Getting the Money for your Next Project

00:00:00:04 – 00:00:03:19
David Martin
This is the good Government show.

00:00:03:23 – 00:00:09:35
Adrian Spencer
We’re the largest aggregator of grants and funding in the world.

00:00:09:40 – 00:00:16:27
Adrian Spencer
Because grants don’t fund organizations, they fund projects.

00:00:16:32 – 00:00:24:08
Adrian Spencer
And so we say to people that grants aren’t everything, but they’re not nothing.

00:00:24:12 – 00:00:31:17
Adrian Spencer
We like to think of grants as a team sport. It’s much better when it’s done as a team.

00:00:31:22 – 00:00:36:43
Adrian Spencer
Grants are a barometer of public policy.

00:00:36:48 – 00:00:43:14
Adrian Spencer
Previously, I was a geologist. I worked in outback Australia looking for copper gold mines.

00:00:43:19 – 00:00:54:25
Adrian Spencer
It’s very rare that we ever meet anyone in government that’s not passionate about making a difference. It’s not passionate about what they do and the ability to have the impact that they have.

00:00:54:30 – 00:01:02:15
Adrian Spencer
You know, nobody’s sitting back going, well, what happened yesterday was good enough for today. So let’s just let’s just settle for that.

00:01:02:20 – 00:01:21:21
David Martin
A company called Grant guru helped to secure close to $1 billion in grant dollars. That’s $1 billion. Coming up on today’s episode, a conversation about how to get those dollars for your city. Welcome to the Good Government show. I’m Dave Martin. First, help us share the message of good government by liking us and sharing us where we are on social media.

00:01:21:23 – 00:01:41:20
David Martin
Make sure to review us and share our show everywhere. We all need to talk about good government. Today’s show is all about money. Finding money and raising money. If you work in a city or county or anyone in government, be prepared to take notes. I met the folks at Grant guru at the National League of Cities Conference in Washington, and what an eye opening conversation.

00:01:41:22 – 00:02:12:25
David Martin
Adrian Spencer is the director, co-founder and CEO of Grant guru. They find money. There’s money out there, money for government to fund all those projects they want, and there are ways to go about it. But in the end, there is money available, money for projects every local government wants to get done. So coming up, Australian and our first Australian guest, Adam Spencer of Grand Guru, if you work in government, be prepared to be a hero after you listen to the show.

00:02:12:30 – 00:02:39:14
David Martin
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00:02:39:14 – 00:03:03:39
David Martin
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00:03:03:41 – 00:03:12:41
David Martin
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00:03:12:46 – 00:03:31:04
David Martin
Once you wrap up this episode of The Good Government Show, give a listen to our friends over at Good News for lefties. This daily podcast highlights news stories that show there’s more good news out there. Other people in government are really trying to do the right thing. That’s good news for lefties. Listen where you’re listening now.

00:03:31:08 – 00:03:42:13
David Martin
Welcome to the Good Government show. I have with me a guest, Adrian Spencer. He is the CEO and co-founder of an organization called Grant guru. And as I understand it, you find government grants.

00:03:42:15 – 00:03:45:24
Adrian Spencer
Can I dive? Yes. That’s right. And we find lots of them.

00:03:45:24 – 00:03:47:51
David Martin
Good. I’m sorry.

00:03:47:55 – 00:03:51:02
Adrian Spencer
That is an Australian accent. Loud and clear.

00:03:51:07 – 00:03:56:07
David Martin
I’ve been with a few Australians, had a few bars after a rugby match. So good day. Go ahead. Sorry.

00:03:56:09 – 00:04:10:35
Adrian Spencer
Yeah. We’re the largest aggregator of grants and funding in the world. So we go and find out everything that’s available at government, federal, state, local and also non-government. So all the trust and foundation, philanthropic funding and everything else that might be private funding.

00:04:10:35 – 00:04:21:08
David Martin
So how much money is out there for government that needs to find additional funding? Because, you know, here we are in 2026 and there’s been a lot of federal dollars that have been cut.

00:04:21:10 – 00:04:25:56
Adrian Spencer
Yeah, the numbers are mind boggling. So in the US there’s $23,000.

00:04:26:00 – 00:04:31:29
David Martin
Remember this is the good government show. We want people to feel good. So so keep that focus. Go ahead.

00:04:31:31 – 00:04:32:59
Adrian Spencer
I’m going to get to the good news.

00:04:33:04 – 00:04:34:05
David Martin
Please go ahead.

00:04:34:12 – 00:04:55:32
Adrian Spencer
There’s a positive spin on this. I mean, there’s 23,000 government grants that are available. And there’s also non-government grants that are available as well. And I think the problem is we’ve come out of sort of 12 months of, let’s call it turmoil and things closing and things changing. And I think that we’re going to we’re going to move to the other side of that now because, you know, government programs close to make way for government programs that are going to open.

00:04:55:32 – 00:05:14:29
Adrian Spencer
And that’s where we’re starting to sort of cast our vision, and that’s what we’re starting to look. And this is not an unusual pattern around the world. So we see this happen with governments in different countries where a new government will come in and they will make some pretty strong changes. They will shut down existing programs, change how it works, and it will take they normally say six months.

00:05:14:29 – 00:05:23:47
Adrian Spencer
It ends up being 18 months. But the good news is, if you’re looking into that horizon and saying what’s coming down the pipeline, let’s get ready for it, then it’s an opportunity.

