Stop leaving money on the table. Grant consultant Vanessa Burns shows small business owners how to fix their messaging, find the right grants, and actually get funded.
GROWTH PILLAR: Sales & Revenue
WHO THIS IS FOR: SMB owners / Solopreneurs / Grassroots organizations / Early-stage founders looking for alternative funding
WHAT THEY'LL GAIN: A practical framework for grant readiness — clear messaging, smart grant selection, and a proactive funding calendar that puts you ahead of deadlines.
Most small business owners don't get rejected from grants because their idea is bad. They get rejected because their messaging is unclear and their application doesn't show alignment with what the funder actually wants to fund. Vanessa Burns fixes that.
Vanessa is a certified Grant Professional Consultant — one of only six in Canada holding the GPC accreditation — based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Through Vanessa Burns Consulting, she helps small businesses and grassroots organizations build smart, proactive funding strategies that go beyond just filling out forms. With 20+ years of fundraising experience, she has been on both sides of the table — writing applications and reviewing them.
In this East Trade Winds session, Vanessa covers:
— Why unclear brand messaging is the number one reason grant applications get rejected
— The difference between finding a grant that fits you versus trying to fit yourself into a grant
— What funders are actually looking for
— alignment, impact, and a clear use of funds
— How to calculate the ROI on your grant application effort before you start
— Why building a grant calendar turns you from reactive to proactive
— The one word that determines whether you get funded: alignment
If you have ever looked at the grant landscape and thought it was too complicated, too competitive, or not worth the effort — this session is for you.
Connect with Vanessa: Website | LinkedIn | Vanessa Burns Consulting on LinkedIn
Free offer: 30-minute consultation — reach out directly via LinkedIn or her website.
This episode is brought to you by Canada Growth Network: a business community for SMBs and solopreneurs with real referral connections and GoHighLevel CRM for $47/month CAD.
Also supported by East Trade Winds — free weekly networking every Tuesday 8–9 AM EST, and Gentry Learning — practical business education for growth-minded owners.
Join East Trade Winds free — Tuesdays 8–9 AM EST: Register here
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Vanessa (00:06)
so people don't think about messaging and grant funding, but the two of them really actually go very well together. And you're gonna find out why. But first of all, why the heck am I sitting here in front of you today? And what makes me eligible to talk about this stuff? First of all, they said my name is Vanessa Burns, my pronouns are she, her. I own Vanessa Burns Grant Consulting. I'm based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the beautiful east coast of Canada. A couple of things about myself. an adventure seeker, I'm a rock climber, ice climber.
Hiker, I went to ⁓ Nepal in twenty twenty four for six weeks. I tracked the Everest three passes, track rate at nine out of ten for difficulty. Yes, I finished. made it to Everest Base Camp and the highest altitude I went up to was about almost twenty thousand feet and I saw the sunrise over Everest, which was quite spectacular.
everybody likes dogs. I put a picture of my dog there. Arthur is a border colleague, he's my therapist, my employee, my roommate, and gets me out and keeps me active, ⁓ playing fetch all day, every day. The middle three things I'm very proud of. I'm one of six in Canada holding the GPC Grant Professional Certified Accreditation. It's like the CPA of the Grant World. I'm one of six of those. I'm also ⁓ a certified supplier with the Canadian Career Chamber of Commerce.
And I've just been approved as a Grand Professionals Association approved trainer as of yesterday. So I'm really proud of those credentials I can bring to my clients. So I have a lot of conversations with people about their business. And we talked a lot today about clarity. And actually, you're you're right. If you're not clear, you're not focused. And if you're not focused, you can't apply for funding in a way that you should be applying for funding. So a lot of people think that their messaging is great.
But when I actually ask them, what do you do? They can't explain it to me. Or they're using this really big, big words and they're going on and on and on and they're not very succinct, and it really makes no sense. So if you're talking like that in a grant application, you're gonna confuse funders. They're not gonna understand really what you're asking for. They won't get what you do and what you're what you need. And this in turn leads to what we call rejected applications. You have to be clear and concise. If your messaging and your brand is all over the place.
You're not going to be concise in the eyes of a funder. And so this is probably why if you're applying for grants or looking for funding and you're seeing, you know, some rejections coming through, is you're not clear. And if you're not clear, then you won't be able to get that magic grant money that everybody says, says is out there. So we really want to move from what we call the scattered to the strategic. So your messaging works for you and your business, but also works for the funding that you want to apply for to help grow your business.
