About Sunflower Grant Writers
My name is Katie LeDoux and I am the Founder and Executive Director of Sunflower Grant Writers, a unique company based out of Omaha, NE.
My friends would describe me as dedicated, creative, diligent, and festive. At Sunflower, my team and I provide highly personalized grant research and grant writing services to primarily large organizations –both nonprofit and mission driven for-profits. And through our Grant School 101 we help smaller organizations looking to do more of the work themselves achieve success on their terms.
Mission
We help purpose-driven leaders—including nonprofits, mission-driven businesses, and communities—secure funding through smart strategy, bright storytelling, and a collaborative, joyfully festive approach to every grant.
We meet you exactly where you are—honoring your journey, building on your strengths, and guiding you from gritty beginnings to dream filled next steps—transforming hard-earned resilience into sustainable success and bold, future-focused impact.
Inspired by the rootedness and adaptability of the sunflower, we believe in growing together, turning toward the bright light of opportunity, and thriving wherever we are planted.
Vision
We envision a world where purpose-driven organizations of all kinds—nonprofits, businesses, and communities—have the tools, confidence, and support to secure funding, strengthen their impact, and thrive independently.
Through joyful collaboration and by meeting each client where they are, we help leaders grow into what’s possible—building strong, sustainable futures for the communities they serve.
Like sunflowers, we believe in community, connection, and the power to stretch for the stars.
Sunflower Values
Integrity
We are honest, transparent, and ethical in our recommendations, our writing, and our stewardship of client information and funds.
Innovation
We adapt quickly, think creatively, and design grant strategies that respond to changing funding landscapes and community needs.
Accountability
We own our work, meet deadlines, and maintain strong internal quality controls so clients can rely on what we deliver.
Dependability
We show up consistently, communicate clearly, and stay with our partners throughout the funding lifecycle.
Collaboration – We listen deeply, co-create solutions with clients and partners, and honor the language and lived experience of the communities they serve.
Joyful Flair
We add warmth, wit, and a celebratory touch to the serious work of securing grant funding.
What drives us
Customer service
At SGW, we are dedicated to simplifying the grant writing process, ensuring it is both effective and enjoyable for all our partners. We tailor our approach each time, focusing on securing the funding you need to advance your important goals. Consider us your newest team member, committed to your success from start to finish.
Giving back
Sunflower Grant Writers is committed to pledging 1% of profits every year back to a nonprofit in the way of donated grant writing services. In 2024, our nonprofit partner is RISE.
More about Katie
Katie LeDoux, MPP
Founder & CEO
Katie LeDoux has spent her career helping big ideas find the resources they need to become reality.
A St. Louis native and graduate of Duke University and the George Washington University, Katie began her career in Washington, D.C., where she spent 18 years at two of the nation’s leading cultural institutions: the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
During those years, Katie developed the research, writing, fundraising and project-management expertise that would eventually become the foundation for Sunflower Grant Writers. Her work included helping secure funding and plan the acclaimed Clarice Smith Distinguished Lectures in American Art; managing the Wall of Remembrance, a public art project honoring the victims of September 11; developing public programming and the first audio tour for a major George Catlin exhibition; and helping plan the Kennedy Center’s first complete production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.
After moving to Omaha with her husband in 2017, Katie saw an opportunity to use that experience differently. She founded Sunflower Grant Writers in 2019 with a simple belief: organizations doing important work deserve access to exceptional strategy, storytelling and funding expertise.
What began with Katie has grown into a multidisciplinary team serving nonprofits, communities and businesses across the country. Under her leadership, Sunflower has helped clients secure more than $21 million in funding for projects spanning youth development, arts and culture, workforce development, agriculture, health care, community development and more. The firm’s work includes private, corporate, state and federal funding, as well as grant strategy, research, reporting, strategic planning and organizational capacity building.
Today, Katie leads Sunflower’s strategy and growth while remaining deeply connected to the people and organizations behind the work. She believes the best grant partnerships aren’t simply about winning an award—they’re about helping organizations become stronger, tell their stories more effectively and build the resources they need to create lasting impact.
Katie is proud to call Omaha home and even prouder of the team and community that have helped Sunflower grow from an idea into the company it is today.
- Katie was featured in the December 2021 issue of the AAUW Omaha Newsletter
- Nebraska Business Development Center – Sunflower Grant Writers profile