00:05:23:50 – 00:05:42:25
David Martin
You look at organizations that have had major federal dollars cut grants for the arts. Forget about Voice of America. That’s a whole other issue. But arts money, environmental protection money, libraries, how are they making up the huge shortfall?

00:05:42:27 – 00:06:05:04
Adrian Spencer
Yeah, I’m not saying that’s good news. And obviously and obviously, you know, everyone’s feeling that that pain and some more than others. And that’s that’s upsetting because that has a tangible impact on the ground at a personal level. But the other thing is we travel around the country. A lot of people are saying to us, look, we probably got a little bit lazy.

00:06:05:06 – 00:06:20:17
Adrian Spencer
We probably started to rely on the funding that was always there, and we presumed it would always be there. And as they started to lift their eyes up and go, we can’t just fish in the one pond, they’re discovering that there are other ponds of funding. What they have to do is be able to find those and tap into that.

00:06:20:17 – 00:06:26:10
Adrian Spencer
Sometimes it might not even be government funding, it might be private funding or vice versa, depending on where people have been looking.

00:06:26:12 – 00:06:43:59
David Martin
Let’s just talk about libraries, because here on The Good Government Show, we’ve done a few library stories and, you know, they massively cut the budget for libraries. And and you know, for me, I would argue that libraries are just one of the purest forms of good government. You can do anything you wanted a library, take a shower, get fire taxes, start a business.

00:06:44:04 – 00:06:51:23
David Martin
You know all this stuff. How can you help a library that’s had their federal dollars cut? And is their money out there for that kind of thing?

00:06:51:23 – 00:07:11:00
Adrian Spencer
So if we looked at that as an example, we would break it down because grants don’t fund organizations. They fund projects. Okay. So we would say, okay, what are the projects that the library might be offering? Is it literacy? Is it access? Is it? We know they run a whole raft of things. So we would start to look at those project by project items.

00:07:11:05 – 00:07:36:46
Adrian Spencer
What we would find is the private foundations would fund a whole raft of activities that surprised us when we looked into it, because there are 500,000 private foundations in the US, of which 180,000 you can apply to to receive grant funding. And as we started to go through all of that data and look what was in there, we were pleasantly surprised at the coverage and the variety and the support that was available.

00:07:36:51 – 00:07:42:44
Adrian Spencer
Now, it doesn’t mean that everything’s going to be funded. Like we could never say that. We realize.

00:07:42:46 – 00:07:43:32
David Martin
Okay, good.

00:07:43:34 – 00:07:48:41
Adrian Spencer
But but we are starting to find, hey, there is stuff in there that you could tap into. And, you know.

00:07:48:46 – 00:08:03:09
David Martin
I don’t know if this is a good or a bad example, but you could say, hey, we can fund your your children’s storytelling. Yeah, exactly. So you could go in there and go, this is now the craft storytime hour. But but that’s how you break it down.

00:08:03:11 – 00:08:03:52
Adrian Spencer
That’s exactly right.

00:08:03:55 – 00:08:05:35
David Martin
Do you have a better example of libraries?

00:08:05:35 – 00:08:12:54
Adrian Spencer
We’ve got we’ve got good examples of sports grounds. Okay. Although that’s a funny one because we worked with one regional city who.

00:08:12:54 – 00:08:14:30
David Martin
Nobody’s going to build a cricket pitch.

00:08:14:35 – 00:08:33:38
Adrian Spencer
So I know this was this was, well, soccer we call the soccer football. And they managed to secure funding for for lighting. And it was interesting because they had done a whole lot of modeling. And they said, if we can have lighting on our sports ground, that it means we can get more use. Our local Rois are good.

00:08:33:41 – 00:08:51:52
Adrian Spencer
You know, we get we get more people coming in, spending money, all sorts of economic development impact. And they went ahead and they applied. They got the funding and they got the lighting, which was wonderful because it was a really small community. The funny thing about it was they forgot to apply for the funding for the poles to put the lights on.

00:08:51:56 – 00:08:55:42
Adrian Spencer
Okay. So they had to go back and apply again for some more funding.

00:08:55:42 – 00:09:06:36
David Martin
But so here in New York City, we’re here at the National League of Cities Conference in Washington. But back in New York we could use a lit rugby field. What? Can you help us out? Well, maybe we could talk about that later.

00:09:06:39 – 00:09:17:07
Adrian Spencer
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. It’s definitely funding for those sort of things. But I think, you know, if you’re talking New York, you know, we all know housing. We know all of the challenges that come off the back of that.

00:09:17:14 – 00:09:19:07
David Martin
We don’t have a lot of new land in New York City.

00:09:19:09 – 00:09:46:27
Adrian Spencer
You don’t know. Don’t know. Yeah. And so housing affordability. And so, you know, there are places, all most places around the country where we go and everybody’s putting their hand up still saying generally the same issues housing affordability, infrastructure, community services, health services, schooling and education. It’s the same. Everyone’s getting stretched. The funding is even when the funding is there, there are more and more people starting to apply, so it becomes more competitive.

00:09:46:32 – 00:10:01:50
Adrian Spencer
And so we don’t just say to people, look for other sources of funding. We encourage people to say, how can you be more competitive with that type of funding? And so we talk about things like impact assessment, and that’s come into vogue in the last ten years. And even before that, people were looking at social return on investment.

