A 608% Return & an Existential Crisis. Thanks, Excel.

Like any other grant writer, I love data. There's just something about a well-organized

Excel spreadsheet, a few formulas, and the ability to quantify literally anything that makes my Type A brain ridiculously happy. Is that a little concerning? Maybe, but I figure there are far worse hobbies.

So, naturally, I decided to turn that love of data toward my own business and take a closer look at how JAC is actually performing for our clients. Nothing fancy, just tracking things like how much clients are paying us, how much grant funding they're being awarded, and how many grants they're actually winning. Pretty standard stuff, right? Well, let me tell you, I did NOT expect a spreadsheet to send me into a full-blown crisis about how I've been measuring my own success for the last six years.

Every year, I set two or three goals for myself as a grant writer and business owner. Some are related to professional growth, some are about the direction I want to take JAC, and there's always at least one financial goal.

Now, for a little context, I'm the oldest child, a woman, and a self-proclaimed Type A personality. As a result, I've spent most of my life operating under the assumption that meeting expectations is the bare minimum and exceeding them is the actual goal. Healthy? Debatable. Effective? Usually. Exhausting? Absolutely.

Frankly, I love a good SMART goal, and I love checking it off my list even more, mostly because it lets me immediately replace it with something even more ambitious. Apparently, my brain never got the memo that you're allowed to just be happy with an accomplishment before moving on to the next one. 

Anyway… every year, I set a revenue goal for JAC. Basically, how much money do I want this business to bring in so I can pay myself, support my family, and keep investing in the firm’s growth? Pretty standard business-owner stuff, but here’s where things get uncomfortable: for the last two years, I've had the exact same revenue goal, and I've fallen short by 15-20% both times. Rude.

And you know what I've been telling myself? 

I'm not working hard enough. 

I'm not marketing enough. 

I'm not putting myself out there enough. 

I'm not being proactive enough about finding new clients. 

I've even caught myself thinking that I need to stop working with smaller nonprofits if I ever want to hit my revenue goal. That is particularly frustrating, since making quality grant writing services accessible to smaller organizations is one of the reasons I started JAC in the first place! 

Essentially, I've spent the last two years staring at that revenue goal and treating the gap as a personal failure, convincing myself that if I were doing everything I should be doing as a business owner, I'd hit (or better yet, exceed) that number. Right?

Well, apparently not. As it turns out, I was so focused on the one number I wasn't hitting that I completely overlooked the numbers telling a different story: my clients’ return on investment (ROI).

Over the last two years, my clients have averaged a 608% gross return, with a median of 501% and individual returns reaching as high as 1,745%.

Now, for those of you who don't get ridiculously excited about numbers, let me break that down. For every $1 my clients paid JAC to write proposals, they received an average of $6.08 in grant funding during that same year!

Honestly, I've always known my clients generally see a positive return on their investment, especially when we work together long-term instead of submitting just one or two applications. Grant funding is competitive, and there are never any guarantees, but that's exactly why I believe so strongly in building a sustainable grant strategy instead of chasing individual opportunities. I know the work we do is valuable, but actually seeing those numbers laid out in front of me was a different kind of validation.

Now, before anyone gets the wrong idea, let me be clear: not every client who hires a grant writer, including me, will receive funding. I've worked with organizations that invested in two or three grant applications and walked away without an award. Unfortunately, it happens. Grant funding is highly competitive, and even an incredibly strong application can get denied for reasons entirely outside of our control. That's why I'm always upfront about the risks of pursuing only a handful of opportunities.

When I look at the bigger picture, particularly the clients who have worked with JAC consistently, the results tell a different story. My clients aren't just seeing substantial returns on their investment. They're also choosing to stick around, and that means something to me.

At JAC, clients typically enter a one-year contract, but our agreements let them leave at any time, for any reason. They're not trapped in some ridiculous contract that requires them to keep paying me whether they're happy or not. They can leave at any time; however, the majority don’t. They renew and keep trusting me with their grant strategy year after year, which tells me something huge: our work together is both effective and cost-efficient!

At the end of the day, every dollar my clients spend on consulting services is a dollar they have to justify. Their budgets are tight, especially over the last two years; their teams are stretched thinner than dollar-store toilet paper, and their boards must make thoughtful financial decisions. 

So, do you see the disconnect? I sure as hell didn’t at first.

I've spent the last two years so focused on what JAC wasn't earning that I completely overlooked what we were accomplishing. My clients are seeing substantial ROIs, organizations continue choosing to work with me year after year, and I'm building the kind of business I actually wanted to run. Yet somehow, missing one revenue goal by 15-20% was enough to convince me I wasn't doing enough… There's a special kind of mental gymnastics that happens when you're an overachiever. You can accomplish nine out of ten things on your list, and instead of celebrating the nine, you'll spend the next 5-7 business days obsessing over the one you missed. Ask me how I know.

The more I think about it, the more I realize I've been using the wrong measuring stick. Somewhere along the way, I started treating revenue growth as the ultimate indicator of whether I was running a successful business, even when that meant questioning some of the very things I started JAC to accomplish.

What bothers me most is realizing how much time I've spent convincing myself I wasn't doing enough when the evidence was right in front of me. I've built a business that supports my family, helps nonprofits secure meaningful funding, and lets me be a part of organizations doing real work I genuinely care about. Is it exactly where I want it to be financially? Not yet, and that’s okay. I just don't want to spend another two years so focused on what I haven't accomplished that I forget to appreciate what I have. Especially after six years of building something I'm genuinely proud of. Apparently, I needed a spreadsheet to give me permission to admit that, which is probably the most Type A thing I've ever said…

P.S. I realize this blog is significantly longer than my usual posts, so if you've made it all the way to the end, THANK YOU! Apparently, I had six years' worth of overachieving tendencies to unpack, and you just got a front-row seat to my spreadsheet-induced existential crisis. Lucky you.