Welcome to the For Love and Money podcast, the show where business and social purpose meet to inspire a movement for positive change. Here's your host, Carolyn Butler-Madden. On today's episode, I'm excited for you to meet Lisa Hart, author of Advanced Grant Writing for Female Founders. Lisa is a passionate funding specialist with over two decades of experience dedicated to helping women entrepreneurs and business owners secure the funding they need to scale and grow their business.
She has a wealth of knowledge gained through her own remarkable journey in the funding area, and she's on a mission to empower women to achieve their own funded success. Now, Lisa accomplished what many aspire to achieve in a short span of time. As an applicant, she secured an impressive $2.4 million in funding within just 18 months, a feat that would ultimately grow to an astounding $4.2 million.
Beyond her success as an applicant, Lisa has played a pivotal role in assessing over $50 million in applications submitted to government funding programs and private funds. She wrote the book because she saw firsthand that not enough women are applying for available funding. She said, my data tells me that approximately 20% of applications I assess are from women, but ultimately only one or 2% get funded.
Not only do we need more women applying, we need to see an uplift in the quality of the application submitted so that they move from being good, I wish I could fund you, to being 100% fundable without risk. If you are a female business owner who wants to grow your business and is looking for funding options, this episode is a must listen. Lisa, welcome to the For Love and Money podcast. Thank you for joining us.
Carolyn, I am so excited to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation to join you for a chat today. So first question I kick off with all my guests is, is there a role for love in business? What are your thoughts? Yes, 100% yes, though I have a but. My but is because my focus is supporting women in business and I think that, We, as women, most naturally bring love into what it is that we do. A lot of the businesses that we start is, you know, very purpose-driven.
I'd actually like to see women maybe have like a 70-30 split, maybe even a 60-40 split of love and profit. I think it's super important that we remember the need to make a profit. And if we can do so by doing, you know, what we love, by sharing our love and our purpose, well, I think that's a win-win for everyone. But I, you know, I would like to temper the love with maybe just a little bit more revenue. That's, do you know what, that is a great response.
And you just made me think about a talk I watched a few months ago, Elizabeth Gilbert, The Divine Feminine. Have you seen that talk? Yes. Yeah, it is and it's similar, isn't it? It's about, you know, as women we already bring so much of love and caring and, you know, thinking about others and we need to channel some of the other stuff enough so that we don't become so overwhelmed. And I love that you've looked at it through the lens of profit because this is the For Love and Money podcast.
It is. And for me, we don't have enough women millionaires in Australia yet, and certainly not enough women millionaires having built their own businesses. I think it's super important that we look at generational wealth health building, but not just for... The benefit of, you know, just having money in the bank because women by our very nature are always looking for, well, what else can we do with this money? How else can we contribute? What else out there needs our support?
And I think if we have more women as millionaires through business and that then becomes a generational, a new generational wealth cycle, We then have an opportunity to be teaching the generations that come behind us a different way of doing business. Really wise words, really wise words. And it's interesting because I've not heard that expressed before. And I think it is such a valuable way of looking at success and why we need to lean into that kind of success.
And in some cases maybe change our relationship, our subconscious relationship with money. Oh, 100%. I don't know about you, Carolyn, but I grew up and it was not something that we as women spoke about. You know, even within families, it was not readily spoken about. Dad would go off to work. Dad would earn the money. For me, I grew up in a very sort of blue-collar family. Dad drove trucks and on the weekend was a jockey to earn some extra money.
Mum was at home, of course, doing all the unpaid work around the house. And the only time we heard about money was when there were arguments within the marriage or within the relationship about there not being enough. And I think it's really important that we as women have the opportunity to be more vocal around money, of course, doing what we love, but owning our... Ambition to be more self-sufficient, financially sustainable, to build our own economic well-being.
And what am I trying to say, Caroline? Keep going. You're saying it. You're speaking my language. But it's also more than that. It's also building a legacy. And maybe it's the stage of life that I'm in, Caroline, but I'm thinking about the future generations and the steps that I take today, how is that shining a light for the generations behind us, for the women coming behind me? Because there were women who walked the path before me, who broke down the barriers, who, look, here I am.
