Ep 287 | Government Funding is More than Just Grants with Matthew Lesko

What you'll learn:

→ Why Matthew is so passionate about government grants and funding
→ Strategies for finding and securing government grants, even if you're a small nonprofit
→ Creative ways to generate revenue beyond just grants
→ How to build relationships with elected officials to unlock funding opportunities
→ Resources and tools to help you navigate the complex world of government assistance

Want to skip ahead? Here are key takeaways:

[05:34] Get intentional with the sources you use to find government grants. Avoid using Google to search for government grants – it's a “death trap” full of people trying to take your money. You don't need to hire someone to help you execute.
[05:34] Utilize the SBA's local assistance database to find free, nonprofit organizations that can help with various aspects of your organization. There are loans available to help you with your team, as well as learning opportunities.
[12:42] Don't just ask for money from government offices – ask for help in discovering the resources available to you. There are consultants that are connected to government projects that can provide services to supoprt you.
[26:24] Follow your heart and focus on being genuine in your relationships with grantors and elected officials. Yes you will need to build relationships, but make sure it is the right opportunity for your needs.

Resources

• SBA's local assistance database
• Career one stop center
• Common Cause website
• Apex Accelerators website
• YouFindHelp.org
• GoHelp.com

Full Transcript

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Welcome to our first episode of 2025 I'm so excited to be back for another year with you. We are on episode 287 which is crazy to me, we're gonna hit 300 this year, which is so exciting. Thank you so much for being a part of this podcast and joining us along in this journey. Some changes that are coming, but nothing too crazy. We are going to be having our episodes every other week. There's so much content for us to share, and so we're going to focus on getting that out to you and creating some new products this year. And so we wanted to bring the podcast to every other week. We're super excited about all of the interviews, but you'll want to make sure that you're subscribed, either on YouTube or wherever you listen to pop. Listen to podcasts, because there may be some bonus solo episodes that pop in here and there. I'm always having conversations with nonprofits and organizations, and topics keep coming up, and so sometimes there's things that I want to share with you, and we will be releasing those as bonus episodes, which you'll only hear about if you're subscribed, so that you get those notifications. But for now, we're going to kick off the year with a conversation about government grants and government funding.

My guest today is Matthew Lesko, and we're talking about kind of government grants and maybe some different ways that you can think about getting resources and additional funding that maybe you didn't know that you could do. So Matthew Lesko is known as the question mark guy for his eccentric suits and passion for helping people find government grants and financial assistance programs. For over 30 years, He's authored best selling books, appeared on major TV shows like The Oprah Winfrey Show, and built online communities to educate individuals and businesses to educate on accessing, excuse me, on accessing little known resources. His mission is to simplify complex government systems, empowering everyone to unlock opportunities they didn't know existed. And it's a fun conversation. Kind of goes a little bit all over the place, but you're going to get some great resources in here that you can share with regards to how to go after some government grants and some other programs that you might not know existed. So I hope that you enjoy this episode. Welcome to 2025 it is a new year. It is exciting, and I can't wait to be alongside you on this journey. But before we get into it, this episode is brought to you by our featured free resources. We have so many free downloadables for you to access on our website at thefirstclick.net/resources they cover everything from video marketing to self care to planning to social media to email all of the things that you need support with. They're all there at thefirstclick.net/resources, so I hope that you will go check them out, download the tool that will help you with where you're at right now and keep moving forward in your online fundraising strategies. So that's what's up this year. I'm so excited to be here with you, and let's get into the episode.

Intro
You're listening to the digital marketing therapy podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern. Each month we dive deep into a digital marketing or fundraising strategy that you can implement in your organization. Each week, you'll hear from guest experts, nonprofits, and myself on best practices, tips and resources to help you raise more money online and reach your organizational goals.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Hey, friends, please join me in welcoming Matthew Lesko to the podcast. Matthew, thanks for being here today.

