About Me

Hi! I’m Kaden. After almost five years practicing environmental and public agency litigation, I decided to add grant writing to my repertoire. I enrolled in a grant-writing course, studied carefully, and started offering my skills to nonprofits. Now I’m working as a freelance grant writer, helping organizations like yours connect with funders in order to create a kinder and more interdependent world.

A life-long learner, I was a nerdy kid who spent a lot of my free time researching and reading about the various things I found interesting (dolphins, wolves, ancient Egypt, anime…to name a few). I cut my teeth writing analytical blog posts about my favorite TV shows, and these things joined together into a Sociology degree in undergrad. After working in HR to pay the bills, I went to law school in 2018 because I wanted to better understand how the world worked. And as I became glued to my news feed in the wake of the 2016 election, it seemed to work on the courts’ timeline.

In law school, my reading, writing, and research skills served me yet again. Being a lawyer demands strong reading comprehension (reading complex and sometimes poorly written legal opinions to understand how the law applies to your client’s situation), persuasive writing skills (convincing both the judge and your opposing attorney that you’re right), and a sharp, analytical mind (actually being right!). It requires careful attention to detail, adherence to strict deadlines, and knowing how to take your clients’ needs and circumstances and frame them, accurately and persuasively, to persuade a judge to find in your client’s favor.

Now I bring that same appetite for excellence and attention to detail that serves me as a lawyer to grant writing. Writing grant applications, I get to listen closely to my clients and learn the ins and outs of different causes and issues, and frame those things in a way persuasive to funders. I see it as translation, from your language to the funders’ language, in much the same way that lawyers translate the ordinary to the legal, and then back again. I love the process of working collaboratively with my clients to craft their organization’s story in a way that’s accurate, authentic, and accessible. And, of course, that gets grants!

I was born and raised in California, where I earned a B.A. in Sociology at UC Santa Barbara and a law degree at UC Law SF (formerly UC Hastings). I moved to Portland, Oregon in 2023 and completed the week-long Grantsmanship Training Program (from The Grantsmanship Center) in January 2025.