00:10:01:50 – 00:10:14:03
Adrian Spencer
And how do you start to measure intangible impact or improvements in an area and those sorts of things. When you do that in your grant applications, that starts to set you apart and make you more competitive for that funding.

00:10:14:06 – 00:10:21:15
David Martin
Do people make a mistake and ask for too much money in their in their grant, especially the first time around? How would you advise someone?

00:10:21:20 – 00:10:40:26
Adrian Spencer
I’ve been a grant assessor. We’ve won over $1 billion in funding ourselves, and we’ve said on the other side of the table and been grant assessors. So it’s interesting. There’s no right or wrong answer here, because I have seen people ask for $1 million and they couldn’t even get their budget to add up. And we went, we’re not even giving you $5,000 of taxpayer money.

00:10:40:35 – 00:11:04:39
Adrian Spencer
And then I’ve had people ask for $5,000 and do the most wonderful budget and the most incredible application, and we’re like, why didn’t you ask for more? Because we trust you. With this funding, you have to ask for the right amount of funding. You know that that is ultimately the most important thing is ask for the amount of funding that you need to make the project work, because if you’re successful, the funny thing is, or the scary thing is you need to deliver on what you’ve done.

00:11:04:39 – 00:11:16:57
Adrian Spencer
And sometimes people don’t think beyond the getting the grant or the fund. And then when they get it, they’re like, oh boy, I’m going to have to now suddenly figure out a way to make this work. And if you’ve undershot, it’s really hard to make that up.

00:11:17:00 – 00:11:19:54
David Martin
What’s the biggest mistake government makes when they apply for grants?

00:11:19:55 – 00:11:34:11
Adrian Spencer
I think when they apply for grants, it’s having enough time in this current climate. It’s being prepared because programs are opening when people aren’t expecting them and they’re closing with shorter time frames, and it’s really catching a whole lot of people on the back foot.

00:11:34:13 – 00:11:37:27
David Martin
Are you talking about government grants or private grants? Governments, okay.

00:11:37:30 – 00:11:56:12
Adrian Spencer
Especially federal ones. And everyone’s really upset about that. Everybody knows that this is a common problem. And so we sort of say, look, that’s one thing you can’t control. So let’s not get bogged down and getting too upset about that. Let’s rise above it and say, what can we do? And at the moment what we can do is we can get prepared for funding that’s coming down the pipeline.

00:11:56:19 – 00:12:16:49
Adrian Spencer
Doe have come out with a request for information that close before Christmas, said, we want to win. The US wants to win a global AI race, and to do that we need data centers. But to have data centers, we need power transmission. To do that, we need to have energy production. And so they’re already thinking and asking questions about how are we going to give out the billions of dollars across this country to do that?

00:12:16:54 – 00:12:35:17
Adrian Spencer
Now, if you wait till that program opens, then you’re going to just miss that race. You need to start collaborating with other levels of government, with industry, with community, working out your workforce development plan. Some of this is a six month to even perhaps a three year preparation time. So we’re encouraging people get ready. This is the positive news.

00:12:35:19 – 00:12:57:58
Adrian Spencer
You know there is funding coming. And even at a federal level, you sort of look at what Trump’s done with tariffs and everybody’s on the down about it. But you go this is natural. I remember when 1520 years ago when all the tariffs were being removed and everybody again was struggling the other way round. And so you go, well, if the manufacturing is going to come back to this country, you need a workforce, you need equipment, you need facilities, you need factories.

00:12:57:58 – 00:13:15:00
Adrian Spencer
And so you know, are you planning, are you getting ready? Are you starting to get aligned with all of the players that need to be able to make that work? So in short, I’d say getting ready and getting aligned and being able to jump on that funding when it opens, that’s probably the the most important message I want to tell people at the moment.

00:13:15:02 – 00:13:21:55
David Martin
What’s the first question city will ask you when you sit down with them and say, okay, we’re going to work together to get grants? What’s the first question to ask?

00:13:21:57 – 00:13:27:06
Adrian Spencer
They really want to know what’s really available and what am I missing? Okay. And I think.

00:13:27:21 – 00:13:28:40
David Martin
What’s the answer.

00:13:28:45 – 00:13:31:04
Adrian Spencer
Probably a lot potentially.

00:13:31:06 – 00:13:31:54
David Martin
Yes it a lot.

00:13:31:56 – 00:13:48:22
Adrian Spencer
I mean the pools big. But you know, just because there’s 23,000 government grants and 180,000 private foundations, you’re not going to be eligible for all of them. You’re not even going to be eligible for most of them. Then what they want to know is once they see this, this huge pond of funding, the question is, which ones can I get?

00:13:48:24 – 00:14:05:15
Adrian Spencer
And that’s where we’ve been building our technology for ten years, that we use around the world to say to people, we not only bring all the funding to bear, we really quickly help you to find the relevant programs because you don’t want to spend your time searching, you want to spend your time applying, and then you want to spend your time implementing.

00:14:05:16 – 00:14:09:22
David Martin
Have you been surprised by grants you found for people, for cities?

00:14:09:27 – 00:14:10:59
Adrian Spencer
Yeah.