I've got the ability to have a home loan, to have a credit card, to buy my own car, to be a sole director in a business. Not so long ago, that was just not possible for women. So I'm incredibly grateful to the women who came before me to, you know, that crushed those barriers and allowed me to do what I do today. But it's incredibly important that we also remember that there are generations coming behind us and what are the decisions that we're making?
What are the businesses that we're building? And how do we make sure that there is a legacy that we're leaving behind and that it's good legacy. I love that you're talking about legacy because I think it's so important. And I think one of the themes that's sort of coming through really strongly for me as you speak is about nurturing, you know, nurturing future generations. And I think that is a very feminine quality.
So you're talking about women, obviously, but I think my view is because we need more feminine leadership. We need more people. Don't care whether they're men or women. Obviously, I'd like to see a lot more women, but we need to see more of the feminine. Leadership qualities coming up strongly. I think in the past, in the past, we've had many women who have succeeded, but they've had to demonstrate masculine quality. Oh, I know. I can remember. Yeah. I can remember.
Yeah. And now I think we are at a time where it is imperative that we demonstrate feminine leadership qualities, all leaders, you know, and there's got to be that balance. You can't have one dominant. Look at where one dominant has led us. That we can't go the other way and have the other dominant, but we absolutely need to redress that imbalance. And yeah, I think the future absolutely requires us to do that.
So I love the way you're speaking. I love your vision and what you're trying to achieve. So what I'd love you to do is to share a brief summary first about your business, Funding for Growth, and where you are with your book. But just as an overview, because what I want to ask you to do, Lisa, is to take us back and to share with us some of your background, the key themes and stories that really shaped where you've landed now.
Great question carolyn so where i've landed now today with with funding for growth you mentioned my book thank you so very much and i've been reading it thank you for the copy i've been reading it and can i just say and we will talk more about it but i love the way you write thank you it is it is so easy it is so easy to read i feel like you're actually there sitting next to me. Talking to me. Well, that was the intention.
Yeah, that was the intention. I really want people who read the book to feel that I'm literally right there with them because I am to move the needle on where we want to be in the ecosystem of funding and women securing the, the amount of funding that they deserve. Women really need specialists like me sitting beside them and guiding them through the process because it's not that hard when you know what to do and when you know what to look for and you know how to position yourself.
So that's exactly why I wrote the book. So here I am today, Funding for Growth. It's a community of women and I don't like the sound of this, but I'm going to use it, statistically overlooked founders. So that's a very non-feminine way of looking at an audience.
But unfortunately, here we are in a society or in a financial system, in a funding system where there are still too many really good founders overlooked because of potentially gender, potentially because of abilities or disabilities, trans women or wherever you You might sit in the LGBTIQA plus scale. So there's still too many founders with really good businesses overlooked because here we are still operating in a very patriarchal process or system.
So, Funding for Growth is really here to support those statistically overlooked founders and educate them on the funding system, specifically as it relates to grants funding, bringing people together to learn from one another. But the ultimate goal is to get more people funded, more people with really strong businesses that deserve the funding just as much as anybody else, to help them get the money in the bank to be able to grow and grow.
Have the impact that they dreamed to have. Now, where did that come from? As I mentioned before, I came from a very working class family. There wasn't a lot of money around. And because it was the seventies, women were not considered to have a career. It was very unusual for women to be going to university. It's amazing that those generations are really not that long ago. And yet here we are. So Carolyn, as I mentioned before, I grew up in a very working class family, not a great deal of money.
As I said, mum didn't work, but this is in the 70s. Back then, it was unusual to hear of women going to university. There was no such thing as a career woman back then and certainly not where I grew up in regional Queensland. So here I was, I went to university, came out of university, moved to Sydney, decided to have a career break and then found myself working in the gold mining industry in the Northern Territory. It was all very exciting for a while.
I was quite obscure. I worked on the bomb crew. Wow. It was very exhilarating, sort of blowing things up until after a while I then sat back and just really noticed the devastation of that particular action in that industry. Fast forward a few years, 2002, I was working in Queensland with a blended funding program. So a little bit of money from the Australian government, a little bit of money from the Queensland government, and we were upskilling primary producers with management training.