Matthew Lesko
Oh, wonderful. Well, I'm really not there. You're there, yes, and I'm here, but in this kind of weather, that's the way to do it. It's true. It's true. We're talking government grants today, but before we kind of jump into all the goodness, why don't you share a little bit about why you enjoy grant, government grants and why you built a career around it? Well, I'm motivated by greed, motivates a lot of us and way to feed yourself in life. So that's a main thing. But then I found, I think another motivation is that we want to feel important life, and so I found something that does both, and I'll keep doing it until I die. And I think that's the trick of us, and also the talent you have. I think we all have to how we could love society more, or even our partners, or anybody is being as coming from the heart as much as you can, and then you could grow that so the more authentic you are, the more you could give to others, and the better you are at it, because nobody else could be you. They can't steal you. So I found the fabric of match.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Yeah, till I die. Love that you said that though too, because that's something we're always reminding nonprofits about, is that, as you're going out and talking to donors and funding, what you do might not be unique, but the way and how you do it is unique, and so go find the people that are the right fit and match for you. So I love that. I love that. Okay, so government grants overwhelming. I don't think that I could possibly get them. I'm too small. All the things that we kind of tell ourselves,

Matthew Lesko
Why? How tall

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
You're gonna be? A tricky one, I can tell. But how do we, how do we kind of start to get ourselves in the mode of like starting to find government grants and know that we could possibly qualify and be available for them.

Matthew Lesko
Yeah, a couple things you know that after 50 years of doing this that are very important is not to use Google. I mean, that is a death trap. It's a swamp. It's it's the only place we know that people go to get information. But unfortunately, you're looking for people to give you money, and Google is full of people that want to get your money. So you're going to go to Google and find things there, and you'll make a few calls, and everybody wants your money. And so to me, what that does is suppress your desire to think you could do something, because everybody's saying you can't do this unless you pay me $5,000 or whatever. Everything, there is a price. So you FEEL, and that's what ruins capitalism to me. Well, actually, not really, but to understand that that's only a piece of our society, we have two sections of our society. One is the capitalism, and that's cool. I mean, I love it, because actually, if nobody's paying for what I wore I want to do, then I shouldn't do it because you were here to love other people. And loving to other people, to me, is helping them do whatever they want to do, not what you want them to do. It's just selfish. So and even in providing service, providing help in the community, you're you're there to help other people and that that's, that's the important thing, and not to do what you want them to do, but what they want. So capitalism, that's nice, because they pay you the money and show you it's worth it. Now we have another society, part of it, and a third of, two thirds of our society is capitalism. There's a third of our GDP. That's not capitalism, what I call it like a Giving Society, the churches, nonprofit organizations, government, that's all the giving part of our society, or the loving society, whatever you want to call it, and that we don't know how to use. And we're not trained to do that. We're trained to use capitalism. So nobody knows. And we all have, you know, the internet, and that means Google, and so they have, 90% of all the searching in the world is done on Google, and that that stops people from anything, and then also, that's where all the fraud is and all this kind of stuff. So it's just going nowhere, so you have to get out of there, and that's the important thing. So you're starting a nonprofit, here's what I would do, because you don't know, you know what you want to do, but the problem is, starting anything, you have to figure out what is out there that makes sense, are the right tools for you to do? I mean, it's easy to say, I just need $100,000 and that'll solve everything, but that's the wrong way to go at it.

Matthew Lesko
I feel because there are other options, other things to do, and other ways to get money that you would never think of, that what you want to do is get help from people that help you find those things and do those things. And that's not by doing research to find the magic application. It's by finding people who do that every day and will help you for free, and they help you for free, and that's right. So a place to do that the government has set up to grow your nonprofit, or to grow your business, or to grow your organization, whatever you have. SBA has a database of just those people. So you go to here if you want to do it. Now you can. I'll show you sba.gov and then slash local assistance. Now none of these organizations are SBA organizations. These are all non profit organizations that help you with any aspect of your organizations. You need legal help, you need financial help, you need marketing help, anything, and they're all free to do that. See if you go to Google, and they're free. So you go to Google, you're going to find people. Well, that will say they're better, but they're going to cost you money, and so you probably won't do it. So they're the kinds of things I'm trying to let people know. And there's more than, like, more than grants. I mean, 80% of the money that the government gives out is not even called grants, so that's right. So we work on what we think we know, and that's why you're our biggest challenge is getting over the shit we think we know, because it's wrong the world, but we don't think that. And it's hard to because there's some Well, we know something, so you have to go out and do the reconnaissance work to find out your options, because you have just one option. You think this is the option to do. It's not. So if you have a nonprofit organization, you may not know, okay, you have staff and what to do? Well, you can get money to train all your staff for free and hire staff and things like that that has nothing to do with grants. They just pick up all the bills to do this, and that's from the Department of Labor. So nobody would think about that. And so you have organizations again, it's another here's another place you could go is something called the career one stop center. So if you're a nonprofit, it's career one stop.org See, everything that's giving you money or giving you help is going to be.org You know what? Those are nonprofits and.gov government offices. They don't take money, they give money. So if you're struggling or trying to do something, you know, without money, they're the only people you want to talk to so if you go to career one stop.org and make an appointment of the counselor there, tell me of an organization you know in your county, or whatever it is, and how can they help you? And that's it. The main thing of using government offices is ask for help. Don't ask for money. You ask for help because you have no idea what the hell is out there. And they say, look, oh no, we have no grand sorry, but they have 20 million or something else, you know, that will really help you. And the third thing I think I would do, no matter who I was or what kind of nonprofit was, every elected official you have, okay, because they're they do that, they will put a bill in. I mean, I see the reports from congressmen and senators and things like that. Hair these all the organizations we helped in our, you know, all the people we in our constituency, we gave money for, and they name them, and whatever you can see it, it all is, and that's also a good place. When you see who got that money.

