February 20, 2025 • 12 mins
In this exciting episode of the Money Talk With Tiff podcast, Tiffany Grant is joined by grant expert Stormi Banks, founder of Pink Print Firm. Together, they delve into the essential steps business owners need to take to become grant-ready and secure funding opportunities. Stormi shares her valuable insights on business registration, digital presence, grant proposals, and establishing a business bank account.
She also explains the types of grants available, ranging from micro-grants to those from major corporations, and highlights the importance of having a certified grant writer on board. Listen in to learn more about how Pink Print can assist small businesses in accessing funding without adding financial burdens.
Check out the full show notes: https://moneytalkwitht.com/podcast-show-notes/get-grant-ready-guide/
Takeaways
- To get grant-ready, business owners need to have their business registered, either as a nonprofit or for-profit entity. This registration opens up a world of grant opportunities.
- Having a solid online presence is essential; creating social media accounts and a simple website helps showcase your mission and connect with potential funders.
- Crafting a compelling grant proposal is key; it’s less about a business plan and more about telling your unique story to grab attention from grantors.
- A business bank account is non-negotiable for receiving grants; funders only transfer money to business accounts, not personal ones, so set it up right away!
- There's a wide range of grants available, from small micro-grants of $500 to larger ones that can reach up to $500,000, depending on your business status and needs.
- Minority certifications can help access specific grants, but they're not essential to start applying; focus on getting your business ready first.
Resources Mentioned
- Pink Print Firm: A full-service grant writing agency founded by Stormi Banks, helping small business owners access non-dilutive, debt-free funding.
- Galaxy of Stars Grant: An easy-application grant with a prize of $2,450.
Join Tiffany Grant every Thursday for a new episode of Money Talk With Tiff, and catch up on previous episodes at moneytalkwitht.com. Follow Tiffany on all social media platforms @moneytalkwitht for more money tips and insights.
Copyright 2025 Tiffany Grant
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You know what it is? That'sright. It's time to talk money with
your money nerd and financialcoach. Now tighten those purse strings
and open those ears. It's theMoney Talk with Tiff podcast.
Hey everyone. I'm so excitedbecause I have grant expert Stormi
Banks here and she's here totalk to us about grants and what
(00:22):
are some things businessowners can do in order to prepare
to receive some. So. HeyStormi, how are you?
I'm doing good. Thanks so muchfor having me.
It is my pleasure. Thank youfor coming. So let's just hop right
in. What, what is one thingthat business owners can start doing
today to make sure thatthey're prepared to get grants in
the future?
Yeah, getting grant ready. Ithink the first thing that you should
(00:44):
definitely do is have aregistered nonprofit or for profit
business, meaning that youregister with your Secretary of state,
you have all of yourdocumentation and paperwork because
this will allow you to beaccessible to more grant opportunities
that are available on the market.
Gotcha. So with registeringtheir business, is it, you know,
do they favor llc, soleproprietorships, nonprofits, does
(01:07):
it matter?
So it's pretty evenlydistributed amongst LLC or S Corp,
C Corp and non profits. It'snot so much favored to be a sole
proprietorship. You'll lack alot of the opportunities that are
available for small businessas you wouldn't be categorized in
that. So making sure that youactually have either an LLC or a
S Corp or a C corp or a non.
(01:28):
Profit entity for the mostgrant opportunities.
Correct.
Gotcha. Okay. And then oncethey have their business registration,
what else could they be doingto get grant ready?
Yeah, once your businessregistration is complete, at that
point you'll want to set upkind of the foundations of the business.
It's like a social mediaaccounts like Instagram, Facebook,
(01:49):
LinkedIn. You're also going towant to create a website, even if
it's just a landing page, justa place where they can be able to
see who you are, what's yourmission, what your business does
and who you serve, and then ofcourse, adding your contact information
there. And then once you getthat done, I would definitely say
getting a grant proposal. Thisis different from a business plan
because a grant proposal ismore of like a narrative storytelling
(02:13):
about the business facts anddata of the industry that you're
in. So those would be the nextsteps that I would take after I got
my business registered.
Gotcha. Gotcha. So a couplequestions here. So first, when you
are referring to a narrative,can you give us more about what that
means.
Yeah. So a narrativeessentially is the way that you're
telling the story. So there'sa lot of different ways to focus
(02:36):
a business. For instance,we're a for profit grant writing
consultancy company, butsometimes we change our narrative
to showcase that we'reeducation based or we change our
narrative to showcase who weserve, which is women of color or
we change our narrative basedon if we're hosting an event. So
there's different ways tofocus your business entirely into
(02:57):
little subsection ofnarratives that will be able to align
you with different funders andtheir mission and vision that they
have so that you can make surethat you become what we call at pink
print, the obvious choice forthe grant opportunities.