00:14:11:04 – 00:14:14:35
David Martin
Do tell. This is a podcast we have all the time. You’d go ahead.

00:14:14:37 – 00:14:30:22
Adrian Spencer
I mean, it’s just unusual programs because we don’t, you know, we can’t remember them all. Okay, we’ve got a team of 30 people just looking after our data, and then we’ve got a team of another 12 people running our development and that side of things. And so I get my I get the email alerts that we provide, and I get them every day.

00:14:30:22 – 00:14:50:08
Adrian Spencer
And I have a look and I say, okay, wow, I just I didn’t know that was available or somebody will come and ask us for specific funding. It might even be really common. We had a really experienced economic developer that asked us. He said, well, I’m really interested in trails, funding for trails and bike paths. And he said, I know the program that’s out there and I’ve applied for it.

00:14:50:08 – 00:15:13:45
Adrian Spencer
And he said, there’s nothing else. And I said, let’s just have a look, but see if there’s anything else. And within two minutes, we found two other programs that fit exactly the category that he was in and what he was looking for. But that closed the week prior. And so I think the one aspect is going, there’s a lot of really interesting stuff out there, but it’s tracking it and maintaining it and being on top of it if you want to get it.

00:15:13:48 – 00:15:20:57
Adrian Spencer
I hate when somebody comes to us and we find the program and we say, hey, you’re a week light weight, 12 months. Maybe if it comes back.

00:15:20:59 – 00:15:30:34
David Martin
This is a good government show. We’re talking with Adrian Spencer, the CEO of Grant guru, who finds grant dollars for cities, municipalities. What’s been your biggest success story?

00:15:30:35 – 00:15:56:36
Adrian Spencer
I think it’s cities came to us and they told us what they wanted and we built it. And what they said to us is they said, look, we like your system and we love all the grants and we’re finding lots of programs and this is wonderful. But people in our community, the for profit businesses and the nonprofit community groups keep coming with their hand out saying, give us money, often banging the table, and they’re so convinced that they deserve it above everybody else.

00:15:56:36 – 00:16:17:34
Adrian Spencer
And they tell us we just can’t fund everybody. And so they came to us and said, can we take your grants database? Can we make it public facing so white label it, put it on our website and we’ll promote it to the community. And so we listen to that feedback. We delivered that product. And that took off. Within five years 75% of all Australian cities had that product.

00:16:17:34 – 00:16:39:38
Adrian Spencer
And they had just changed the game. They had taken the weight off their shoulders, the burden of feeling like they had to support every business and every community group, and they enabled them to find and apply and win funding for themselves. And so the leveraging factor of bringing funding into their communities just started to shift the dial for what they were doing.

00:16:39:38 – 00:16:52:44
Adrian Spencer
So I think that is clearly the most successful thing that we’ve done that we really can’t take credit for, because we just listened to our market and we just delivered what they asked for us, and it was their innovation that drove that opportunity.

00:16:52:49 – 00:16:59:34
David Martin
Is grant funding different in Australia than it is in the US? The city, are they in similar?

00:16:59:39 – 00:17:00:08
Adrian Spencer
Similar?

00:17:00:10 – 00:17:00:37
David Martin
I say.

00:17:00:39 – 00:17:02:49
Adrian Spencer
All right. I say the word grant very broadly.

00:17:02:56 – 00:17:03:15
David Martin
Okay.

00:17:03:17 – 00:17:25:54
Adrian Spencer
That’s all right. And I would include in that grants and incentives. So it could be tax base incentives like research and development, job creation, workforce development. So it can be incentives, tax deductions, tax concessions, rebates, offsets, cash grants, anything that the person who’s applying for it would consider it to be cash or cash equivalent. We cover all of that.

00:17:25:54 – 00:17:32:59
Adrian Spencer
And so yeah, we have very, very similar programs across very similar sectors, industries and government.

00:17:33:06 – 00:17:36:35
David Martin
Does anyone nervous that the descendants of criminals are finding the money?

00:17:36:39 – 00:17:39:09
Adrian Spencer
Yeah. Well, I mean, it’s.

00:17:39:13 – 00:17:41:58
David Martin
You dig. Sorry. Well, we took it. Well, yeah.

00:17:42:01 – 00:17:57:52
Adrian Spencer
I mean, I’m thinking more daycare centers. Okay. And and I think there is always a challenge with, with fraud. And we work on the other side. We work with government to help them build robust systems so they can manage effectiveness at all levels of giving out funding.

00:17:57:52 – 00:18:11:49
David Martin
And are there dollars available at all levels? Are there is there something available for, you know, again, back to the local library and is there something available for the state association and the, you know, the city association? Can you find something at all levels? There is okay.

00:18:11:52 – 00:18:31:00
Adrian Spencer
So we work at city, county, state and there is funding at all those levels. It’s all different. You know, as we know a lot of the federal funding, once that’s turned into into a bill and legislated, then that’s distributed to the states. And that can be competitive or that can then be allocated by the states. But yes, we find there is something at all levels.

00:18:31:02 – 00:18:41:11
Adrian Spencer
Obviously, the lower the level you go, the smaller the amounts, but sometimes the more diverse types of funding and sometimes there are just more programs available as well.

00:18:41:14 – 00:18:53:18
David Martin
There is someone listening to this program right now who has said, oh my God, I try to get grant money. It’s ridiculous. There’s too many hoops to go through. It’s not worth the effort. I just gave up. Yeah, I’m sure you’ve heard that. What do you say to those folks?

