bringing more than $195 million in grants to employers and clients.
With a background primarily in federal proposal development, Johna has learned to work with dozens of partners and their conflicting ideas, missions, and concerns. Johna is a longtime member of the Grant Professionals Association and serves as the national Vice President.
In addition, she is an Approved GPA Trainer and works nationally to share best practices about all things grants. For the past 5 1/2 years, she has worked as a consultant. Johna is an original GPC--grant professional certified--receiving her certification in 2008.
Johna is the co-author of Burnout in the Grants Profession: An Initial Analysis, published in the Journal of the Grant Professionals Association Volume 18.
More About Bethany Planton, GPC
Bethany Planton, GPC, SMS, SM, PO, is the Founder and CEO of BMPConsulting.org, a grant consulting firm located in Louisville, Kentucky. After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Communications Studies from Ball State University, Bethany got her start in the grant field as an AmeriCorps VISTA member.
Since 2011, Bethany has worked with more than 30 organizations to secure six million dollars in government and foundation funds. Bethany is a Grant Professional Certified Social Media Strategist, Scrum Master, Scrum Product Owner, and a GPA Approved Trainer.
Bethany is the co-author of Burnout in the Grants Profession: An Initial Analysis, published in the Journal of the Grant Professionals Association Volume 18.
More About Trish Bachman, GPC
As the owner and lead grant consultant for The Write Stuff Delaware LLC, Trish Bachman works with nonprofits based in Delaware. Trish began her journey as a grant professional with a volunteer assignment with Mothers Against Drunk Driving and an online grant writing course.
Over the next few years, she would hone her skills working with the grassroots organization providing victim services, advocacy, public policy, volunteer management, and grants administration. Her passion for traffic safety would continue through work with the Delaware Office of Highway Safety. She inspired hundreds of businesses to implement traffic safety programs affecting thousands of employees statewide.
In 2013, Trish took that passion for helping people and opened a consulting firm to assist small to midsize nonprofit organizations in meeting their mission through strategic grant seeking. Trish is a Grant Professionals Certified. She serves on the Grant Professionals Association Program Growth & Development Committee and is a founding member and president of the GPA Delmarva Chapter.
More About Lucy Morgan:
Lucy M. Morgan is a CPA, MBA, GPA approved trainer, speaker, and author of 3 books including “Decoding Grant Management-The Ultimate Success Guide to the Federal Grant Regulations in 2 CFR Part 200.” As a leading authority on federal grant management for nonprofits, institutions of higher education and state, local and tribal governments she has written over 250 articles on grant management topics featured in LinkedIn, various publications and on the MyFedTrainer.com blog.
She is a sought-after presenter at national conferences sponsored by organizations such as the Grant Professional Association (GPA), National Grant Management Association (NGMA), and American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).
Lucy is also a highly regarded trainer whose techniques and teaching style come from real-world experience. Having faced many of the same challenges her audiences have endured, Lucy understands that what looks good on paper may not always work in the real world. Because she has been there, she provides people of all professional backgrounds with practical tools to advance their careers and make a bigger difference in the world. She can be reached at [email protected].
>>Hear more about Lucy's story in Episode #004
More Resources for Grant Professionals
Thanks for checking out the Grant Talks podcast!
In this episode of Grant Talks, we talked about a subject that you may want to know more about:
- Collaboration between grant professionals
So...as promised, I want to share some resources that may help you on YOUR grant journey.
Recently I’ve talked with a number of folks who discovered TOO LATE that their grants had spending restrictions that were a complete surprise!
(And some of them were federal grants they had year after year, but this year something changed…)
So, I thought this might be a good time to help you avoid those types of BIG “oopsie” that lead to disallowed costs with a Pre-Award checklist!
(Collaboration can start with getting everyone on the same page before you even receive grant funding!)
I hope this little one-page checklist will keep you on the journey to more grants and better grant management.
Download and share with your team.
This week the Grant Tip is our [Pre-award Checklist]
Here's what’s included in this handy checklist:
- Common areas of spending restrictions
- Additional requirements that can get “tucked in” to your Notice of Funding
These resources are designed for grant writers and managers, just like you, and I hope that you will find them valuable on your grant journey.
Click here to download and share
P.S. Want to feel connected to other grant professionals? I’ve started a new private Facebook group called the GrantsU Community to help #grant professionals stay connected, celebrate our profession, and support each other. Join now for FREE as a founding #community member at https://www.facebook.com/groups/GrantsUCommunity/
