Nakisha Adams

I've been working in the nonprofit field for over 10 years, though my company has been around for 7 years. I started out in corporate America, helping friends and family with grant writing on the side. At a networking event, a friend introduced me to someone who needed grant writing assistance. I was reluctant at first because I didn't want the work to conflict with my corporate job, but I helped as a favor and they got awarded the funding they were seeking. This led to introductions to other individuals who needed help in the grant writing field. I didn't want to turn anyone down because there were so many people with great missions doing nonprofit work and helping individuals in need. I had to make a choice whether to stay in corporate America or branch off and do this full-time. After some prayer and consideration, I left my corporate job and started my company, focusing on helping women-led companies, minority companies, and grassroots organizations that didn't have access to those types of resources. Since then, it has grown and now we help large nonprofit organizations. We not only do grant writing, but also strategic planning, fund development, and board development. Today, I'm not so much hands-on anymore - I have other individuals to assist me. My focus is more on guiding nonprofits, taking them from where they are to where they want to be, and overseeing development to make sure their missions are meeting the missions of funders they're interested in and ensuring they have the right people on their board. I've also focused more on the legal aspect because my background is law. I help develop policies and board bylaws, and I also help smaller organizations that don't have in-house counsel or HR representatives with things like drawing up NDAs, looking over employee handbooks, and even sitting in on employee onboarding.