00:18:53:20 – 00:18:55:37
Adrian Spencer
I agree, it’s not. It’s not free money.

00:18:55:37 – 00:18:58:46
David Martin
It’s not the. That’s not the answer I expected, but okay.

00:18:58:49 – 00:19:17:02
Adrian Spencer
I know everybody speaks to say, hey, it’s just this free pot of money and go crazy. And we say, no, there’s an opportunity cost. And if you don’t measure that opportunity cost, then it’s going to it’s going to really mess with you. It’ll blow you out of the water. And so we say to people, the grants aren’t everything, but they’re not nothing.

00:19:17:02 – 00:19:39:03
Adrian Spencer
And so we encourage a really balanced approach. And everybody has different capacity to apply and quit their funding. So you’ve got to measure the cost before you jump in. And so we say to people, we say just do what works for you. And that might be one grant a year. It might be ten grants a year. But also look at who your team is, who your support is, who’s going to help you with it.

00:19:39:15 – 00:19:56:00
Adrian Spencer
You might find it and want to apply for it, but are you a one man band? Do you have to do the application, the finance, the reporting, the acquittals, the monitoring all by yourself? Or do you have people that you can draw in to help you manage and delegate that work? And we we like to think of grants as a team sport.

00:19:56:02 – 00:20:13:27
Adrian Spencer
It’s much better when it’s done as a team. And we say to people, even bring in those people who, you know, can help you because you always know somebody who’s good at writing and you always know somebody who’s good at numbers. And so, you know, somebody who’s good at helping you build the case study and helping you to know how to quit it.

00:20:13:27 – 00:20:35:12
Adrian Spencer
So the more thought and structure you put into that, the more efficient you get. Because some people say to us, well, I’ve got my funding. That’s kind of it. You know, I’ve got my share. But from a grant making point of view, once you’ve won funding and you’ve acquitted it well, man, you’ve ticked their boxes. It’s easier for them to give you funding of somebody else to give you funding next time around, because you’re a safe bet.

00:20:35:14 – 00:20:47:25
David Martin
Yes you can. You always been vetted, right? Right. Exactly. You mentioned writing. You said some people you can always find somebody who’s a good writer. Is there a code? Is there a formula that like a key to unlock grant writing.

00:20:47:30 – 00:21:08:39
Adrian Spencer
This sure is stopped by answering the question. Okay, you know, the forms these days, they’re very prescriptive. And there will be guidelines. There will be FAQ, there’ll be information on the website. You know, I think it’s all basic stuff, but you’ve got to read that. Stick to your guide limits. The temptation is just to copy and paste from what you’ve got because it’s quicker and easier.

00:21:08:39 – 00:21:31:25
Adrian Spencer
Or the temptation nowadays is just to use AI to fill in that part of the section and we go, look, that’s okay as a starting point, but you have to make sure you have tailored your application to the funder policy. We say we have a saying. We say that grants are a barometer of public policy. So whatever the government of the day is trying to achieve, that will be reflected in the reason why that program exists.

00:21:31:28 – 00:21:53:19
Adrian Spencer
And if you can look at that and look at your project and show where the alignment sits, then you set yourself up for success. And that means you have to tailor each application. Maybe not the, you know, what’s the organization and what’s your street address, but the section that’s specifically asking you for this funding tailor that bit, get it right and meet their criteria.

00:21:53:24 – 00:21:58:22
David Martin
They’re asking for, you know, what your program on youth sports don’t talk about your men’s league. Yeah, that’s.

00:21:58:34 – 00:22:03:35
Adrian Spencer
That’s exactly right. Spot on. And it’s look it sounds simple, but.

00:22:03:40 – 00:22:05:57
David Martin
How often do you see things not filled incorrectly?

00:22:06:11 – 00:22:08:13
Adrian Spencer
All the time. What happens is.

00:22:08:21 – 00:22:08:57
David Martin
So reading is.

00:22:08:57 – 00:22:30:26
Adrian Spencer
Important, reading is important. And people suffer from this thing we call grants fatigue. And it’s simply that you start off with a lot of energy in your first two pages in your application are going to be wonderful because you’re fresh and you’ve probably read them five times, you know, from five interruptions. And as you get through to the end of the application is that it’s that last 20% of effort that you put in that will make all the difference.

00:22:30:29 – 00:22:54:11
Adrian Spencer
And so we say to people, persevere. Be patient, have courage to do that. One last read through and just put a little bit of polish and finesse on your application and take the time. And that will elevate you because it’s a competitive environment. And so you’re not just trying to fill in the form, you’re trying to fill in the form and show that your merit, you can hit the merit criteria better than somebody else.

00:22:54:13 – 00:22:55:49
David Martin
Where did you get this idea?

00:22:55:54 – 00:23:17:50
Adrian Spencer
So I worked at Ernst and Young for for five years. They brought I was previously I was a geologist. I worked in outback Australia looking for copper gold mines. And I met my wife and and I thought, well, I’d be nice to be home once in a while. So I changed careers. I worked at Ernst and Young, and they trained me up as an R&D tax consultant.