So environmental management plans, succession planning, property management plans, that type of thing. So that was my first opportunity or my first exposure in the world of funding, so government funding. And an opportunity to be working with an audience and helping them craft their applications for the funding that they were applying to. Fast forward then a little bit more, I decided to launch my own sustainability consultancy in 2008.
I started that consultancy with a small $10,000 grant and very quickly within 18 months grew that to $2.4 million. That's amazing. Amazing. Yeah, it was, in all honesty, Carolyn, it was pretty easy. And I, you know, maybe it was just the time. You know, sometimes in business, it's right time, right place, you know, right concept, right audience. And when all of those things line up, it's amazing then how the money flows to you.
And just touching on love as well, because of my experience in mining and the the devastation that I had witnessed there, my love for the environment and sustainability and my belief in that as a business process and practice that we need to embed into our businesses, that was super important to me. So that $2.4 million came very quickly. So then after that, I then... And wait, was that the Institute for Sustainable Events?
No, no, not at that stage. So the consultancy back then was Dynamic Eco Solutions. So that was my consultancy. I partnered with a number of industry associations. We ultimately received that funding to design and deliver, started as state-based programs, but then national programs that ultimately expanded into the US and into the UK. Incredible. Yeah, it was super exciting. It was certainly fast-paced and, you know, a lot to do within a short amount of time.
But again, it just opened my eyes, you know, as somebody who grew up in a tiny little town called Walkerston in central Queensland, to just stop and just grasp how easy it was to be seeing millions of dollars flow through some of the programs that I was delivering. That was totally eye-opening for me. It was something that I never expected I would –,
I would actually get to witness, let alone experience. I have to stop you there, Lisa, and ask you because I'm sure my listeners listening in and going, easy. How is it easy? It feels anything but easy. What made it easy for you? So for me, definitely partnering. So I was very lucky to be receiving lots of $10,000, sort of $5,000, $15,000 grants. France, it turned out that I was pretty good at what I was doing in designing these programs and delivering them.
And in the end, I had one of the government agencies literally ringing me and saying, Lisa, we've still got a little bit of money in the bank. Do you have any more projects or project ideas you'd like to launch? And it was just like, yes, I do.
So it was just like, can just give me a moment let me make a few calls and yes I'm sure I can help you out with that problem that you have and and I guess it was the it was the success of those programs firstly the relationships that I built with my my audience at that time and then the ability to confidently sit in front of an industry association or organization and say well this is who I am this is what I've designed, this is what I've delivered, and these are the results that I've achieved.
So then it was much easier to have a conversation with them and to have them partner with me on designing and delivering expanded programs of work. So the foundation of the programs that I built with those organizations were my little programs that I was successful and getting my $10,000 or $5,000 for. And then from then it jumped to $80,000 to run then state-based programs.
I guess, programs. And then once we had a successful working relationship, we knew together that we could work well and that we could achieve the results that we were looking to achieve or the outcomes and have the impact that we wanted to have. There was then an opportunity to scale into much larger Australian government funding. So that $80,000 grant turned into an $800,000 grant.
So it's amazing how quickly you can jump, I guess, the stages, like starting small with, you know, maybe small local government, then jumping into state government and then into Australian government funding. Yeah, that's so interesting because I guess once you have proven yourself, you generate confidence and that gives you credibility, history, credibility, which makes the next step even easier.
So to go from $8,000 or even you were talking before, you know, $10,000 to $800,000, you can see how that would work. But I imagine for so many women founders, even to think that big is really tough. And it was. And I definitely see that. And I think one of the, there are two things that I see. I see some women who see a million dollar grant, they're probably still within their first 12 months of business. They see this million dollar grant and go, I'm going to apply for that.
And I think it's wonderful that they've got the courage to even consider doing that. And I certainly don't want to ever tell anybody, don't do that. So do that, but do that with some realistic expectations. Sometimes it's better to just look for what's around locally, look for that $10,000. Yes, it's not enough to sustain you for 12 months and it really should only be considered the cherry on top of something that you're already doing.
It's bonus money rather than it be sort of fundamental revenue. But that $10,000, once you've proven yourself, self, you then complete your, you know, your final progress report. You can, you've collected some data along the way. You've got some great feedback and the conversations that you have, you do come from a much stronger place. Your language changes, your mindset changes, the way that you present yourself and your business changes. Like it's, it's amazing.