Gotcha. Gotcha. So it remindsme of like resume building. Right,
because you tweak your resume,tweak your cover letter to make sure
(03:17):
it matches what you're going for.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Okay, perfect. So that's,that's good information to know.
And the other point I wantedto hit on with what you said previously
was the website social mediapresence because I know some small
business owners, they're like,look, I don't like social media and,
or I don't want to have awebsite. So how important are these
(03:38):
things and is it preferable tohave like a website versus social
media? Like what does thatlook like? The digital marketing
side?
Yeah, you definitely want tohave both. The reason being is a
lot of grantors these days arerelying on your digital footprint
to be able to get more ofinformation about you and to credit
see that you have thecredibility as a business as well.
(03:59):
And so it's going to be reallyimportant to have both. And on social
media we're not looking for afollower count or how many posts
that you have, but we arelooking for activeness. We're looking
for to see that you'reactively posting about what your
business has going on, whatit's doing, what it's selling, new
offerings or just thingsyou're doing in the community so
we can get more of a wellrounded scope of who the business
(04:21):
is.
That makes complete sense. Andyou know, that's something that I
used to teach my students whenit came to having an online presence,
like when you're looking for ajob. Because really the same way
if they can't find you, thenit's like what's going on here?
Exactly.
Perfect. So what is anotherthing that our small business owners
(04:43):
can do to get grant ready?
Yeah, I think it's reallyImportant to have a business bank
account with grants. They'reonly going to do like an ACH transfer
or a check made out to theactual business. And so if you're
an individual and if you're abusiness, but you only have like
an individual personalaccount, they're not going to put
the money into your personalaccount. So it's going to be important
to set up a business bankingaccount. And this can be with any
(05:06):
local bank or, you know, anykind of like maybe federal or any
big large national bank. Itjust depends on what your preferences
are and what your budget isbased on the fees that the banks
have. But you're definitelygoing to want to have to set up a
business bank account for sure.
I am so glad you brought thatup. And I know you are probably real
loud to some of my listenersright now because I know there's
(05:30):
some people out there that'slike, I don't want a business bank
account. I don't want UncleSam knowing what I got going on,
you know, whatever the casemay be. But it is super important
to have one set up for thesereasons. Now when it comes to grantors,
what type, like, what type ofgrants are out there? Like dollar
amount wise? Like is it smallgrants, big grants? What is a small
(05:54):
grant? What is a big grant?
Yeah, typically if you're justgetting started, you're going to
have grants from like, youknow, $500 to 5,000. But typically
the grants that ourorganization is applying for are
grants from 5,000 to $500,000.And this comes from like corporations
like Venmo or McDonald's orFedEx has a grant out. Or it also
(06:17):
can look like privatefoundations, nonprofit organizations
who are hosting grants. Andthen of course, your state, local
entities and the federalgovernment also are giving out grant
funding. So I would saydepending on where your business
is in terms of how manyemployees or how much revenue or
how long you've beenregistered, those things can play
into factor of like how muchyou'll be able to actually go for.
(06:39):
But anyone just starting outcan definitely go for micro grants
from 500 to 5,000 for sure.
Perfect, perfect. And I'm gladyou brought up, you know, state and
federal government grantsbecause I've heard of like different
certifications and things likethat. Do you think it's beneficial
to get those like minoritycertifications for grant purposes
(07:00):
too?
So it could be if you havethe. In your budget to pay, there's
typically an annual fee andregistration fee to get started with
those. We used to beregistered as A woman owned small
business. I didn't see that itmade a drastic difference. So we
didn't continue with ourcertifications. But there are some
unique programs that will bespecifically for like women owned
(07:21):
small business or economicallydepressed owned business. Those things
can put you in a differentcategory to access grants that are
only available for those whichcan lessen the competition because
not many people are certifiedas they are, as there is people who
aren't certified. But I don'tthink that it will deter you from
being able to get started orto win grants.
(07:41):
Gotcha. Gotcha. Perfect. Sohere's one more question for you.
One I feel like it might be amisconception is that all grant applications
are long and most people don'thave the time to do it. Is that true?
No. There's a grant out rightnow for $4,250. It's called the Galaxy
of Stars grant. And it'sliterally put your information in.
(08:04):
It's two multiple choicequestions and then you hit submit
and they choose a winner everymonth. And so, you know, there's
a lot of applications that canget really intricate. That's when
you should definitely hire anexpert grant writer as Pink Print.
But there's also grants thatyou can definitely do on your own.
