Shownotes
As a certified grant consultant and a very successful grant writer, Sherita Herring debunks the enormous misconception around what people think about grants, one of the most common of which is can a nonprofit make a profit? Sherita’s answer is yes, it can. Many small towns are drying up across the country, and there is a need to coach them on how to implement sustainability efforts and go after funding for their town. A lot of small town mayors are not getting their dollars through the government because they just figure there’s no money. Most people aren’t aware there’s millions in tourism grants. Sherita says a grant proposal is nothing but a business plan and to approach an investor is the same language used in the nonprofit arena as the for profit arena. You’ve got to learn how to go after your own money. She teaches how to raise capital, how to speak to investors, and how to prepare your documents to give your grant proposal the best chance at success.
Making Profit From A Non-Profit Through Grant Proposals with Sherita Herring
I have as my guest, Sherita Herring. Sherita is a non-profit expert and business strategist. She’s the owner of Kreative Images Foundation. She’s a certified grant consultant with over $30 million worth of grants secured, the largest being around $14 million. She’s a very successful grant writer. Sherita, thanks for taking time to be on the show.
Thank you. It’s an honor.
Tell me a little bit about your business and who you serve.
I serve individuals that want to make a difference in the world. That could range from celebrities and athletes to someone that has a soup kitchen and they’re working with the homeless. Anyone that wants to make a difference, that’s my ideal client. In the past three or four years, most of my clients have been these super entrepreneurs and small business owners.
For most of us, when we hear about grant, and I certainly did before I had listened to you speak. This is the second or third time I’ve heard you speak about grant. There’s an enormous misconception or disconnect between around what people think about grants. Let’s dig into what they do and how you view grants and cover some of that.
In the past few years, it’s been entrepreneurs and small business owners because before they would not look or even consider that grants are non-profit arena. They felt like, first of all, I need to make a profit. The misconception and one of the main things that people ask is can a nonprofit make a profit? Yes, it can. There are multimillion and even billion-dollar non-profits. Non-profit just means it’s a non-stock corporation. Once I get them past that misconception in their mind.
Non-profit just means it's a non-stock corporation.
You’ve got a project going on now with some small town mayors. Let’s walk through it if we can like a case study of what you did for the small town mayor that you did the grant for.
I was on tour and it took me through small town America, and I realized that many small towns are drying up across the country. We did a little research and there’s the graying of America that’s going on. What does that mean? Where you got young kids that live in small towns, they can’t wait to grow up and leave and then what’s being left in these small towns are individuals that now on an average are 60 years old and older. They’re losing jobs, empty homes, empty schools, and you’ve got the older people that are left there. That’s what’s happening. Towns are drying up. Being on tour, I went through my uncle’s small town in Arkansas. He’s the mayor of Twin Groves, Arkansas. Did a workshop there and had been coaching them on how to do sustainability efforts and go after funding for their town, where my uncle was recently awarded a $500,000 grant. Now he has a brand new road running through his small town of Twin Groves and he’s doing many other things that he had no idea he could do until stepping further into this arena. A lot of small town mayors, if they’re not getting the dollars through the government, they just figured there’s no money when there’s so much other money for bridges, to rehab their movie theaters and a lot of other things that could bring more tourists to their town. Speaking of tourists, most people aren’t aware there’s millions in tourism grants.
What struck me the first time I listened to you speak was I was just, maybe ignorance is the wrong word, I didn’t even know that I didn’t know. In the grant space, I’ve heard of grant writers through the years and people have various and sundry opinions of grant writers. They love him if they’re successful and they’re dubious if they’re not. You’ve attack that issue as well, haven’t you?
For one, people want to blame the grant writer. A grant writer is only as good as the information received. Let me explain a little bit. People were here at this forum learning all week how to do what, how to raise capital, how to speak to investors, how to prepare their documents. The non-profit arena, grant funders are nothing but investors. The moment that I try and get someone to look at this arena and to learn about the grant, “I don’t want to do that. I want somebody else. I need a grant writer.” You’ve got to learn how to go after your own money. A grant proposal is nothing but a business plan. To approach an investor is the same language in the nonprofit arena as the for profit arena. Instantly people want to leave that up to a grant writer. I’m very successful in what I do and I’ve raised millions. I don’t know you well enough to write your plan for you, how many certifications you have, who are your contacts, what had been your successes? That’s what goes into that proposal. Anyone that’s leaving that totally up to the grant writer, if a grant proposal is not successful, it’s that person’s fault too.