It really is a transformation. Yeah. Yeah. And that comes through in the book. It's like, you know, going through a grant process and I know it's kind of jumping the gun here a bit and I want you to go back and finish your history, but the value is not just the grant. The value is how you look at your business. Yeah. And that was even highlighted to me again, just this last week, I helped one of the founders prepare a submission into an accelerator program.
So it wasn't a grant And there's no money attached to it, but she gets to then participate in an eight-week program free of charge. It's a fellowship. There's an opportunity for networking and expanding her connections. So there's lots of good things that come from that. And she said to me, Lisa, as soon as I submitted that application after receiving your help, I immediately felt clearer about who I was and what I was here to do.
And she said, I then spent Saturday reworking my website and it was done and dusted in a day. She said, but it had taken me weeks to get it to where I had it and even then I wasn't very happy with it. And then just working with you in this short amount of time, we've submitted this application and then all of a sudden I knew exactly what I was here to do and it was so quick and I just went, yes. Yes, that's fabulous. That's fabulous.
So 2008, you started this sustainability consultancy. It grew quickly. How long were you running that for? So that finished in about 2014, 2015. With the change of governments, change of funding, change of appetite, there's always a risk if you are operating in an area with such large. Amounts of funding like that and you're such a small consultancy. At that stage, I was offered half a million dollars in capital to bring in a team and to grow. And I have to say, Carolyn, I was too scared.
I didn't have the courage to take that step. And do I regret that potentially. Would I do it different with the knowledge that I have today? Yes, absolutely, I would. But back then, there just wasn't the education or opportunity around to really be informed around what it means to take on capital and external investors into your business.
So with the rise of incubator programs, accelerated programs in the tech space, I think we are much, much better informed today and can make, I guess, more knowledgeable decisions around some things like that. So 2014, I found myself at a loose end and decided that I needed to re-skill. And I spent some time in the digital ecosystem, so in the innovation ecosystem. And I then spent time supporting other organizations with their grant funding.
And again, very quickly within 12 months, helped different groups receive over $1.8 million in funding. Incredible. incredible I've got a knack for it Carolyn you clearly have and what a knack to have to just attract money yeah for good projects yeah so and then from from there I I had to stop I took a little sabbatical I took a break I needed to reassess my direction where I was going where I was going to dedicate my time.
2019, I co-founded the Institute for Sustainable Events with a good friend, Megan Jones. Megan is known globally for her work in the event industry and the work that she's done in pioneering sustainable events. So it was a lovely opportunity to come together with her and create, I guess, an online platform for educating and training up-and-coming event managers in the world of sustainability.
That's exciting. That's doing well. So we've got students from all around the world, mainly from Europe and the UK, going through the programs there. But I take my hat off to Megan. She's amazing. It really is her dedication to sustainable events and that space. I'm just a sidekick there. Oh, I think you're downplaying yourself because, you know, I note that you came back to sustainability.
Yeah. And, yeah, so it looks like you're starting to blend your areas of interest and starting to focus on what matters to you. 100%. So coming back to the love side of things, So I do focus my time in supporting founders either in that sustainability space or climate space, as well as sort of broader impact and, of course, technology. Like I, technology is not going anywhere. It's going to continue to expand and change the world that we live in.
So I think that it's really important that we become very comfortable with looking for solutions in the technology space so that we can achieve better outcomes in, you know, whether it's social, whether it's biodiversity, whether it's sustainability as a whole. Enjoying the podcast? If you're looking for more inspiration, head to our website, thecauseeffects.com.au, for more resources on how you can start using your business as a force for good. Or buy the For Love and Money book.
Every copy sold allows us to protect one square metre of rainforest. Help us save 10,000 square metres by 2025. And so tell us a little bit more about the Institute of Sustainable Events. So what kind of people does it attract and how are you supporting them? So the Institute for Sustainable Events is very specifically targeted to new event managers as well as seasoned event managers. Like it's kind of two ends of the spectrum there.