00:23:17:55 – 00:23:36:32
Adrian Spencer
And then I got a little bit bored just doing one program. So I said, hey, why don’t we find other programs? And we did that a little bit. And then in 2006, my wife and I decided to launch our own business, Grant guru, and we said, you know what? Well, we’re grant writing. Let’s offer all of our clients a list of what else they might be missing out on.

00:23:36:32 – 00:23:53:38
Adrian Spencer
And all of our competitors found out about that and said, hey, can we license that product off you? So we turned Grant guru into a publicly licensed product. We did it for the business community. We did it for nonprofit community groups, and we did it for government.

00:23:53:38 – 00:24:08:33
David Martin
And I see here on your cheat sheet that I have in front of me, you found a point $6 trillion in grants for local government, for over 8000 grants for government for 3.6 trillion. Is that correct?

00:24:08:47 – 00:24:13:32
Adrian Spencer
That’s not how much we won. That’s how much we found to be advisable. Okay, I.

00:24:13:32 – 00:24:14:42
David Martin
Think that’s a lot of money.

00:24:14:44 – 00:24:20:46
Adrian Spencer
Yeah, it’s not short changed. It’s. It blows us away. What’s out there? And look, I think.

00:24:20:51 – 00:24:37:50
David Martin
Like $662 billion for non-profits. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So you know what you’re doing? Yeah. All right, so here’s your opportunity. How do people connect with you? How do they hook up with you for to get Ahold of you, to get their share of $3.6 trillion?

00:24:37:52 – 00:24:51:23
Adrian Spencer
Yeah. They can just jump on to Grand Guru forward, slash us, or we’ll give you a link so they can connect with Craig, who looks after all of our US clients and potential clients. And we’re really happy just to have a chat.

00:24:51:28 – 00:24:56:56
David Martin
Sitting here to our left, is he nodding his head the whole time, pointing to him.

00:24:57:01 – 00:25:07:10
David Martin
So Adrian Spencer, the CEO of Grand Guru, we’re going to get. That was the easy part. We’re going to get to the tough questions. Just a minute. Wow.

00:25:07:15 – 00:25:31:01
David Martin
The Good Government show is sponsored by our. That’s. Oh you are for our community. Get involved. We hear that all the time from government leaders. Our co brands with your governments name and logo. Your staff and the people you serve are connected and part of your community. From any device. Your members provide reliable data and meaningful feedback. Ask a question like do we want more parkland or better homeless services?

00:25:31:01 – 00:25:42:46
David Martin
More engaged conversations come through the our app, visit our code that’s and book a demonstration.

00:25:42:51 – 00:26:12:01
David Martin
After you get done with this episode. Hear more good government stories with our friends at How to Really Run a City for members Kasim Reed of Atlanta and Michael Nutter of Philadelphia, and their co-host, journalist and author Larry Platt talk with guests and other mayors about how to really get stuff done in cities around the nation. Check them out where you’re listening now or through their nonprofit news site, The Citizen.

00:26:12:06 – 00:26:29:24
David Martin
So we’re talking with Grant guru CEO Adrian Spencer. So this is a question that I ask lots of different people across the nation. You’re actually the first Australian. So welcome. What is good government. Can you define that. And is good government different in Australia than it is in America?

00:26:29:27 – 00:26:51:29
Adrian Spencer
It’s a question that we wrestle with. We all use different words to, to express this, this same sort of question. And it’s interesting because, you know, I was listening this morning at one of the sessions and somebody put it really quite succinctly and they said, you know, it’s almost the ability for us to not be noticed or also to get out of the way so that our communities can be self-sufficient.

00:26:51:30 – 00:27:15:50
Adrian Spencer
And I kind of thought, gee, there’s a lot in that, because, you know, we have a lot of government people in our team, and we spend a lot of our time working with thousands of government users. We have 100,000 people and organizations that use our products and services. And so we sort of get to, you know, scratch a bit behind the scenes and have a look and see what’s happening and what they’re doing.

00:27:15:50 – 00:27:26:47
Adrian Spencer
And I think we haven’t. It’s very rare that we ever meet anyone in government that’s not passionate about making a difference. It’s not passionate about what they do and the ability to have the impact that they have. And I think that.

00:27:26:49 – 00:27:28:04
David Martin
Is that the same in both countries?

00:27:28:06 – 00:27:46:22
Adrian Spencer
Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. And we look and we do work in New Zealand, Canada, Europe. So we get to see this sort of everywhere. And everybody’s struggling with the same challenges. It’s having hope. And it’s that ability to say there’s a way forward and there’s a way to solve the problems. Because when the problems we cover overwhelming, then you lose hope.

00:27:46:24 – 00:28:07:06
Adrian Spencer
You become despondent, and then you go, I hate my job. I can’t make a difference. And, you know, maybe I’m part of the problem and not part of the solution. But we invariably find as we travel around the world, everyone’s upbeat and really keen to look for new ideas and look for new solutions to make a difference, to transform their communities, to lift up the most vulnerable and allow success to grow.

00:28:07:06 – 00:28:15:08
Adrian Spencer
And we all know what success looks like because we see it in our communities, you know. And when we don’t see that, we go, okay, this is not successful.

00:28:15:11 – 00:28:19:51
David Martin
Who inspires you that you’ve met in government? Do you find people that inspire you? Yeah.

