Welcome to 2026
Happy new year everyone! My apologies for not posting in a few months. Soon after returning home from Grant Summit, my 9-5 work really picked up, leaving little time or energy for any writing. Then Thanksgiving and Christmas came while I caught and fended off sickness. After the second week of being sick, I resolved to listen to my body and take a step back until the new year to give my body a chance to recover.
Looking back at 2025, I am really proud of the progress I made and am looking forward to making more focused progress this year.
In 2025 I:
Created branding for myself including a logo and website
Began building my skills including client acquisition, creating a grant calendar, and finding prospective grants
Attended Grant Summit to network and continue learning skills (I do plan on writing more about my experience at Grant Summit in its own post)
Finished the first course in a data analysis certificate I'm pursuing
In 2026 I strive to be much more focused on building my portfolio and working with organizations that are a little more established than the one I am currently volunteering for. A lot of my work for them so far has been about getting them ready for writing grants and setting up scaffolding for future writers to work from and expand upon. I plan on sun-setting my volunteer time with them around March of this year with at least 3 grant applications submitted.
I have a few leads on other organizations. There is a local wolf sanctuary with a full time paid grant writer who has expressed interest in seeing what my experience is and how I might be able to help her in a volunteer capacity. I reached out to her in December 2025 and will be following up in the middle of January if I don't hear anything first. I'm hoping this could turn into a more direct mentorship to help me gain an additional reference and experience in the industry. Additionally, this person also completed the same grant writing certification course through Spark the Fire, so we have a commonality there.
If that mentorship doesn't work out and/or I need another project, then I have another lead from a contact I made at Grant Summit. This would be writing grants pro-bono for an indigenous organization and would be closest to my long term goal of fitting into the niche of Native/Indigenous grant writing.
Additionally, I plan on completing the data analysis certificate I started last year on LinkedIn Learning. My intention with this certificate is to be able to better understand data so that I can create compelling arguments in my applications. With this skill I may also be able to emphasize why data is so important to organizations who do not have a good collection model in place or need help understanding how to present their return on impact.
Once I have a few more written grants under my belt, I will be working on finding and apply to paid part time work so that I can profit from my learned skills. I plan to start that process in July with the goal of finding 1 paying client by 2027.
Finally, this year I will be working through the book Dare to Lead by Brené Brown. This book was featured in one of the panels I attended at Grant Summit '25. It explores different aspects of leadership from vulnerability and identifying our personal values, to living them and stepping up in the community. In the panel I attended, it was multiple professionals who created a book club and held each other accountable. The book includes written exercises and reflections, and a workbook.
Overall I am feeling hopeful for the progress to be made in 2026 and I look forward to taking you, dear readers, along on my journey.