And the programs that we offer through the Institute are very much around uplifting capability in the sustainability side of things. So, there are some entry-level programs for those who are relatively new to the event space, as well as new to considering sustainability. So, things, you know, what is a responsible event? What is scope one, two, and three emissions? And, you know, how do they apply to your event?
What is waste diversion? And what are the recycling opportunities for you to consider? So there's some very basic elements at play in some of those entry-level courses. And then we have programs for the more experienced event manager who's looking to not only polish their skills a little bit more, but consider more much broader impacts.
So designing events with purpose, engaging with sponsors in a responsible way, thinking about legacy and, you know, the impact of events after the event has left. So it's that much bigger, more strategic opportunity of really looking at how these events can make a difference. So things like, so Megan spent quite a number of years as a sustainability advisor to the World Ocean Race. And I just look at some of what they achieved there. Like there's always scientists involved.
There's a lot of scientific data collection during the race, looking at the, you know, the water quality or the ecosystem and then generating reports and sharing information around what they've found. It's a sporting event, but it's actually a really high-class scientific event as well. Yeah, wow. I love that through the Institute of Sustainable Events, you're empowering people who are in a position to influence others at scale.
Now, I note you said that was co-founded in 2019, the year before the great pandemic. Yeah, yeah. What happened? So, funnily, well, you know, yes, we saw less people coming through, but not for long. It was a real opportunity for the industry because the industry is made up of a lot of itinerant workers as well. So, people love the event industry because there's an opportunity to travel.
And so, it's very much a gig economy. economy so for the time when the world was shut down a lot of people actually took that opportunity to to stop reflect have a look at their career really think about where they want their career to go and we actually had quite a lot of students come through and and upskill yeah it was great and I think that happened in a lot of industries actually that time to stop and reflect I was listening to a podcast on, I think it was TED Talk Radio,
and it was recorded during the pandemic. And they were talking about how, you know, this is such an opportunity for us to really stop, pause, and reframe how we do move forward. And as I was listening to it, I thought, have we missed that opportunity? I feel like in some pockets, it has changed. And I feel like internally, there's a sense of, you know, the desire for change, but we seem to have kind of just flopped right back into business as usual.
Have we? I think that it was also a wonderful time for women and women to rethink. What they wanted out of their lives, out of their careers. We've seen a real uptick in the number of women starting their own businesses, which I think is a reflection of that time.
So I think that's wonderful. And then since then, we have definitely seen more funding programs, targeted to women as well because during that time or just after, we started to see more reports published around the percentages of capital that or percentages of funding that were secured by women. So like across the board, there's just been this underlying bubbling and that time gave us an opportunity to think about, well, what do we actually want to say?
Do we, now that we have a little bit of headspace, what type of research do we want to see happen? What type of data are we collecting? Are we collecting the right type of data? Do we need to do something different? And I have to say the Australian, different governments in Australia really have listened to some of those reports, the publications, the voices, and we're starting to see some real movement in that area.
For example, Advance Queensland, which is a department of the Australian government, they've got a female co-investment fund, they've got a female founders program, they've got multiple different sort of fellowship or funding programs to help upskill women and see more successful female or women entrepreneurs, which is great. Right.
I've recently been travelling into Adelaide because the South Australian government are working with two dynamic women sort of business groups over there, and then Women in Innovation South Australia.
And together, the two business groups have successfully fundraised and matched dollar for dollar what the South Australian government were making available to release a brand new grant program called the fearless innovators grant specifically for women in business in south australia wow oh and anyone listening from south australia take notes right that that's exciting though that gives me like like so it sounds like there is a lot of as you say
underlying activity things are happening we might not see it it might not be visible yet but but it was not for nothing. It has unleashed a level of change and things are happening. That is really exciting to hear. Yeah, I feel super excited about it. As an assessor to multiple grant programs, both government and private, I've over the years... Lamented at the lack of or the low numbers of applications received from women in non-specific female grant applications. So, you know, open to anyone.
And, you know, I was lucky to see an application from a woman years ago, and I'm excited now to see about 20% of the applications that I assess are from women. What makes me sad still is that even though we're, you know, we're finally getting that to that 20% range in applications received, those applications that then get shortlisted and then subsequently the ones that get funded, we're still sitting only at the one or 2%.