Matthew Lesko
If you're a nonprofit that helps nonprofits, hey, they just got a whole shit little money. But anyway, if you go to a good place to find all that, and this is at the state level too, it's not only the federal level. So you probably have a dozen or more elected officials you could bang on the door, and there that's another group of people that want to help you find money to grow. I mean, everybody else on Google is going to help you to get your money. And so if you go to common cause.org, and you put in your zip code, and you get a whole list of them, and also what we've come to in our society, think that everything can be done on the internet. Everything can be just give me an application to fill out, and things like, no, it's a people business, and it's more of a people business now than ever before, because we've got so much goddamn information so this fire hose. And you don't know good, bad or whatever, but people who do this every day, they do know what's good or bad. They're the people you want to talk to. So you don't have 200 million websites and they, Oh, these are the two websites you want. It's like, me, okay, you're going to Google, but I give you two websites now, every one, and that's the third one now is common cause.org and and it's belly to belly, because also, don't forget, they don't get paid by you. And that's why I see what we're used to dealing with is people in the capitalist society, the capitalist society, everybody there wanting money from you is going to kiss your ass until they give them money, right? So we're sort of used to that, you know, you have to come to me. No, it's the reverse. In working with nonprofits and government. You have to kiss their ass to get help, because they get the same paycheck whether they help you or not. So the only, the only power you have in that situation is you and your personality and kindness. People want to help nice people. They don't want to help assholes.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Well. But let's, let's, I want to talk about this because. Yeah, I'm sure people are hearing, okay, yeah, we know about our elected officials. We've sent them emails and nothing happens. That's right. Don't get any That's right. So like, how can we kind of build that messaging or, like, if we're reaching out to different people on these government websites, and we'll definitely link up all those resources in the show notes for this episode. But how can we maybe work on our messaging? Or how have you seen people be successful? Because I agree with you, it is a one on one. It is an in person. There is a combination of the digital and the right in person that make this effective. So how do you kind of start to you make an appointment? Level,

Matthew Lesko
you make an appointment. I mean, that's the only way, whether it's a phone appointment, but all these things, I mean, every congressman, Senator, you have local offices for everybody, and the more you get in front of it, I say as like brown nosing as student. I used to be a professor computer science, and was so easy to flunk people he didn't know. Yeah, but when the student would come at office hours and show me pictures of their dog or parents, it was harder to flunk those people, yeah, and because maybe you know them, they're human, and that's it's that human. You have to use your humanity. People want to help people, and that's what we're all. That's why you're in the nonprofit business, right? You know that? So it's there too. Everybody's got a busy life and everything, so you come with cupcakes, anything you know, to make you human. So they want to help you more than the 12 other phone calls they have, and that's the only power. But see, that's free power. You don't have to get a big ad, or you don't have to do whatever you send the office bag of cookies. You know, those stupid little things I think, have become more important now in our society, because in a digital thing, I mean, like, you know, because even the humans have become like AI, because they answer your questions like their AI. What the difference? Why are you here as a person, and they have no soul in their answer or anything? And that's why i My biggest thing, if I'm stuck with somebody on the phone, is trying to make them laugh first so I can get some goddamn humanity, because it's boring as hell on both sides. Yeah, yeah, they're just following the whatever, and you are. So that's why, even when you call the office, I mean, hey, did you get that cake I sent you, even though you didn't send it. Thanks for the Congressman doing all this work. You know, I sent you anything you know to be unusual, or we're so time conscious, and to be efficient, and efficient is boring, and we try to make organizations as efficient as hell, and we try to give everybody the answers, and it's not their answer, so they're not talking to human because they're they've been given these answers.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
It's not theirs. Yeah, well, and I think, too, it's a long game, right? Like, you're not going to make one phone call or make one appointment, and, you know, so I think, like, let's just assume that we've kind of played the long game. We've sent the emails, we've made the phone calls, we have that appointment with our government official. What have you seen like in those meetings? Like, what have you seen will allow them to be more successful in either getting that next meeting or moving to the next step to securing that funding?

