I want to make it clear, the women I kept hearing from weren’t sitting on the sidelines, dreaming about someday. They were already in it. One had taken on too much risk with an professional services client who wasn’t paying as quickly as agreed upon. Another had an entire snack item planned out and small batches made, with product pricing worked out entirely.
They had products ready to launch or were already selling. They had service-based businesses with real clients, real invoices, real results. They were running nonprofits that were actively serving communities and solving problems that mattered. These were women at every stage of their businesses. I love helping all founders who are out there doing the work, every day.
These ladies were resourceful in ways that would honestly make your head spin. Bootstrapping. Stretching personal savings further than they should have had to. Making strategic pauses in their growth to realign their big visions with the funding they had available, because they lacked easily accessible capital. Against their wishes, their businesses had to slow and pause because the money has to be there to move forward and to move quickly.
It was so very hard for me to sit with the realization that it had nothing to do with the quality of their ideas.
As I listened more closely across dozens of conversations, a pattern came into focus that I couldn’t unsee. These women weren’t facing unique, isolated problems. They were all running into similar walls and often had to do with knowing their financial situation and how to access funding.
Banks want guarantees from a CPA that their taxes were valid. They wanted years of financial statements that early-stage founders don’t always have cleaned up. Investors wanted a growth trajectory that didn’t match the kind of intentional, values-driven businesses these women were building. Angel networks felt like exclusive rooms with unmarked doors. If they could get in the room, navigating and pitching investors who were often simply uninterested was discouraging. When these founders came to me, they were showing up and doing the hard things, but were left to figure it out entirely on their own.
For me, the most frustrating part was knowing that the struggle wasn’t caused by their lack of effort, it was from lack of opportunity, visibility, and knowledge once they unlocked those doors.
The Funding That’s Hiding in Plain Sight
When I started digging deeper to help my clients, I kept coming back to work I’ve done as an accountant for private foundations and non-profit organizations:
Grants.
Not everything has to be loans with interest rates and repayment schedules. Equity deals that trade ownership for capital aren’t the only way, either. Grants are funding that doesn’t need to be repaid. There is money specifically created to support women founders, early-stage businesses, and mission-driven work. It exists. There’s more of it than most people realize. The mix of grants with other funding is a positive step for moving a business forward.
And yet, almost none of the women I worked with were accessing it.
Not because they didn’t qualify. They often did. But because no one had ever walked them through where to find it or how to pitch for it. When they did know about them, the application process looked overwhelming from the outside. Searching, tracking, and applying for grants while also running a business felt like one impossible task too many.
The problem was never whether funding existed. The problem was access to it.
Once I started helping clients actually find and apply for grants, something shifted in our conversations. The energy changed. The language changed. Instead of “I don’t know how I’m going to afford this next step,” it became “I have a plan.” Instead of spinning in uncertainty, women started moving with a direction and momentum behind them.
That’s what happens when someone isn’t spending hours lost in a search that leads nowhere. They can focus on what they’re actually good at: building the business they already believe in.
Having support to research, identify, and organize funding opportunities doesn’t just save time. It transforms something that feels impossible into something actionable. It takes the weight of “I don’t even know where to start” and turns it into a clear next step, which is all most of us need.
Are you ready to start working together to understand funding opportunities and how to reach the next level in your business?