So exactly what we've seen in the reports published by our researchers, I'm seeing exactly the same in grant programs that are open to anyone. So that tells me we still need more women applying, and then we need to be working with our women just to uplift the quality of those applications. Their businesses are good. They should be getting the money.
It's just a moment in time in how they position their responses within these applications that just needs some tweaking, just needs a little uplift, needs some stronger language, need a little bit more confidence and a little bit more data just to demonstrate and provide evidence of success and things like that. And then we should start to see a lot more women funded as well.
Brilliant. And that's where Funding for Growth comes in and that's where the book, Advanced Grant Writing for female founders yes there we go and and we'll include a link in the show notes to this and I absolutely encourage people to get their hands on it it is so practical and I just love how you you're there side by side you're saying right go into your application so to me it's clear Leah, like I've also just seen you,
as you're talking about it, just reach another level of coming alive, right? It's clearly something that absolutely drives you. Super important to me, yeah. And you've talked about, you know, you're now seeing 20% of applications that you're seeing from women, which is an increase. But still could be higher. Yeah. But then the level of those that are successful is right down there, which is where your book comes in. But let's go to the 20% of applications.
What is the wrong thinking that is stopping women from applying for grants? Oh, it's that age-old story that we hear time and time again. I find that women will read the eligibility criteria and maybe there is some confusion around terminology or interpretation of the program guideline and they immediately self-select out and they go, oh, I don't quite understand what they're asking for.
So no I won't where of course our counterparts they might read it and go yeah I don't understand what that is but I'm gonna have a go anyway oh my god and that is that absolutely reflects, like when I had my agency my marketing agency I employed lots of people over over many years and I saw something so clearly. When I interviewed men, they pitched for jobs that were beyond their capabilities with absolute confidence, right?
And women in the same situation would not pitch for those things that they thought they hadn't yet proven. And not only that, they would undersell themselves. I remember interviewing someone who I ended up hiring Irene. And she started telling me, I didn't even ask. And she said, okay, so I think I'm good at this and good at this, but I'm really not good at this and this and this. And I just said, shut up. Stop, stop. And she was a brilliant hire, right?
Yeah. And she was fantastic and contributed so much and yet down sold herself. And that's one person, but I heard it. It's still reflective. Time and time over. Yeah, it's still reflective. And this is why I talk a lot about data and collecting the right data for your business because even if you second guess yourself, the data doesn't lie. And if you can prove that there is demand for what you're doing, that there's more demand than what you can deliver, then there's a case to be made.
Make it, is what I say. So if you're struggling with your confidence in an area, my immediate go-to is, well, where's your data? What's your data telling you? Oh, I'm not collecting the data. Well, well, then collect the data. Send out a survey, interview people, have a look at your financials, how many products have you sold? What's the average price of that product? You know, what else are people willing to pay for? What are people asking for?
Like, if you're delivering a service, what are they coming back to you saying? Well, I really, you know, this is great, love it, but I really wish you would. What are they saying? You know, that's the next iteration of your product there. So whether it's a product or a service, it doesn't matter. It's what's the market telling you they want from you? They love you. They love working with you. What else do they want? Can you share, I'm wondering, I mean, we've talked about why they don't apply.
But is there, I don't know, is there a story or an example you can share that might just inspire them to think, you know, of someone who wasn't sure and who did apply and has then managed to achieve X, Y, Z. Is there some sort of example that you can share that can just really get those who are listening going, I'm not sure, to get off their backside? Hmm, so many stories. So I really love, so our mutual friend, Melanie Greblo. Love what she's doing. Amazing. And she's been a guest
on this podcast. And, but Melanie is also quietly courageous as well. There is a level of confidence, but what I also love about Melanie is that she goes, you know what, I'm just going to give it a go. So I'm going to give it a go. But what she does do well is she does collect the data. She does let the data speak for her. And I think what also Melanie does incredibly well is she wraps people around her that are experts in their fields.
And that helps to bring more value into what it is that she's doing. So the work that they're doing at Banksia and retraining and upskilling women as survivors of domestic or family violence, like that's amazing and that's not for the faint-hearted. So you have to have a team around you that helps to build your foundation in such a way that it doesn't shake because there will always be times when it does. But here's the thing. Melody's done incredibly well with securing some early funding.