When you think about your brand, have you ever taken a look at your brand? And I'm not a brand expert. This is not a ⁓ thing on branding, but I mean if you ever looked at your if your website or your communication materials, does it make sense to other people? and I've read a lot of things over the years and I've sat in front of people and they show me their website, my eyes are kind of glazing over and going, What the heck are you selling? and I'm thinking, if my eyes are glazing over, there's no way that a funder's gonna understand what you're doing. First of all, like too much jargon. You know, you're using
industry speak. I'm not in your industry. Neither is someone who's giving you money most time. So really, you know, what kind of words are you using? And you're really talking about ⁓ what you do and not so much the the difference you make for your clients. We know you do this. Like you know that I I do grant work. you know that you're you know you're selling widgets but what is it actually doing and how is that impacting your client or your customer? But you're not really explaining that. So you can't really see
What your actual outcomes are if you use your product or your service. And the other thing I find too is a lot of people try to be everything to everybody. We can't do that, right? That's just not logical. So if we're trying to market to everybody and we're trying to put all this messaging, we've got all these, you know, different focuses, the messaging is getting a little bit muddled. So we really have to look at these things because this actually feeds into how you're able to craft more.
clear sounding grant application. So what I like to tell people is, you know, take a look at your materials, but but get someone from the outside who doesn't really know anything about your business to look at your materials and see if they can understand what you're trying to to sell or provide. And if they can understand what you're trying to do, then there's no way that someone who wants to give you money, like a grant funder, is going to be able to understand what you do and why you need the resources to grow your business.
So the big thing to keep in mind really is how do you kind of get to that yes? From a client perspective, and we all have businesses. I've heard some really, I've written it all down on a piece of paper, some really interesting businesses today. And ⁓ you know, you want to make sure that your clients understand what the solution is. You're providing a solution to a problem. Funders want to see this too. Funders want to understand what solution you're you're providing for for a problem. However, they also want to see your impact.
The difference you're making, why you need their resources, why do you need their money? Are you looking to, you know, hire someone? Are you looking to export your product or service into another province, into another another country? Like, what do you need to do with the funding? Is it aligned with what they're looking to support? If this isn't clear in what you're saying, then again, you're not going to be able to secure that money. The biggest thing to keep in mind with ⁓ you know, with grants in general is.
Your messaging, your brand, the way you present yourself is a first impression. Most times when people are reading grant applications, I've been on the other side, is you know, you have maybe 30 seconds max to make an impression. If you can't make that impression, if you can't show a funder why you're relying to the money they're giving away, you're not going to get the money. And so it's really, really clear to make sure that you are actually understanding why you need the resources.
But also making sure that your brand and your messaging is consistent and is able to make sense, you're able to secure that that funding. That's really, really important. So that's how you kind of move from that no more into the the to the yes, in the fact that you are clear, concise, and you're aligning yourself with what the funder was looking to fund.
So once we kind of understand like the messaging piece and you're you're clear on why you need why you need money, you we kind of move into that whole domystifying grants. And we heard a little bit of discussion today about alternative funding and you know, grants are out there. Grants are great for your business, but grants aren't right for everybody. And not every grant is a good grant, and not all money is good money. So you really have to understand, you know, the landscape and why people think it's such an impossible way ⁓ to get alternative funding.
It's overwhelming, right? I mean, grants, yes, you know, they are for what we call that free, free money, but they come with ⁓ they come with limitations. Most times they're tied to some kind of a project. most times they're very competitive. you know, I know someone here talked about putting an application in for the Amber grant. I love that. I love the fact that you're getting out there, you're putting applications in, it's competitive. But you know, if you do get a no, don't be discouraged because you can always apply again. ⁓ the more you apply, the more people realize who you are.
and they recognize you, and eventually you're gonna see a yes around the corner. So I'm I'm really glad to see people are actually putting out applications. But it can be overwhelming, it takes time. The biggest thing to keep in mind that yes, you know, it is it's free money in a sense, but it's also ⁓ a partnership to help you grow. And the other thing too is that funders look at you in the eyes, the same as let's say a bank, in the sense that you could be a risk. So if you're a new business and not generating a lot of revenue.
You could be seen as a risk when it comes to securing grants. And sometimes you have to provide like financial statements. If you don't have any revenue generation, it's hard to provide those financial statements. So you will be viewed as a risk. The other thing to keep in mind too with grants is they don't all cover 100% of a cost. So if you're looking at a hiring grant, for example, you may only get 50% of the cost cover. That's why you need to have some kind of revenue generation happening to cover those extra expenses.
