I Built the Perfect Nonprofit Grant System… Then I Left It Behind

Let’s get one thing straight right out of the gate: I didn’t leave because things were falling apart. I left right when everything was finally working exactly the way I wanted it to.

At the Arizona Humane Society, I was the sole grant writer and managed all of the organization’s restricted gifts. When I started, the grants program—and the coordination of restricted fund management between the development, programs, and accounting teams—was a bit of a hot mess. Which, as I’ve since realized, is more the norm than the exception. The systems were messy, the tracking was inconsistent, and everything felt reactive, scattered, and just chaotic enough to make my Type A brain short-circuit like a printer jammed during a

final deadline.

So I did what I do best: I rebuilt it from the ground up.

I created a nonprofit grant system that actually made sense. I cleaned up the documentation graveyard. Labeled folders like my sanity depended on it (because it did).

Timelines, templates, workflows—the works. Everything had a home and a purpose. Over the course of a few years and plenty of trial and error, I turned the chaos into a well-oiled machine that ran in full alignment with how my brain likes things: clear, consistent, and predictable.

Deciding to walk away from it felt a little wild, but I did.

Because while I was building that beautiful beast of a multi-department system, I had also been building something else quietly and steadily for five years. I launched Jorden Anderson Consulting back in the early pandemic days, thinking I could help some smaller nonprofits navigate the chaos of COVID-era funding. At the time, it felt like a side gig. A “we’ll see where this goes” kind of thing. Turns out, it went somewhere! 

Over time, the business grew, not just in clients, but in clarity and alignment. It became the kind of work that made me pause and remember why I got into this field in the first place! So, after five years of balancing both (running JAC in the margins while managing a full-time nonprofit grants program), I finally reached a point where splitting my time and energy no longer made sense.

So, I made the leap!

I left the job. I left the system I had so carefully built. I left the calendar invites, the PTO policies, and the “quick team syncs” that were never quick. And I went all in on the business I had been growing behind the scenes.

Now, I get to choose the work I do and who I do it with, which, thankfully, still includes the Arizona Humane Society with their grant-seeking efforts! I get to bring clarity and structure into spaces that need it, and help people feel calm, confident, and capable in the middle of what used to feel like chaos.

This version of work feels like mine in every sense, and that makes the leap more than worth it. 

If you’re standing on the edge of your own leap and wondering if it’s the right time or if you’re really ready, I won’t pretend to know your answer. But I can tell you this: building something that reflects you is never a mistake.

And yes, I backed everything up before I left… obviously. 😉