Matthew Lesko
Yeah, I think there's other things to do too. That's the traditional method, you know, kind of thing. And I think what you have to do is also be creative in other ways to create income. That's I think the biggest problem with nonprofits is they're relying on grants. And I know there's laws and all this kind of stuff, but I think there's creative ways to do it. Look at Girl Scout cookies. Man, those suckers do billions of dollars, right? Girl Scout cookie, and the company's ripping them off because they make almost nothing from the cookie. So why don't you find in your mission a service that is, can monetize something. You know, if there's something to monetize your own campaigns and stuff like that, you have to use a creativity in your head. I mean crowdfunding or whatever, issues like this or a service. In other words, you have, I don't know you, you're in pets. So you, you have a nonprofit that helps animals. Well, you start giving seminars on the best way to do it animals. I mean, geez, I know in my building, half the building has, yeah. It pets in it, and an attractive seminar down in the lobby of the 10 things that you're doing wrong and with your animals, and people would throw 50 bucks at something like that. So you have a revenue generation thing, and that's why we all have something of value that people will pay for in the capitalist portion. So that's why, I think, is figure out how to use the capitalist fortune, a section of our company, to help you do the giving portion of what you want to do when

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
we talk about a lot of those strategies also on this podcast, because I agree with you, we do need to have a multi faceted approach. But I want to keep this, this episode focused on grants, because it's not something that we talk a lot about. So I love your I mean, your idea is great and fantastic, and I think that's totally true. We need to have multiple streams of revenue. But if this is an area that we're trying to grow in, kind of, if 2025, grants are something like government grants specifically, are somewhere where we really want to kind of push forward, you've given some great tips for where to find different resources. But how do we kind of increase our chances of conversion? And like, actually getting those yeses is what I would well, I think

Matthew Lesko
that's personal relationships with a grantor. Never apply for a grant unless somebody says, Yeah, you have a good chance, you know, and I think too many people say, Oh, this like, sounds like for us, don't bother, you know, trying to find somebody in that organization, if it makes sense for you, to waste your time on on that to get, you know, pre qualified, or whatever, before you waste any time. I mean, that's every situation is different, I'm sure. But I think no matter what, and we're trying to look for that magic, you know, the seven steps to doing anything, and I think a lot of times that's what ruins it, because you're trying to do something that may work for other people, but not for you, and that's why your authenticity is what you have to keep digging in, because particularly when you're in a stressful situation and trying to get that, then you're grabbing for anything. And that's good. I mean, that's not bad, because you're looking for ideas to spark something and create something new. But no matter what you do, it's really trying to your own authentic humanity. I mean, they're giving money to people, you know, so that's why it's more the face to face, because then they trust you more if they sign and they're not going to run away to Acapulco with my money or whatever. So the more you can do that, I think, than anything else. And being pre qualified, why? You know, it's even government. You know for individuals, it's that, and also other ways to finance things through government programs. You as a nonprofit, you could get contracts from the government. They give to nonprofits, so not only grants, but there's contracts. Now, here's another. It's called apexaccelerators.us. Now. They're people that are free consultants that help nonprofits figure out how they could get contracts from the government. And again, that's professional people that get paid to help you get a contract and will never charge you. So that's another thing. As opposed to the Grant section, you have contracts, and there's more contracts probably than grants given out.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
That's great. So many great resources. So if you, if you're trying to implement and take a look at some of these opportunities, what's the lead time? And I know this is a very Yeah, nuanced question, but like, you know, as we're trying to think about our plans for 2025 like, if I'm, like, okay, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start going after some government contracts. I think that for my organization could be a really interesting fit. Um, when would I realistically, I mean, is it six months or a year from now? Like, you know, I mean, that's more realistic want to work on. That's quicker that we can do right now. And then there's things that we're going to put in the long term planning