The other thing too is some grants you don't get the money all up front. You may not get it till the end of the project. So you have to sort of ⁓ foot the bill, so to speak, with revenue. So that's kind of things I I caution folks about is yes, there's free money out there, yes, there's grants out there, but there are parameters around them and you have to make sure that you you align with them. Not to say that if you're a new business that there's not opportunity for you, but they may be different, be different opportunities. But the biggest thing really
And this is the only thing you keep in mind from this presentation is alignment. You need to make sure that what you need money for is aligning in terms of what the grant is going to fund. If you can't show that alignment, then the grant will not be successful. And so one word to take away from this ⁓ is alignment. If you're not aligned, you will not get that funding. So, how do we make things a little bit less mysterious around the grant space? And how do we kind of bring things together?
As I said, just because you can apply doesn't mean you should apply. So people come to me all the time saying, my gosh, there's this great grant out there. I'm gonna create something completely new and do it. I n not not great. You know, you're you're you're out there, you're doing your business, you have everyone has a mission and values. If you're doing what I call mission s mission creep and you're creating things that don't really align with what your business values are, that grant's not right for you, right? You shouldn't be creating new things just to get
Money. You need to be focusing on what is right for your business and what is right for your own mission and your own values. So the biggest thing really is industry and demographic fit. Does the funding opportunity fit your specific sector? Are you in agriculture? Are you in tech? Are you in finance? What sector are you in? Is the grant applicable for that? Does it suit your business profile? The other word I want you to remember from this presentation is applicant guide.
Excuse my language, read the effing applicant guide. This applicant guide is your is your basically step by step how to apply for the particular grant. If you don't read the applicant guide, you're gonna put in things that maybe they don't cover in terms of expenses. You're not gonna understand what they're actually going to fund. So again, two words so far alignment and applicant guide. Read the guide. That'll give you everything you need to know about an opportunity. Some of them are about 65 plus pages. I read them for a living.
Some of them are a few lines on a website, but that's really, really important to make sure you've got that alignment and again that fit. Number two is project alignment. There's that word again, alignment. Does the grant help you grow? Grants in business are used to grow your business in some way, whether you're hiring, exporting, training, you know, doing some new research, new development, you know, whether you're trying to do something innovative, grants are there to help you grow.
Grants are not there to get you out of debt. grants are not there, you know, to re replace sales. I mean, we're all in business, we all have to make sales. And people people hate when I tell them, well, go make some sales. I hate sales, we'll go make some sales, it'll help your business, right? Grants are there to help you grow in a certain way. So you want to keep that in mind. If you're looking to hire someone, grants. If you're looking to, you know, do some export activity, there could be a grant for that. Training your staff, there definitely are grants for that.
You're looking to collaborate with, let's say, a company over in the UK, for example, or Ireland, there is funding in those countries that can help you that you can partner with and access both UK and Irish funding and Canadian funding and do projects together, believe it or not. So there's really interesting ways you can use grants to grow your business. The other thing I talk about is number three is ROI. Is the grant worth your time? How much effort are you putting into an application?
If all you're gonna get at the end of the of the day is let's say five thousand dollars, but this grant is taking you like forty plus hours or eighty plus hours to put together, believe it or not, that I've seen grants like that, is it worth your time? so you really wanna make sure that when you're investing your own your own time into this work, that you know you're spending your time using it wisely and applying for opportunities that actually fit what you want to do and not trying to fit that circle into the square just to get what we call this this free money.
We kind of go back here to a little bit of that clarity. So we really have, ⁓ you know, we we've seen a grant, we want to, you know, we want to apply, we align with it, we read the applicant guide. We kind of have to see now, like, how does it all come together? The biggest thing that I tell people is, can you tell me your impact of your business in two sentences? And I know today we had 60 seconds introduce ourselves, right? I mean, when we're on a time limit, we kind of we panic a little bit. I want to say everything. Can you condense your business?
What you do in two sentences. And I say this because a lot of grants have word counts or character counts. You can't go on and on and on. You gotta be very, very specific. So I often do an exercise in a longer session where I get people to actually write out what they, you know, introduce themselves to somebody else within a minute and tell them about their business. And a lot of people ⁓ find it difficult.
