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Like most artists, I supplement my creative work with other kinds of jobs. I have become a nonprofit development specialist with a special focus on grants management and communications. From proposal writing to fundraising, flyers to logos, postcards to album art, and small publications, I specialize in collateral for small businesses, musicians, artists, and nonprofits. I have garnered valuable skill and experience with fundraising, event planning, grant writing, and project management. I have successfully raised private donations, corporate support, and foundation and government grant monies for small to large organizations in Los Angeles. 

There are also unexpected events in one’s life that lead to new paths. For me, this has been undertaking the stewardship of my mother’s journey with Alzheimers’ since 2012 and the sudden death of my father from cancer at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Not to mention last year, my brother was hit by a car during an unsupported bike race, sustaining serious life-changing injuries that had him in ICU for a week, followed by a hospital and rehab stay. The shorthand is I have learned a shitload about caregiving and its bureaucratic systems. The poetic longhand lies in bearing witness to my father’s quick leave of this earth and the long goodbye of my mother, who is, as I type, in the final stages of her dementia. Embrace the suck as my pops used to say. This, I have. And Boy, howdy!

I am a problem-solver. I put this at the feet of being a Veteran’s daughter with a college education. I know how to move paperwork. I have a big heart. I don’t want others to go through what I have gone through. Probably to the detriment of my own mental and physical health I jumped too soon and decided to become a Death Doula through Alua Arthur’s Going with Grace death doula training and end-of-life training course . If you need help figuring out how to navigate end-of-life concerns and planning, elder care caregiving systems (especially as it relates to Dementia), paperwork filing for your Veteran and family, and goddamn Grief, I’m your gal.

Please contact me here for my rates and further information. No one turned away for lack of funds. In solidarity, Kelly Marie Martin