And you might just want totake like a get grant ready seminar
that we have available whereyou can be able to just learn how
(08:26):
the process works and kind ofhow to change that narrative up per
grant application as we talkedabout earlier.
Gotcha, gotcha. Okay, so we'vetalked about Pink Print a couple
of times now. So what is Pink Print?
Yeah, Pinkprint Firm is a fullservice grant writing agency and
I am the founder. We launchedin 2021 really as an educational
(08:49):
based platform just giving outthe tools and resources on how to
get non dilutive debt freefunding. As a small business owner
from those classes, we keptgetting people like, well, can you
guys write these grants forus? Can you do it for us? And we
were like, yeah, we can. Andso we developed a team of all certified
grant writers. Myself gotcertified and started doing program
(09:09):
development budget. And sincewe've been able to raise $18 million
in grant funding with an 88%success rate. And so Pink Print is
really just here to make surethat small business owners can access
funding that doesn't addadditional burdens or bills to their
business so they can grow sustainably.
Gotcha. Gotcha. Now, whensomeone's looking to hire a grant
(09:31):
writer, what does that looklike? Like, is it paid per grant?
Per hour. What does that feestructure look like for small businesses?
Yeah, that's a great question.So it's going to be pretty straightforward
when they're certified orprofessionals, because no one can
take a commission off of theactual grant that you win. That's
actually very unethical andsometimes it will get denied by federal
(09:53):
and state entities that arehosting grant opportunities. So what
we do is just charge a flatupfront fee that can range from 900
to $3,900, which would includethat we're actually finding and applying
to the grants on your behalfas well within our service offerings.
And so essentially, whenyou're hiring a gr, you're looking
for a success rate. You'relooking that they work within your
(10:15):
industry or your type ofbusiness or your state area. You're
looking to see that they'reethical and holding up the morals.
And you're also looking to seejust their experience that they've
had over the course of howeverlong they've been working to compare
that to what price they'recharging. But that's kind of what
you should be looking for interms of getting a grant writer.
And they should help you writethe proposal, find opportunities.
(10:38):
And some may apply and somedon't. But we do apply for you as
well.
Awesome. Awesome. I love thatturnkey service child, because I'm
like, that would be awesome.But thank you so much for coming
on the show today. Now, ifpeople were interested in learning
more about grants or moreabout Pink Print or more about Stormy,
where could they find you?
(10:58):
Absolutely. So you can visitour website, which is www.pinkprint
firm.com. we're across allsocials as Pink Print Firm as well.
And you can also shoot us anemail at info@pinkprint.net Perfect.
Perfect. And I'll make sure Ihave all of that information in the
show notes, so don't worry ifyou're doing something else. Just
(11:20):
check out the show notes.It'll all be there. And thank you
so much, Stormy, for coming onthe show today.
Oh, it's my pleasure. Thanksfor having me.
All right, bye.
Thank you for listening,joining, and being a part of the
Money Talk with Tiff podcastthis week. You can check Tiff out
every Thursday for a new MoneyTalk podcast, but if you just can't
wait until next week, you canlisten to previous podcast episodes@moneytalkwitht.com
(11:45):
or follow TIFF on all socialmedia platforms @moneytalkwitht.
Until next time. Spend wise byspending less than you make a word
to the Money wise is always sufficient.
You know what it is? That'sright. It's time to talk money with
your money nerd and financialcoach. Now tighten those purse strings
and open those ears. It's theMoney Talk with Tiff podcast.
Hey everyone. I'm so excitedbecause I have grant expert Stormi
Banks here and she's here totalk to us about grants and what
(00:22):
are some things businessowners can do in order to prepare
to receive some. So. HeyStormi, how are you?
I'm doing good. Thanks so muchfor having me.
It is my pleasure. Thank youfor coming. So let's just hop right
in. What, what is one thingthat business owners can start doing
today to make sure thatthey're prepared to get grants in
the future?
Yeah, getting grant ready. Ithink the first thing that you should
(00:44):
definitely do is have aregistered nonprofit or for profit
business, meaning that youregister with your Secretary of state,
you have all of yourdocumentation and paperwork because
this will allow you to beaccessible to more grant opportunities
that are available on the market.
Gotcha. So with registeringtheir business, is it, you know,
do they favor llc, soleproprietorships, nonprofits, does
(01:07):
it matter?
So it's pretty evenlydistributed amongst LLC or S Corp,
C Corp and non profits. It'snot so much favored to be a sole
proprietorship. You'll lack alot of the opportunities that are
available for small businessas you wouldn't be categorized in
that. So making sure that youactually have either an LLC or a
S Corp or a C corp or a non.
