I am a professional grant recipient!

This is a piece of news that I actually received back in August, but I wanted to make sure it was publicly announced before I said anything about it! (And now that it’s been made public…)

Back in June, I came across a professional grant program sponsored by my fraternity alumni association. Having just started my own LLC, I thought this was something that could help my endeavor. So, I threw together an application package and submitted it for consideration.

I’ll be honest. I wasn’t thinking anything of it. I figured that getting the grant would’ve been nice, but I also figured that there would be other recipients with more impressive resumes than my own. I sent my application with the mindset of, “let’s put in for this and see what happens. What do I have to lose?”

I didn’t think anything more about it until August, when I received an email saying that I was one of the grant recipients!

My profile, along with the other grant recipients, appeared in the September issue of the alumni association’s monthly newsletter!

The grant money will go toward professional memberships to help support my LLC and my professional interests. Part of it will be used to reinstate my membership with STC (I had been a member several years ago, but I let it lapse, primarily because it was starting to get too expensive for me to maintain). The rest will likely go toward membership in some business networking group to promote my LLC (most likely a Chamber of Commerce; I had looked into BNI, but it’s too expensive, even with the grant offsetting it. I’m still trying to figure out where the rest of the grant money will go).

So I guess that it just goes to show: if you see a program that interests you, go ahead and apply for it. You never know what’ll happen!