Her Story
About Karen
I founded my company, NexLevel Strategic Partners LLC, four years ago after working for the Small Business Administration doing EIDL. During that time, I noticed that a lot of small businesses did not have proper structure and foundation to their business, which caused them to have a lot of issues when it comes to having the necessary documents, paperwork, and everything to get not just loans, but also grants. Now I provide strategic planning, program management, and development to nonprofit organizations. I also help them become grant-ready, and I write some grants. A typical day in the office is just in front of my computer, doing a lot of writing, doing a lot of development, a lot of creative thinking, and coming up with ways to help nonprofits grow and reach the goals that they've set for themselves. I do a lot of communicating back and forth with founders. One of my most notable achievements was helping a particular nonprofit receive grants that they weren't able to get before, and also expanding a program that they had from one year to year-round. Instead of doing the program once per year, I was able to get them to see the benefit in doing it three times per year. I'm a background person, so I like to be the one to do everything in the background and kind of stay out of the limelight. I advocate for organizations and for people and for businesses more than I advocate for myself.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Karen
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Make sure you have a hard line. One thing about the nonprofit space is people, nonprofit founders who are running these organizations, they're always looking for someone to give up their time. You have to decide what your time is worth. You have to have some boundaries. It's not always about the money, it's a lot more about the service that you can provide to someone, and that person will look at what you've given to them, what you've helped them with, and that'll be more valuable to you and to that person more than money. But there has to be a line. There has to be a boundary where you're not just gonna continuously just give and give yourself away, but have something that comes back to you in return.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge is that I do a lot of volunteer work because one of the biggest challenges that nonprofit organizations have is funding. They're not able to get the funding they need to pay for someone like me to help them with what they need. So instead of just completely telling them no, I'll volunteer some of my time to them. The biggest challenge is finding organizations that could use the type of services that I can provide and them being able to financially be able to receive those services.
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