She was incredibly successful in securing some early private donors. She also received some early grant funding. She's been successful with a contract with one of the governments around payment by outcome contracts. And then she's also been part of the Snow Foundation Snow know Entrepreneurs' Fellowship. So when you also have funding support from. Available to you, it's then so much easier to build that foundation and wrap that team around you.
In comparison, one of the other organizations I've worked with, the Maternity Consumer Network, they've had a very different experience, a very different journey. So the amazing Alicia Staines has led a small group of volunteer women who have been advocating for better birthing experiences for women. Like I don't know if you know, Carolyn, but I certainly didn't know. One in ten women in the birthing suite experience obstetrics violence. Wow, that's phenomenal. I had no idea.
One in ten. 10. When you speak to women and sometimes they recount their traumatic birth experience, you just think, oh, well, it was just a traumatic birth experience. But in my conversations with Alicia and learning more about what the network does, it's all preventable. It comes down to better communication, comes down to consent, consent training for medical professionals professionals. So when she came and she joined the community at Funding for Growth, they had been.
Volunteering, doing talks, holding community events. And she came to me and she said, why can't we get any funding? And so we spoke about packaging up some of what she does and creating a product that can then be rolled out as a project. And then we all of a sudden have this little container that can be funded, like neatly funded by governments. So the network work was successful in securing a small $7,500 grant a couple of years ago. They then doubled that within 12 months after that.
And just in the last six months, the Queensland government have approached them and said, we have $300,000 that we have earmarked for you and your programs. We want you to take them out into regional and rural Queensland. And we also want you working with our First Nations Health Services. That's phenomenal.
It's just amazing because now not only this small group of volunteers can generate a reasonable salary for their work, but they also now have an opportunity to wrap team around them and really build a solid foundation. So similar to the work that Melanie had done or is doing with banks here inscribed.
Now the Maternity Consumer Network have an opportunity to, you know, for longevity, for legacy and for scale because now they're building traction, they're building operational processes, they've got the funding to do these things. So I am very much looking forward to seeing their programs roll out nationally. I love that. And what's really interesting as well, as you said, you productised it or you created a project and that makes sense because that's how you start building people around.
Correct. So, yeah, thank you for sharing that. That's a great example. Yeah, I'm so proud of the work that they've done because there are so many women mainly out there, you know, just volunteering their time, volunteering their time. So it's really nice to see that some of them are being funded. You mentioned, and I think this is a really important thing, about building a team of people around you, a support network. That's touching on partnerships as well, isn't it? Yeah.
Like where you bring, and I know when we spoke before, you were talking about the power of partnerships almost as a step before, you know, thinking about grants is start thinking about, you know, who else can be part of, you know, who can you collaborate with that can help you amplify what you're trying to do? Can you talk us through your thinking around that?
Yeah, 100%. So if I just think about my experience back when I had the consultancy and I was looking for the, you know, my next growth opportunity, having delivered a couple of programs that that then opened the door to start some conversations and I was super lucky to again just random luck sometimes is business isn't it.
I happen to be sitting next to the general manager of Le Bois Theatre in Brisbane at one day event hosted by Westpac years ago and I was telling her a little bit about what I was doing and she said oh look we're super interested in that. So it was then doing a little bit of pro bono work with her or with the theatre. But then through that came introductions, through that came work with the Queensland Theatre Company and then the Townsville Entertainment Centre.
And then that's where there are then opportunities for introductions into the industry associations. So all of my introductions came from individual businesses that I had established a solid working relationship with and then they felt comfortable to make the referrals and make the approaches and give me names and email addresses. Yeah, yeah. And so that's then how those partnerships evolved. And that's why also I think the programs were so successful that it wasn't a cold calling activity.
But in saying that, I think it's super important that we also have the courage to put ourselves into situations where we will likely meet the people that we want to meet who are working with the organizations that we potentially want to work with. So being really strategic about our time and where we put ourselves, and then how we deliver our message, you know, the elevator pitch, like it's still like gold, but being able to concisely explain to somebody, you know, who you are and what you do.