00:28:19:54 – 00:28:42:57
Adrian Spencer
I do. You know, a number of them have just come and worked for us. They said, hey, we’re so passionate about transforming the communities that we see around the world. We want to come and work with you and be part of that. And for me, that’s truly inspiring because they’re putting their money where their mouth is and they’re saying, we want to bring all of our knowledge, all of our experience, and we want what what we do in Grand Guru to be even better.

00:28:42:57 – 00:29:01:43
Adrian Spencer
And it’s we had bushfires just a couple of weeks ago in Australia. And one of our team, she just said, look, that’s really touched me. She said, I just want to go into that community and I want to volunteer for a week. And I’m like, man, you need to go do that. You know, whatever support you need to do that, let’s, let’s do that.

00:29:01:44 – 00:29:21:35
Adrian Spencer
And so she went in and she said, look, I’m only one person. But she said, I want to partner with local government to create a buddy system so we can train people up in the community so that when I leave, because we know the impact of emergencies and disasters, you know, takes years to effectively resolve them and to have the solutions that are required.

00:29:21:35 – 00:29:44:20
Adrian Spencer
So she said, I want to set up a system that allows us to see that work long term. These are the people that really encourage and inspire me and as we travel around, always amazed at the people that I meet, the experience and the passion and the dedication and that just driving this whole sector forward, nobody’s sitting back going, well, what happened yesterday was good enough for today, so let’s just let’s just settle for that.

00:29:44:20 – 00:30:12:37
Adrian Spencer
And and I think that, you know, we come to conferences like this and we meet people who are saying, I just want to get a nugget, I want to learn something. I want to see something that I can take back home. And, you know, we’ve got a friend here in DC and we’re working with her, and she’s so passionate about the communities and seeing transformation in communities and saying, you know, we obviously have political masters, but how do we not let the politics get us bogged down in delivering good, right solutions, but still, you know, appease the people that we need to appease?

00:30:12:37 – 00:30:21:20
Adrian Spencer
And it’s that sort of inspiration and balance that we go, wow, we can all live with that. We can all take a higher view and a higher level to go. Let’s really solve problems.

00:30:21:20 – 00:30:28:05
David Martin
What’s the one thing you tell a municipality, a city, about getting started, especially a place that’s probably never done this yet.

00:30:28:07 – 00:30:28:29
Adrian Spencer
It’s so.

00:30:28:29 – 00:30:29:22
David Martin
Easy.

00:30:29:27 – 00:30:31:17
Adrian Spencer
You know, we can have them up and running.

00:30:31:26 – 00:30:37:02
David Martin
We’re just talking for half an hour. It’s easy. No problem. All right, just call Craig. He’ll take care of everything.

00:30:37:07 – 00:30:57:58
Adrian Spencer
Well, it’s interesting because, you know, we really tried to work on not being a burden to the people that we work with. We said, how do we come in and not create another seeing that people have to do. Yeah. And so what interestingly, what happened was we looked at all of our clients and looked at what they were doing well, and some of them were developing media releases to tell the community about the offering.

00:30:57:58 – 00:31:15:55
Adrian Spencer
Some of them were running great surveys, and we just have them all on the shoulder and said, hey, can we use these resources you’re creating and share them across our community? Everybody’s so generous. They said, yes. And so we have these. We don’t just have a product to sell, we have resources to share. They’re not our resources, but we’ve been given permission to give them.

00:31:15:55 – 00:31:19:24
Adrian Spencer
So people get these whole toolkits to make it quick and easy to roll these things out.

00:31:19:26 – 00:31:31:52
David Martin
So usually ask this question of mayors, but since you’re our first Australian from Melbourne, Australia, I’m going to ask you what is your favorite local dish? If I go to Melbourne, what’s the one thing I have to have talk about Melbourne for a bit.

00:31:31:56 – 00:31:53:36
Adrian Spencer
Well, I’ll tell you my daughter’s favorite dish. This is going to horrify horrify your listeners. But it’s kangaroo and she she just loves it. Medium kangaroo on a salad. But, you know, I’m fascinated by the dishes here, actually. Okay. I mean, I love lamb and we’ve got heaps of lamb in Australia, so lamb cutlets would have to be my favorite dish.

00:31:53:41 – 00:32:00:43
Adrian Spencer
But over here I love traveling to the cities, you know. You know, the Peter in Detroit is very different to the pizza in Chicago.

00:32:00:45 – 00:32:04:23
David Martin
So it’s not the pizza. It’s not the right thing. Maybe New Haven. Other than that.

00:32:04:26 – 00:32:21:44
Adrian Spencer
I love New York. Pizza is still my number one, and I got into New York a week and a half ago, and the first thing I did was I went and got some pizza from Joe’s Pizza, and I just thought, I’ve got to get some local. Yeah, it was great. But, you know, we spent a bit of time with southern Hospitality and the fried chicken and the collard greens.

00:32:21:46 – 00:32:30:43
Adrian Spencer
I’m like, man, this stuff is just amazing. I think Americans just excel in, you know, putting taste into food. It’s it’s incredible.

00:32:30:48 – 00:32:44:26
David Martin
I well, welcome to America. This is the good government show. We always try to end it on a good government project. Tell me about something that you were able to do through a grant that resulted in something that you’re like, wow, look what we did.