And so you know that's something you can kind of work on is can you say tell me what you do in one minute or at least or maybe like two sentences? I've even been challenged to tell tell people in 10 words what I do. So you know, start thinking about that because think about how to be concise in those in those applications. Audit your assets. What I mean by this, again, back to that brand and that clarity. If your website says one thing and your social media is saying another thing, and no funders sometimes look at these things. If you have all kinds of different messaging and you're not clear.
That's gonna confuse someone who's trying to really understand if if they're going to award you money. So make sure that your your assets all are speaking to each other. Your brand looks the same, you're consistent, your word choice is is consistent across platforms, et cetera. So that's really, really key is to make sure that everything is coming together. So the messaging you're putting forward in a grant application is also reflected in all your like websites, social media, your pitch deck, all those things. It's it's clear and it's concise.
A lot of times when it comes to grants, is we're we're reactive, right? my god, there's a grant, we're gonna apply, yay, right? No, no, no. We want to be more proactive. And the way we do that, if you're really interested in getting into this space, is we start a a grant calendar. Very simple. You can do it in a spreadsheet. Name of the grant, date it's due, website, what they're what they're funding, who's the funder, you know, very, very simple.
The reason we want to build this is what you'll start seeing is grants are kind of you know either cyclical. So you might see some government grants that come up, you know, every year, especially like the accessibility grants, they seem to come up every year. Hiring grants like Canada Summer Jobs, all those grants are cyclical. They will come up every year. The Amber grants are every month. Like they're very ⁓ you start building out that calendar. Now remember, that's all great, but someone has to manage that, right? So whether it's you,
Whether it's one of your staff, whether it's your, you know, assistant, whoever it is, someone has to manage that calendar for you. But I can I can tell you that if you start tracking things, you'll start finding opportunities that are more aligned with your business. And you won't be as reactive and try and create things last minute. You'll be more proactive and say, yeah, I recall that Canada's summer job grant opens up usually around the end of the year. I'm gonna watch for that. So you're ready. It takes a little bit of time to build out a calendar.
However, I highly recommend it because in this business you want to be proactive and not so much reactive because your applications will be stronger and you'll be able to align yourself better with with opportunities.
So finally, at the end of the day, you really have to be clear with your messaging, with your branding, because it does affect your ability to access funding. So three kind of takeaways really is you know, clarity is your most valuable currency. Make sure that your messaging is clear. Make sure that you find grants that fit you and don't try and fit a grant.
⁓ so if the grant is speaking to you, you can check the boxes, it's all aligned. That is a grant for you. If you see a grant, you're kind of going, Well, I could create this, or I could that's that's that's not for you, honestly. Like you'll spend more time trying to create something that you really won't be able to deliver. And the last thing you want to do is actually give back money as opposed to getting money. Very, very, very important. And action, and what I mean by this is why you.
Why do you deserve to get this money? What makes you unique? what benefit are you going to give, let's say for someone you're hiring? What is the benefit they're gonna get out of working with you? How is that gonna change your business? So position yourself as being the choice. Grants are competitive. The average success rate for a grant, believe it or not, is about 30%. That doesn't mean you you you won't win. As I said before, rejection is part of the process, but I take rejection and I'm a professional and I get rejected.
But I take that as a as a sign saying, you know, not right now, maybe not a good time. Someone else rose to the top. We're going to apply again. And so the more you sort of start applying, the more you're aligning yourself with opportunities, you will see yeses. So again, remember that this this sort of grant space, it's a marathon, it's not a sprint. Grant is a long-term game. As with any kind of funding, it's a long-term game. There are all kinds of steps you need to take before you actually start.
getting a regular cycle of of grant funding. So I always tell people like don't be afraid of rejection. If you see something that aligns and matches what you want to do, put it in an application. You never know. Like I worked with a client recently. We applied for a grant. they never applied for funding before. They were trying to ⁓ support their their wig business and we got five thousand dollars to help them buy new wig stands so they could educate youth on the business so they could go out and create their own revenue. So you never know.
Right. So don't be afraid of the grant space. That's what I do for a living. I'm always happy to to connect. I do offer 30 minute consultations to see, you know, if there's potential for you. connect with me on LinkedIn and I would love to ⁓ make your journey a lot more clear and less mystifying.
I put a couple of QR codes up there so you can you can connect with me if you're interested. And I'm a little bit quirky too. I have a current the frog puppet that sometimes makes appearances on LinkedIn. Gotta keep it fun, right? You gotta keep it fun. Put the fun in funding.