Y’all. Have you ever met someone, and loved what they were sharing so much, that you could just sit back and listen to their stories for hours? That is exactly how I felt when Julie Boll joined the Fundraising HayDay podcast. I knew I would love the conversation the second I learned she attended Dr. Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead training, but I didn’t know that Julie had her own experiences that I related to. You can hear everything Kimberly and I discussed with Julie here: Leadership Isn’t Perfection | Fundraising HayDay (podbean.com).

What most stuck with me is her belief that we need to normalize vulnerability; it is okay to be uncomfortable; and often, our work is messy. She’s right. If you have been in the grant profession long enough, you have seen your share of messy. Beautiful messy. Ugly messy. And just plain messy. So, allow me to share one of my many messes with you.

I lost my first grant award within six months of a new job. The first grant I wrote for the police department was awarded pretty quickly. The police officer running the program was so excited, and I knew he would take the grant-funded program and run with it. I was still getting myself acclimated to a much bigger municipality I had only visited once (during my interview) before my first day. I was trying to clean up a nasty OIG audit, convince a handful of department directors that my new position was there to help them (not take away their control), and handle a myriad of other issues a new employee in a brand-new position must deal with. I’ll admit it, the aforementioned grant did not get the attention it so deserved.

Three months into the 12-month program, I realized we had spent $0 of our $80,000 award. I called the officer, discussed the issue, put together a needed budget amendment, and got permission from the funder – who told us to get moving. I thought we were back on track. Another three months passed, and we were still at $0 in expenditures. The officer asked to revert to our original budget (equipment issues). When I broached the subject with the funder, his response was this: “You only have six months left and not a good track record of moving fast. Our best option is to terminate this grant.”

Yep, in the blink of an eye, my $80,000 award for the city’s police department to help reduce our growing number of DUI-related accidents and injuries dropped to $0. And I had to report that to the city manager and police chief. I was embarrassed, mortified, and oh so sick to my stomach. All I could do was explain what happened, share what I learned from the experience, and outline my strategy to keep that from ever happening again. Thankfully, my city manager understood that no one is perfect, and mistakes happen. He appreciated my candid report and that I had already put together a plan for the future. Thankfully, there was no talk of me losing my job because that was where my head immediately went.

It was at that moment I realized I could never hope to be the perfect grant administrator. Instead, I strived to never make the same mistake twice. Trust me, I continue to make mistakes (topics for future podcasts and blog posts), but my stance held true. I never lost another grant, I never waited three months to check spending, I never assumed an excited program manager meant one who would keep the grant as their main focus, and I learned that grants are messy and people are, too. I will admit it took me much longer to understand and articulate that last one.

I think grant professionals need to do a better job of sharing our failures and shortcomings along with our successes. Because I know WE ALL HAVE THEM. But it can be easy to look around and see people reporting their huge number of dollars won, number of grants written, number of clients secured, number of people trained, or whatever metric we use to share our success and think that we are the only one struggling with a certain aspect of the job. Trust me when I say that we have all experienced our share of moments we’d rather leave buried, but no one is perfect. And don’t you feel better knowing I once lost a grant, but nearly 20 years later, I’m still plugging away and loving this messy work?

DH Leonard Consulting & Grant Writing Services, LLC is so excited to be season 6 sponsors for Fundraising HayDay, a podcast about grants and such. Catch up on seasons 1 – 5 and stay up to date on the new season here.

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