00:32:44:28 – 00:33:04:22
Adrian Spencer
You know, it’s interesting, the first one that we ever did that really sort of sticks with me. And and that was with with Craig. Back then, Craig wasn’t part of the business. He was our first client. And he came in and said, look, I work in a regional area. He said, there’s funding for a central business network that we’ve applied.

00:33:04:22 – 00:33:29:16
Adrian Spencer
We got $200,000. We ran training and mentoring for young people, young entrepreneurs. We ran sort of a program to teach them how to be able to network and how to be able to pitch, and then we ran two other programs out of that funding. That funding was transformational because it brought the whole business community together. It brought the entrepreneurial sector together, it brought the universities in, it brought local government in.

00:33:29:21 – 00:33:48:03
Adrian Spencer
And as a result of that, years later, Craig now is still the chair of startup Central Victoria, and that is become one of the most successful startup communities in all of Australia. And the amount of not just the amount of money that they’ve raised, but the projects that they’re delivering. You know, we all get to benefit from that.

00:33:48:03 – 00:34:12:52
Adrian Spencer
And so what was nice about that was it wasn’t a huge amount of money, it was $200,000. But we made it go a long way. But it was the whole of community collaboration across government, business, nonprofits and the university sector. I still love that. One of the fact that that was the first project that we did in the first application that we applied for, and that it’s still this was in 2006, and it’s still resonating and having impact today.

00:34:12:54 – 00:34:13:30
Adrian Spencer
I love it.

00:34:13:30 – 00:34:31:36
David Martin
That is good government, isn’t it? Yeah. Okay, good. We have been talking with Adrian Spencer, the CEO and co-founder of Grant guru. And sitting in the corner approving everything we’ve heard from is Grant Hunter. He’s the vice president of customer relations for North America. And he’s nodding his head. So I guess we did okay. All right. Thanks for coming on.

00:34:31:38 – 00:34:34:32
David Martin
Great to have you. Our first Australian guest. Good to have you.

00:34:34:33 – 00:34:35:48
Adrian Spencer
Thanks. I really appreciate it.

00:34:35:50 – 00:34:40:28
David Martin
Thanks very much. Thank you.

00:34:40:33 – 00:35:02:01
David Martin
The Good Government Institute has a new partner, the Charles F Kettering Foundation. I really like their podcast to context, and I bet you will too. They have a new series called Democracy Under Construction. The show is hosted by historian Alex Lovett, and he looks back at the first 250 years of U.S. history. Alex digs into the moments that have pushed us towards an inclusive democracy.

00:35:02:03 – 00:35:10:31
David Martin
You can find it where you’re listening right now, or visit Kettering and give them a follow.

00:35:10:36 – 00:35:28:30
David Martin
Want to hear more about good government? Check out another show I host Leading Iowa Good Government in Iowa cities. I host the show with Brad Kavanagh, mayor of Dubuque, Iowa, and the immediate past president of the Iowa League of Cities. Together, we talked to leaders in Iowa cities. We talk about what works and what good government looks like in Iowa.

00:35:28:33 – 00:35:38:18
David Martin
Join us right here. We’re listening. Now that’s leading Iowa. Good government in Iowa cities.

00:35:38:22 – 00:36:00:21
David Martin
It was called the War to End All Wars. But it didn’t. Three royal cousins, all kings, one from England, one from Germany and one from Russia blundered their way into a war, a completely avoidable war that left millions dead in the trenches across Europe. Good government show executive producer Jim Ludlow details the blunders, mistakes and bluster that started World War One that didn’t end all wars.

00:36:00:23 – 00:36:18:58
David Martin
The book The Royal Cousins details the events and creates an alternative history. Imagine if World War One never happened. It didn’t have to. Just read it yourself. Download the book today on Amazon. It’s just $0.99 and a timely look at history.

00:36:19:03 – 00:36:39:33
David Martin
There you go. A real primer on how to secure grant dollars for your city, your county, your government. A few things I never really thought about. Make sure after you get the funding for your next project, you’re able to complete the project and ask for the right amount of funding. And as I learned, getting the funding is just one step in a process to start and most importantly, finish a project.

00:36:39:33 – 00:37:00:25
David Martin
And you have to have a team that can help you not just apply for grants, but help see them through. Well, that’s our show. I hope you are taking notes. Good insight into the world of grant funding. There’s a lot of money out there and it’s available. Good advice from Adrian Spencer and the way Grant guru helps local government find funding for all those projects they need help to complete, and that’s good government.

00:37:00:27 – 00:37:24:33
David Martin
Well, that’s our show. Thanks for listening. Please like us and share some of your friends and review us right here. We’re listening and check out our website. Good Government show for extras. Help us keep telling stories of good government and action everywhere. Join us again for another episode right here. I’m Dave Martin and this is the Good Government show.

00:37:24:38 – 00:38:03:28
David Martin
The Good Government show is produced by the Good Government Institute, a nonprofit organization promoting civic engagement and civic education. All donations to the show help promote trust in government. You can donate at Good Govt Institute. That’s good govt institute. Executive producers are Jim Ludlow, Dave Martin that’s me and David Snyder. Jason Stershic is our editor and producer. Join us again to hear good stories about our government right here on The Good Government Show.

00:38:03:33 – 00:38:06:38
Narrarator
This podcast is part of the democracy Group.

**This transcription was created using digital tools and has not been edited by a live person. We apologize for any discrepancies or errors.