Yeah, and, you know, maybe that is a space to share what lights you up, the love side, because, you know, that's what's going to attract people. Those with a shared narrative, those are your partners, those are the people who care enough about what you're trying to do who want to help support you and lift you up.
Yeah, because then like I went from working with one organisation to then working like as in Le Bois Theatre to working with Live Performance Australia, which had a membership of over 3,000.
So you immediately go from this you know one client to another one client but that one client then has 3 000 clients like it's and and then all of a sudden you're working with all of these people all around australia like it's like that's that's exponential growth on steroids like i'm i'm a huge, huge advocate for partnering and that's the reason why. And so partnering can absolutely help fuel that growth, but it also gives evidence
to grant assessors that you've got something that is compelling. Correct. Yeah.
100%. Interesting. Really, really interesting. Interesting so I'd love I'd love you to as we start to wrap this up I'd love you to share what you want to say to a listener who has a business idea or has started a business like they're they're there they've started they're in the arena but they're struggling and they haven't looked at grants yet or if they have they haven't done it seriously what what would your message to them be.
So the criteria is they are an operating business, not someone with an idea. Yes, sorry. Just to clarify that, it's very difficult to get any type of funding with an idea. Like I know that they sell that to us in the movies, but it doesn't happen that way. So with a viable business that's operating with customers, so the first step that I would take is look for some local funding.
So whether that be with your local government, look through your local economic development organization, potentially even the business chambers, like they're a bit tapped into what type of funding might be around. And depending on the structure of your business, if you are a social enterprise or have an ability to partner with a not-for-profit, there are definitely some community or foundation styled opportunities. Like think the bank foundations or the electricity provider foundations.
Like part of having those foundations is to make sure that local money goes out into their local communities. And, you know, it's always a little bit of a marketing ploy, but in the end, who cares if the money's coming into a business with an idea and how to grow and continue to deliver an impact. So looking for, you know, that $10,000 or $20,000 as a first step, I think is super important.
Then once you've proven that you can deliver the success, and if you've been operating for a little bit longer and you've got really strong growth, results will then start looking for those opportunities that are $50,000 and $150,000. Brilliant. And get your hands on advanced grant writing for female founders because seek and secure $100,000 or more in funding because it's like having Lisa in your pocket. Or sitting on your shoulder saying, now do this, now do this. It's brilliant.
It's absolutely brilliant. And it is so readable. So thank you for sending me a copy of that, Lisa. So I'd like to wrap this up by asking you, Lisa, your dream five years from now, if you could have the impact that you truly would like to have and, you know, you're there, where are we now, 24, you know, 2029, what does it look like? So 2030 for me, like it feels like a pivotal year for us as a global community.
But for me, if I can look back and see that I have made a contribution to women as business owners, as founders, And we have this wonderful exponential growth curve of women as millionaires in this space. And I don't like using the word millionaires as just the throwaway, hey, I've got a lot of money and I can drive an Aston Martin.
It's women with the financial means to be leaders and to have the financial and economic economic freedom to make decisions that are not only right for them and their family, but for the world around them. And that would be amazing for me.
I also, just one more thing, I also want to see Australian women with a much larger vision for their businesses in that they're looking for expansion opportunities into places like Europe, dropping into the European Union and being able to grow their businesses internationally and not just looking at the US or even the UK, but really looking for growth opportunities where they find find alignment with larger audiences, I think would just be wonderful.
I love both of those visions and certainly, you know, the work you're doing now is absolutely taking us towards that point. So congratulations. Congratulations on the book. Thank you for the book and continue the good work. And I'd like to leave any last words with you as we close out. Carolyn, thank you for the work that you're doing to give us an opportunity to amplify our dreams, our vision, the work that we're doing.
Like the contribution that you're making here is truly remarkable because I can't do what I do without the support and the love of other women around me. So please know that any of the women that are following in, And, you know, on my pathway, they do so because of the contributions that you've made to their success as well. So thank you. Thank you, Lisa. Music. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for listening to this episode of the For Love and Money podcast.
If you'd like to take a deeper dive into the purpose movement, visit us at thecauseeffect.com.au. And remember, doing good is good for business. So if you're not doing good, then what are you doing?