Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Are you annoyed at the current job market? I know that I was, with a newborn and a husband who was trying to work two part time jobs, which make the hours vary from week to week. So, my first option making money from home, took my search to grand writing. Grant writing, as hard as it is to start, was certainly fun to do, and required a few day classes at my local college.

The first thing you need in order to accomplish this feat is the desire to help out mainly nonprofit companies. Nonprofit companies have to file the paperwork with the secretary of state through the IRS. Then, after you get nonprofit status, you have to look for the grants. The Secretary of State has a listing of all nonprofit companies in the state. If you want to look on the federal level, I’m afraid that there isn’t anything that you can do about that. I started working for what was at the time Tehachapi Community Orchestra. There was also the YMCA and Salvation Army. Another nonprofit organization that many people do not think about are hospitals and private schools.

After I got hired on at Tehachapi, I began researching grants. The biggest, longest, and most frustrating grant out there are government grants. However hard government grants are to get, they are well worth their weight when the paycheck comes in. Most people bypass government grants because of their complexity. But, if you have the want and the know how, then it should not be any problem. All you need to do is stick with it. Other places to find grants are from the Foundation Center, and Philanthropy News Digest. It took a while, and every attention to detail that I could afford to pay attention to I did, and before long, they had four grants that made it possible for them to keep going with the season, even in the hard economic times California has been struggling under.

I love the fact that I can make money from home, and be around my daughter as she grows up into a young lady. The work is hard and strenuous, you are put up against extremely tight deadlines, and there might be months when you go in between pay checks, but the reward of knowing that you did it all for a good cause was well worth the work.