Books
Add cover
Ghostwrite, copyedit, cover, and launch. Manuscript to a live listing.
For nonprofits, founders, creators, and entertainment
I turn expertise, ideas, and stories into their strongest case.
You're already doing work that matters. I find what makes it essential, and build the case that gets it understood, felt, and acted on.
Shantell L. Steve, Sc.M.
~$0K
Secured in 2026.
$0M+
Secured by teams I've worked on.
0 yrs
Reading people, then building for them.
No one can promise a grant. I make the case as strong as the evidence allows, and tell you the odds first.
The Method
Most start with a template. I start with the lived experience.
Phenomenology is a research discipline. It studies how life actually shows up for a person, before anyone labels it, ranks it, or explains it away. The work is to set my own assumptions down and describe what is really there, in their terms, not mine.
Most strategy runs on what an organization assumes about the people it serves, or what a founder assumes about an audience. I run on how those people actually perceive and make meaning. That input is harder to reach and closer to true, so what gets built on it, the grant, the book, the system, feels made for the person on the other end.
01
See
Trained methods surface what people feel but can't easily put into words.
02
Name
Turn that felt idea into a clear definition other people can use.
03
Build
Design the grant, the narrative, or the system on top of it.
Anyone can format a proposal or draft a chapter. The rigor is in the seeing. That's the part no one can copy.
Selected work
Grants, books, campaigns. One question underneath: what makes this land?
Books
Add cover
31-page layout, cover, and production for a picture-book series.
Books
Add cover
A coloring book from my own imprint, Fostering a Path.
Creative & Media
Add image
With director Daniel Curtis Lee: pre-production, Osmo filming, and social-clip editing.
Production support
Film & podcast production
High-profile music and podcast productions
Grants & Research
Grant writing, donor and sponsorship packages, and a case for support for a new center.
Grant & fundraising strategy
Early learning nonprofit
Grants & Research
A letter of inquiry and a youth arts grant, built and submitted.
Grant development
Community youth foundation
Grants & Research
Interviews and frameworks across multi-site studies that shape policy.
Qualitative research
Field & systems research
The record
Peer-reviewed and published.
2024Kinship Care Landscape: What We Know, What We Don't, and Where to Go From HereLiterature review. Myers & Steve.Read
2023Youth Engagement for Washington StateFathallah, Myers, Bergstrasser & Steve.Report
2019Black Child Suicide: A ReportContributing author.Read
2018Social & Built Environments and Physical Activity in NYC AdultsPeer-reviewed. Brown University Digital Repository.Read
2018Exploring Racial Equity for Infants and ToddlersSargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law.Read
2017Handcuffs in HallwaysSargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. Co-author.Brief
2016Social Disorder in Adults with Type 2 DiabetesPeer-reviewed. With University of Chicago faculty.Read
Shop
Books & guides.
One live now. More shipping soon.
Fostering a Path Coloring Book
Phenomenology in Everyday Life
The Grant Narrative Playbook
About
Ten years finding what matters, and making the case for it.
I'm a behavioral and social health scientist. I came in with my own research and publications, then sharpened one method: reading how people perceive and make meaning, and building funding, systems, and stories around it.
I've put it to work with Think of Us, the PARC Lab at Loyola Marymount, and the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, and on national panels for the American Academy of Pediatrics and QIC-EY.
A few clients at a time. Each gets the whole method.
Education
- Sc.M., Behavioral & Social Health Sciences · Brown
- B.A., Sociology · University of San Diego
Method & certifications
- Micro-phenomenology · ISM
- Trauma-Informed Practice · ATN
- IDI Qualified Administrator
- CITI Human Research Subjects
Recognition
- Technical Reviewer · American Academy of Pediatrics
- Lived Expert Council · QIC-EY
- Peer-reviewed co-author · University of Chicago faculty
Let's work