Almost from my limited experience in the grant space, invariably we turned it over to our grant writer, and you see some of the work in a grant writer’s work. It’s not personalized in their approach and there are many different things that go well. From my perspective, I don’t know if that’s a good job, bad job or an in between job, because I have no background whatsoever. For you, you’ve been teaching how to do grant writing for a long time.
Since 1988.
Up until recently you were out in the big city.
Los Angeles, California. Since 1988.
In that space there was a number of folks that you worked with and I don’t know that you can disclose their names. Perhaps it would be useful for the audience to understand some of the folks, who they are and what they did.
From Tippi Hedren, who is the beautiful blonde from the old hand-cut movie, The Birds. She now has a huge animal rescue, which are big cats and she even has Michael Jackson’s two white tigers. She has a non-profit up out of Palmdale, California. She’s just an amazing spirit, but she has all these huge animals, a great sanctuary and she needed some coaching on running her non-profit effectively in board development. The legendary Jim Brown has saved thousands of lives as far as gang members. His Amer-I-Can program has an awesome reading program, but he also has helped with jobs and helping them to go for higher education. Even a construction company, Rodney Shepherd, RSS Development, was doing a lot of building around in Los Angeles but didn’t realize if he had a non-profit what he could do. He doubted it for a couple of years until we developed Global Links as non-profit. That’s where he got the $14 million grant to do some development in Watts, California.
Then there’s Bill Dupe, the movie producer. He loves youth. Always talking to youth about going into the movie industry, had been trying to get funding for years. When I looked at his proposal, there were too many gaps. Unless you understand what you’re trying to write, which someone should’ve explained it to him, he didn’t know that that wasn’t a good proposal. Within a few weeks I rewrote his proposal and he got his $100,000 that he had been trying to get for three years. It’s about knowing how to answer their questions. It’s not mystical, Bob. Someone that has a business plan, I could take and show them what this says here in paragraph four, this drops into number six on this application. It’s knowing that a grant proposal is nothing but a business plan, and when they’re asking the question, where do you pull your information and drop it into that application?
Grant Proposals: A grant proposal is nothing but a business plan.
That’s such a big disconnect. You and I have talked in length about being able to effect change. In the grant space, if you were to guess on an annual basis, what’s the volume of grant money that’s not utilized?
I don’t even know the number. I know that it is millions that go back. Even in the down economy from 2007 all the way up to 2011, millions of dollars were going back untouched. I’m trying to show people even the small for-profit businesses were drying up and dying, if you would just look at this money. For instance, a small boutique, you got a woman that runs her business by herself in the community. Can’t even leave to go to lunch because she is her only employee and I’m sitting and looking at all these young kids that are getting out of school, walking past her. Many of them are stylishly dressed. She doesn’t realize that she can have an after-school job training program, teaching entrepreneurship, inventory control, in her facility, customer service. She doesn’t realize that grants would even cover the cost for their salary and it’s an after-school job training program. Many of them are into fashion. She could even have a fashion design program because she had dummies in the facility. Somebody needs to dress those to make the clothing appealing to those that walk in. She didn’t realize that all that could be a program and grants will be covering the cost and paying the cost for her lease.
The first time that I saw you speak, you said there’s a grant for that.
Yes.
It’s ubiquitous now but I didn’t know there’s a grant for that. What’s the best way that people can reach out to you?
They can go to my website at KIFoundation.org.
You and I developed a friendship through our various meetings down here at this forum. She’s as outgoing as you hear and got a great smile and she’s highly competent. We talk about doing well by doing good. In the grant space there’s so much opportunity to effect change in many different venues around the country and in the bigger mission thing, you’re on the bigger mission.
Yes, always. I just taught a class and was showing them just in this year alone, did you know there have been seventeen school shootings? What they have found, they studied 31 of the shooters, and seventeen of them were showing either some mental issue or anger issue well before the shooting happened. I’m talking to individuals every day that help with self-esteem, leadership skills, motivation, even masseuse or individuals that can go in and teach yoga. There’s grant funders that are specifically focusing on those individuals taking yoga and other meditative strategies to childcare centers. They realize that if they can reach the individuals early in life, they will grow up to be well rounded adults. There will be less bullying, less low self-esteem, better communication skills. When I meet individuals that are here at CEO Space and many of these business owners that are teaching business owners’ leadership skills and improve communication, I tell them, “Do you have children? Do you have an interest in working with youth or speaking at schools?” “Yes, Sherita but I have to get paid,” but you can. I can show more individuals how they can increase their client base while making a difference in the world.
You got a few things coming up in the near future where you’re presenting or speak English. How about that?