(01:28):
Profit entity for the mostgrant opportunities.
Correct.
Gotcha. Okay. And then oncethey have their business registration,
what else could they be doingto get grant ready?
Yeah, once your businessregistration is complete, at that
point you'll want to set upkind of the foundations of the business.
It's like a social mediaaccounts like Instagram, Facebook,
(01:49):
LinkedIn. You're also going towant to create a website, even if
it's just a landing page, justa place where they can be able to
see who you are, what's yourmission, what your business does
and who you serve, and then ofcourse, adding your contact information
there. And then once you getthat done, I would definitely say
getting a grant proposal. Thisis different from a business plan
because a grant proposal ismore of like a narrative storytelling
(02:13):
about the business facts anddata of the industry that you're
in. So those would be the nextsteps that I would take after I got
my business registered.
Gotcha. Gotcha. So a couplequestions here. So first, when you
are referring to a narrative,can you give us more about what that
means.
Yeah. So a narrativeessentially is the way that you're
telling the story. So there'sa lot of different ways to focus
(02:36):
a business. For instance,we're a for profit grant writing
consultancy company, butsometimes we change our narrative
to showcase that we'reeducation based or we change our
narrative to showcase who weserve, which is women of color or
we change our narrative basedon if we're hosting an event. So
there's different ways tofocus your business entirely into
(02:57):
little subsection ofnarratives that will be able to align
you with different funders andtheir mission and vision that they
have so that you can make surethat you become what we call at pink
print, the obvious choice forthe grant opportunities.
Gotcha. Gotcha. So it remindsme of like resume building. Right,
because you tweak your resume,tweak your cover letter to make sure
(03:17):
it matches what you're going for.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Okay, perfect. So that's,that's good information to know.
And the other point I wantedto hit on with what you said previously
was the website social mediapresence because I know some small
business owners, they're like,look, I don't like social media and,
or I don't want to have awebsite. So how important are these
(03:38):
things and is it preferable tohave like a website versus social
media? Like what does thatlook like? The digital marketing
side?
Yeah, you definitely want tohave both. The reason being is a
lot of grantors these days arerelying on your digital footprint
to be able to get more ofinformation about you and to credit
see that you have thecredibility as a business as well.
(03:59):
And so it's going to be reallyimportant to have both. And on social
media we're not looking for afollower count or how many posts
that you have, but we arelooking for activeness. We're looking
for to see that you'reactively posting about what your
business has going on, whatit's doing, what it's selling, new
offerings or just thingsyou're doing in the community so
we can get more of a wellrounded scope of who the business
(04:21):
is.
That makes complete sense. Andyou know, that's something that I
used to teach my students whenit came to having an online presence,
like when you're looking for ajob. Because really the same way
if they can't find you, thenit's like what's going on here?
Exactly.
Perfect. So what is anotherthing that our small business owners
(04:43):
can do to get grant ready?
Yeah, I think it's reallyImportant to have a business bank
account with grants. They'reonly going to do like an ACH transfer
or a check made out to theactual business. And so if you're
an individual and if you're abusiness, but you only have like
an individual personalaccount, they're not going to put
the money into your personalaccount. So it's going to be important
to set up a business bankingaccount. And this can be with any
(05:06):
local bank or, you know, anykind of like maybe federal or any
big large national bank. Itjust depends on what your preferences
are and what your budget isbased on the fees that the banks
have. But you're definitelygoing to want to have to set up a
business bank account for sure.
I am so glad you brought thatup. And I know you are probably real
loud to some of my listenersright now because I know there's
(05:30):
some people out there that'slike, I don't want a business bank
account. I don't want UncleSam knowing what I got going on,
you know, whatever the casemay be. But it is super important
to have one set up for thesereasons. Now when it comes to grantors,
what type, like, what type ofgrants are out there? Like dollar
amount wise? Like is it smallgrants, big grants? What is a small
(05:54):
grant? What is a big grant?
Yeah, typically if you're justgetting started, you're going to
have grants from like, youknow, $500 to 5,000. But typically
the grants that ourorganization is applying for are
grants from 5,000 to $500,000.And this comes from like corporations
like Venmo or McDonald's orFedEx has a grant out. Or it also
(06:17):
can look like privatefoundations, nonprofit organizations
who are hosting grants. Andthen of course, your state, local
entities and the federalgovernment also are giving out grant
funding. So I would saydepending on where your business
is in terms of how manyemployees or how much revenue or
how long you've beenregistered, those things can play
into factor of like how muchyou'll be able to actually go for.
(06:39):
But anyone just starting outcan definitely go for micro grants
from 500 to 5,000 for sure.