Matthew Lesko
for. Well, I think in all those can be either on contracts or grants. You know, there may be quicker than, you know, whatever, but if you want to do something, yeah, I mean, government work for grants and contracts. I mean, you know, I mean you're not going to get quickly, but other sections, like I talked about the training, money for your people, that's it, that's it. Or free health care for your people that work for you, or free money to pay the rent you know, for your staff. People. Go to this website. Go to youfindhelp.org Now what that is so wonderful website? It's a Google for free money, particularly for living expenses. So if you have anybody on your staff that needs free legal help, they need health care help. They need home repair help, anything on their pets, a bill to pay their pets, or their car broke down. The campaign. Go there, you'll find another non profit or government office that gives money to do that. And every city has five to six, 7000 organizations like that. You like. In my city, I can put in, okay, well, I want rent where I live, and I put in rent, put in my zip code and put in rent. 70 organizations that help you with rent. Not one or two. See, people will try one or two, government office, oh, I don't apply to that. I don't I'm too rich, too poor, or whatever. You know that I don't get but you have 69 other places the check. So it's like grants. You went out to apply for the grant. They said, No. I said, Well, then I guess I can't get a grant. Nobody's given grants, you know, and it's that way with government programs.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
I love that. Well, Matthew, you've given so many amazing tips and resources. And again, like I said, we'll have these linked up in the show notes at thefirstclick.net/287, any last words of wisdom that you want to share with our listeners? Well,

Matthew Lesko
what I'm living through now is that trying to convince people that your heart is smarter than your brain. You know, we just take it, you know, we go to experts and get all these language because we need help. We don't know what they're doing, what we're doing in life. So we'll grab some expert who does that. They don't know either you know, and that's why I don't know what to do my own life. What the hell gives me the audacity to think I could tell somebody else to do with their life? And the good stuff comes from your heart.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Yeah? No, I love that. I love that. And well, Matthew, if people want to connect with you, learn more about you. How you support nonprofits. How can they do that? Let's

Matthew Lesko
go help.com. Yeah, and that's a that's a community of people, and I used to charge 10s and $20,000 for people like this, but this is only $20 and we build an organization now that I'm surprised by accident, nothing, nobody bought reference books anymore. So I had figured out and where people help people get it, not me. I mean, we got like 12,000 people or more that help each other get grants, instead of just me telling her I don't know, and so, and they're more enthusiastic because they just got this man to share with people. So you can go to our website, and every day, we have maybe three, four hours of live Q and A videos to people to ask their questions from people. And already got this stuff, yeah, and that's just very pleasing to me.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
I love that. Well, Matthew, I really appreciate you

Matthew Lesko
taking. Oh, one other thing, we're taking some of your work, because we also give grants. What I couldn't get over and it's a small little business we got on, but with the we became so profitable, I was embarrassed. We give $70,000 a month back to members every month in profits after we pay ourselves, we give the profits back. And we're not nonprofit. That's great, but we do that, and that feels the best.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
That's amazing. I love that. Practicing what you preach, that's great. Well, Matthew, I thank you for taking your time to share your advice, your resources with our listeners. So thank you so much for being here today. My pleasure. Okay, so which tool are you most excited to go after? First, I hope that you will head on over to thefirstclick.net/287, we will have every single one of those resources there for you with quick and easy links that you can access and really start working on some additional funding resources and tools. I hope that you will check them out. But as always, don't get lost in the rabbit hole of all of these things. Make sure that you're using the tools in the way that are going to best support your organization, in what you truly need right now and what your goals are for your organization right now, not in trying to make all of the things happen all the time, but again, there are some great tools there, and I'm sure that you might find some great ways to bring in some extra revenue for your organization, or your staff training, or all of The things as you continue to move forward and increasing your impact for now, make sure you hit that subscribe button. Make sure you leave us a review. Connect with us. You can send us an email at Hello at the first click.net, we'd love to hear from you, and can't wait to have you hear the rest of the episodes that we have coming out through the rest of the year. For now, check out the show notes at thefirstclick.net/287, and I'll see you in the next one.