Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Justine W. Krank. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Justine W. thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

This was a long time coming…
I started thinking about grant writing as its own enterprise in 2020 because I was hired at my job in January of 2020, and once lockdown went into effect I thought I might get laid off right away. (Couldn’t have been farther from reality).

Fast forward to June 2021: I’m loving my job, thinking this is finally the nonprofit I can stay at for the next 10+ years…until I retire even. (my husband and I had been talking about retiring early— in our 40s— since we were 29). Then my husband gets a call at work saying he’s a candidate for a transfer to Hunstville, AL, to open a new store for his company. We dreamed of retiring in NC and moving across the country is expensive. Huntsville AL is a heck of a lot closer so we say yes. I talk to my boss (they decidedly need me, and I also need to keep my job), we strike a deal, and six weeks later I’m living in Hunstville, AL.

Soon after moving I start working with a career coach. It became clear to me pretty quickly that the time I had left with my current employer was finite. They love and need me, but all program operations, funding, and everything is in California. Working with this career coach was game-changing. She let me know what becoming a solopreneur could look like, and I started doing informational interviews with established grant writers and thinking about business structure, service offerings, etc. One of the informational interviews I did was with a consultant we hired to do a proposal at my job (we had way too many on deck at the time). Having seen my work ethic and the quality of my writing, she became my biggest cheerleader and an informal mentor of sorts. (and she still is today!)

One year later, a new managerial role in my department opened up, and I wasn’t eligible because I wasn’t local. That’s when I knew it was time for me to move on. So I continued to research starting my own business and began putting structures in place.

In January 2023, I set up a little website for myself and told people I was open for business as a freelance grant writer. I got my first client that month and the next in February! During this time I also talked to my boss about transitioning out of my role by the end of the year. By the middle of the year I had three clients and my full-time employment was titrating down to 3 days a week. It was A LOT. And frankly, I had to prioritize my clients because they were about to be my main source of income, not my employer. I ended up having to leave my job sooner than expected because I was so busy. And by September 29th, 2023, I was 100% self-employed.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I got into the nonprofit field because I have always had a strong sense of justice, even as a little kid. I started personally boycotting Proctor & Gamble products at age 12 and also became a vegetarian after learning about the meat industry at that time. I also grew up with a single mom who is an immigrant and had many challenges as a young person. I felt my experiences could be put to good use serving others with similar histories and experiences.

As an adult in college, I studied the intersection of law and gender at UC Berkeley, then went on to law school because I wanted to work in the field of Artificial Reproductive Technologies. Although I was a scholarship recipient and Honors Lawyering Program student, I decided not to return to law school after my first semester. I loved studying the law and being surrounded by like-minded peers, but I ultimately found that I didn’t want to be a lawyer. I suppose it’s no wonder that after all of this, I found my professional comfort zone as a Contracts and Compliance Associate with my former employer. I had been curious about grant writing since my time in law school (I was told by multiple people I would make a great grant writer), and I finally got to do that for four years straight, exclusively on government grants.

As a consultant, I’ve found my niche in working with both small and mid-size nonprofits— working with smaller nonprofits on a retainer basis so I can consistently provide comprehensive support toward achieving sustainable funding, and working with mid-size nonprofits as a grant writer for government grant narratives (usually on a project-by-project basis).

I love working with grassroots nonprofits founded and/or led by individuals at the center of the issue being addressed, and often newer ones have extremely limited funds available for infrastructure. I pride myself on being able to find creative solutions to meet their needs (and budget) while also honoring my company’s fee structure. For this reason we also offer services such as one-off consultations for only $125 and proposal reviews for a fraction of the cost to hire a grant writer for the full narrative.

More than anything, I want grassroots organizations looking to build their institutional funding portfolios to know that Gold Dust Grants specializes in exactly that. We provide comprehensive grant prospect research to find well-aligned funders, help get organizations grant-ready for government funding, and can lead the charge on submitting proposals, both large and small.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Relationship-building! Everything is relational. For me, every client that has come my way— that I ended up working with— has been a personal referral. I’ve had some folks find me on the internet however they found me, and reach out, but it’s rarely been a fit.

Tied in with this is LinkedIn. Honestly, I often feel like I’m doing LinkedIn “wrong” because I’m not strategically ‘showcasing my expertise’ 100% of the time. But I do show up as me. And I get a lot of great feedback from people (i.e., strangers who become acquaintances) who appreciate the way I communicate and how I show up as a whole person in that online “professional” space. Yes, I’m a grant consultant, and I’m also a small farmer, and I’m a bookworm, and I have five dogs. There’s a lot more to each of us than our jobs. And I suppose, for me, this is part and parcel of relationship-building. It’s about bringing our whole selves to what we do, and genuinely getting to know one another. I’m not interested in transactional relationships and I like to think (I hope!) this is evident in how I show up in the world.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

My top two are: The Antiracist Business Book by Trudi LeBron and We Should All Be Millionaires by Rachel Rodgers.
Both have definitely influenced my approach to running a small business. I highly recommend each!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.golddustgrants.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinewkrank/

Image Credits

Headshots by Miriam Chatoian
Also included:
A page right out of my company’s brand voice guide featuring some of the phraseology we use that highlights our values.
A photo of me at a tabling event in Oakland, CA while working for a Reproductive Justice organization years ago.