Perfect, perfect. And I'm gladyou brought up, you know, state and
federal government grantsbecause I've heard of like different
certifications and things likethat. Do you think it's beneficial
to get those like minoritycertifications for grant purposes
(07:00):
too?
So it could be if you havethe. In your budget to pay, there's
typically an annual fee andregistration fee to get started with
those. We used to beregistered as A woman owned small
business. I didn't see that itmade a drastic difference. So we
didn't continue with ourcertifications. But there are some
unique programs that will bespecifically for like women owned
(07:21):
small business or economicallydepressed owned business. Those things
can put you in a differentcategory to access grants that are
only available for those whichcan lessen the competition because
not many people are certifiedas they are, as there is people who
aren't certified. But I don'tthink that it will deter you from
being able to get started orto win grants.
(07:41):
Gotcha. Gotcha. Perfect. Sohere's one more question for you.
One I feel like it might be amisconception is that all grant applications
are long and most people don'thave the time to do it. Is that true?
No. There's a grant out rightnow for $4,250. It's called the Galaxy
of Stars grant. And it'sliterally put your information in.
(08:04):
It's two multiple choicequestions and then you hit submit
and they choose a winner everymonth. And so, you know, there's
a lot of applications that canget really intricate. That's when
you should definitely hire anexpert grant writer as Pink Print.
But there's also grants thatyou can definitely do on your own.
And you might just want totake like a get grant ready seminar
that we have available whereyou can be able to just learn how
(08:26):
the process works and kind ofhow to change that narrative up per
grant application as we talkedabout earlier.
Gotcha, gotcha. Okay, so we'vetalked about Pink Print a couple
of times now. So what is Pink Print?
Yeah, Pinkprint Firm is a fullservice grant writing agency and
I am the founder. We launchedin 2021 really as an educational
(08:49):
based platform just giving outthe tools and resources on how to
get non dilutive debt freefunding. As a small business owner
from those classes, we keptgetting people like, well, can you
guys write these grants forus? Can you do it for us? And we
were like, yeah, we can. Andso we developed a team of all certified
grant writers. Myself gotcertified and started doing program
(09:09):
development budget. And sincewe've been able to raise $18 million
in grant funding with an 88%success rate. And so Pink Print is
really just here to make surethat small business owners can access
funding that doesn't addadditional burdens or bills to their
business so they can grow sustainably.
Gotcha. Gotcha. Now, whensomeone's looking to hire a grant
(09:31):
writer, what does that looklike? Like, is it paid per grant?
Per hour. What does that feestructure look like for small businesses?
Yeah, that's a great question.So it's going to be pretty straightforward
when they're certified orprofessionals, because no one can
take a commission off of theactual grant that you win. That's
actually very unethical andsometimes it will get denied by federal
(09:53):
and state entities that arehosting grant opportunities. So what
we do is just charge a flatupfront fee that can range from 900
to $3,900, which would includethat we're actually finding and applying
to the grants on your behalfas well within our service offerings.
And so essentially, whenyou're hiring a gr, you're looking
for a success rate. You'relooking that they work within your
(10:15):
industry or your type ofbusiness or your state area. You're
looking to see that they'reethical and holding up the morals.
And you're also looking to seejust their experience that they've
had over the course of howeverlong they've been working to compare
that to what price they'recharging. But that's kind of what
you should be looking for interms of getting a grant writer.
And they should help you writethe proposal, find opportunities.
(10:38):
And some may apply and somedon't. But we do apply for you as
well.
Awesome. Awesome. I love thatturnkey service child, because I'm
like, that would be awesome.But thank you so much for coming
on the show today. Now, ifpeople were interested in learning
more about grants or moreabout Pink Print or more about Stormy,
where could they find you?
(10:58):
Absolutely. So you can visitour website, which is www.pinkprint
firm.com. we're across allsocials as Pink Print Firm as well.
And you can also shoot us anemail at info@pinkprint.net Perfect.
Perfect. And I'll make sure Ihave all of that information in the
show notes, so don't worry ifyou're doing something else. Just
(11:20):
check out the show notes.It'll all be there. And thank you
so much, Stormy, for coming onthe show today.
Oh, it's my pleasure. Thanksfor having me.
All right, bye.
Thank you for listening,joining, and being a part of the
Money Talk with Tiff podcastthis week. You can check Tiff out
every Thursday for a new MoneyTalk podcast, but if you just can't
wait until next week, you canlisten to previous podcast episodes@moneytalkwitht.com
(11:45):
or follow TIFF on all socialmedia platforms @moneytalkwitht.
Until next time. Spend wise byspending less than you make a word
to the Money wise is always sufficient.
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