I call it Laughing Your Way to the Bank. Every year I speak at the Comedy Convention in Los Angeles. People pigeonhole me thinking, “You’re the grant lady, you’re the non-profit lady. Why would you go to the comedy convention?” I started out as a motivational speaker first. What I found is a lot of times people get motivated when they hear a motivational speaker or transformational expert or whatever. They’re really motivated. When they get home and life things happen, either cooking for the kids or a death in the family or whatever, we get distracted and then when we go back to that that motivated us, now what? I provide the now what? Once a person gets mental motivated, I’m able to show them that there is profit for their passions and these are the steps that you can take in order to now make that motivation that you have in your gut happen.
There’s truly profit for your passions in this arena. I get excited because people have a vision, they have an idea or they’ve got an old dirty napkin where they’ve written some ideas and it’s sitting to the side. First of all, people think of this arena as the side gig or a hobby, when the non-profit arena has literally helped to sustain the US economy. It’s a trillion dollar industry. It’s the third largest business sector in the United States. The more that I can get individuals to look at this and see that it’s not that you have to go and start something and go a whole another direction. I’m saying right on the path that you’re on, it’s like you’re looking at that door and you see capital or revenue on that door and you’re only looking at that. You’re walking down a tight hallway to get it and you’re hitting grant dollars as you go and knocking them on the floor. You’re picking it back up saying, “No, that’s not me. Let me put that back.” There are individuals in little windows along the hallway waving at you because they need you, but because you’re only looking at the ones that can pay you, you’re ignoring them. The grants that are along the hallway right below those windows are the people that are waving at you. If you take that money, then the next little door where you could open it up and say, “Come with me, I’m on this path, but I can serve you. Come with me.” The grants are there to address a need and pay you to work with those individuals that otherwise you would not have served.
If you’re not intrigued and or moved, you might want to check your pulse. I’ve been informed and it’s been a real joy. I’m incredibly thankful that Sherita has agreed to be on the podcast. Now is the fun part for me. Many of us are influenced by the books we read. What’s the most influential book that’s altered your perception on being a CEO?
The Bible. First, I’m a preacher’s daughter and my dad always taught me even when you’re troubled, think of God. Give him praise and stay in service. That’s the original GPS for me, God, praise and service. I’m not trying to step on anyone else’s toes. That’s how I’m raised. You got to know that there is a higher power, whether you call it the universe or whatever. I was taught to follow what my inner GPS is saying. I’m glad to be working in what I love every day and the grants arena has allowed me to show others that that’s possible. When I go back to that original book that even when it says you speak things into existence, that’s from the Bible. When you talk about what you’re needing, what your passion is, someone around you, if you’re doing things right and if you’re doing it for the right reason, they’re going to hear you and connect you.
Keep your head down. Mind your own business. Do the work.
CEO Space. The way that Berny in September, the way they’ve got it arranged and the major networking that happens more in one week than you can do in a year. People are here, they’re dedicated to what they love, they’re speaking out what they want and they’re speaking things into existence. Even our networking is because of the way they’re speaking it, then it is so and will happen. Many of the scriptures are things that we will say out of the Bible. There’s one and I think it’s 1 Thessalonians, but it says, “Keep your head down. Mind your own business. Do the work.” When you stay dedicated to what it is that you want to do and you stay dedicated to that, it’s going to produce results. This arena allows you to produce such results and touch lives again that you never would have touched before. The funding is there.
My house is full of books. I get teased when my son moves me. He’s like, “Ma, don’t go. You got the heaviest boxes,” because I am a book person. I don’t even read on Kindle because I need to feel the pages. I write on my pages, I make notes and I love books. My ultimate book and what I tend to go back to and from the moment before my feet hit the floor, the fact that I woke up today, I say thank you Lord. I don’t mean to be offensive to anyone else, but that comes from that original book. That is my go to.
Looking back over the past, a failure or maybe at the time an apparent failure that served you or your company best or set you up for future achievement. Why?
I tell the story. I even have a YouTube video that talks about it. I treat my life like it’s a bus and all the people that you meet there in the seats on your bus. You’re the driver. If I get upset with someone, instead of putting them off the bus, I move them to the back of the bus. Eventually, I might need to turn and ask for some directions and they’re the only one that knew. I can turn around and ask so and so or make a call to a client and they can call that person or whatever. If I put them off the bus got upset, then that’s past and it’s gone. There was a client, he’s very prominent and he was a political person. We work together. I had done a lot for him on his campaign, done some strategy things in that, and he didn’t pay me. I got very upset about it. I almost went to a few people that could have done some damage, and it was another one of my mentors, John Frierson, who was the Boxing Commissioner for California, who said, “Sherita, don’t do that. Use your relationship with him to build who you are and what you do.” What I did is I moved him back on the bus. I didn’t take it as a failure or...
