Introducing Congruent Grant Partners
I am excited to announce that I’m no longer a solopreneur and am partnering with Lukas Schroeder to launch Congruent Grant Partners. I have learned a lot in these last 16 months running Burke Hammons Consulting. While there are many things I love about being an entrepreneur — choosing my own approach, clients, and workload — I miss being part of a team. In past roles, I had peers to bounce ideas off, offer suggestions, and strategize with me about unusual situations for our clients. (For example, all of 2025!) More than that, I had team members with skills and experiences that complemented my own, which meant the work product was more comprehensive and higher quality.
Finding the right business partner is a big challenge, and I sought advice from my family full of entrepreneurs before committing to one. The big things I heard were: Trust. Mutual respect. Aligned values. Humor. Complementary skill sets. Lukas is at the top of a very short list of grant professionals I have worked with who fit all these characteristics.
Lukas and I met when we were both working remotely for another consulting firm and ended up working together on a large variety of projects. Practically from the very beginning, we clicked — our minds work similarly, but our experiences differ enough that we can inform each other’s work in reciprocal ways. When I left that job, I was already describing Lukas as one of a few grant professionals I had worked with whom I trusted to provide the same level of quality service to clients as I would.
After he also moved into freelance consulting, we would occasionally reach out to each other for advice and ended up subcontracting together at another consultancy as we worked to build our own client bases. Given how much we have continuously leaned on each other for support, this new partnership makes sense.
Lukas and I are confident that with Congruent Grant Partners, we will serve our clients more effectively with our combined experience. We are both problem solvers who entered this field because we care about equity. Both of us like to dig into the details of 990s, budgets, program data, and research, and we are both big-picture thinkers focused on long-term fundability and strategy. I’m likely to try to accomplish everything, everywhere, all at once, and he makes me pause and think about returns on effort. He can be laser-focused and detail-oriented, and I help him step back and approach problems from a broader perspective. We are both committed to the values of Community Centric Fundraising and have the same vision for our company — an intentionally small, boutique firm that provides exceptional, responsive service to clients whose values align with ours.
We are both looking forward to this new venture! To learn more, check out our new website with the links above.
– Meredith
