Julie Hughes is the grant writer at M2 Consulting. She came to the work from an unusual direction — not out of a development office, but out of the books. Bookkeeping has been her occupation for eighteen years, and she has overseen the books for more than thirty different clients in that time. Her current post is office manager at Scotlyn’s Yard Landscaping, LLC, the most recent of many.
The grant work is not new either. She has secured funding for local causes across these mountains — the Highlands Hurricane Swim Team, Kaylee’s Closet for foster care children in Franklin, Community Bible Church, and the local Angel Tree project — building donor relationships and researching funders alongside the writing itself.
That background matters more than it first sounds. A grant proposal is really two documents pretending to be one: a narrative that has to move a reader, and a budget that has to survive a close look. Most writers are strong at one end of that. Julie has spent her working life at both — keeping accurate books on one hand, and on the other writing the advertising, newsletters, new employee applications, and daily client correspondence a working business runs on.
She served seven years as a Children’s Ministry Director and has worked in other ministries and nonprofit organizations besides, which is the third thing this work asks for: knowing from the inside what a small mission-driven team can honestly promise a funder, and what it actually takes to deliver on it.
Away from the desk, Julie has taught dance in Highlands, Franklin, and Cashiers — taking something intricate and breaking it into steps a person can follow, then staying patient until it lands. It is the same instinct a good proposal runs on.
She lives in Glenville, North Carolina, up in the mountains of Jackson County, and writes for nonprofits and mission-driven teams across western North Carolina and beyond.