Monroe The Guru

Happy November, and cheers to the first Sunday of a brand new month! 🍂

There are only two months left in the year, but I’m choosing to see that as plenty of time, not a countdown. I’ve always loved the start of a new month because it feels like a reset; like a fresh chance to do all the things you meant to get to last month, without the guilt, and one more shot at finishing the quarter strong.

Speaking of finishing strong, here’s your Sunday monetization update: I’m about 90% of the way to my next milestone of 3,500 watch hours! 📈 We’re so close, and I’m grateful for every one of you who watches, comments, and shares. If you missed my last video where I answered YOUR comments, go catch up, because I loved reading every single one 🤍

Now I want to hear from you. What’s one thing you want to close out the year strong?

I’ll go first: My goal is to take care of my body from the inside out, and to be a lot more diligent about it. The older I get, the more I notice my body doesn’t bounce back the way it used to, so I’m getting intentional about the basics: stretching, drinking my water, eating well, and getting my 10K steps in every day. I don’t want to wait until January to start. I’d rather build these habits now, so I walk into the new year with them already in place.

Your turn 👇🏾

6 days ago | [YT] | 2

Monroe The Guru

Greetings, good day, and so sorry for the delay.

I truly took a moment for myself and I appreciate everyone who's been patient with me through it.

If you caught my last video, you probably noticed it's been quiet since. I lost my grandmother unexpectedly, and I needed to actually sit in that and process it instead of pretending I was fine and powering through like nothing happened.

The thing about seasons like this one: they don't ask permission before they show up.

One week you're in a rhythm, feeling good about where things are headed, and the next you're just... not. And I think the instinct is to treat that as a problem to fix immediately, like if you're not producing you're failing.

But I've been sitting with a different idea, that it's not about never going quiet, it's about choosing the quiet instead of just disappearing into it.

There's a difference between consciously stepping back to heal and unconsciously drifting so far you lose the thread entirely. I was doing the first one, on purpose, and I'm glad I gave myself that.

Now I'm easing back in, adjusting things as I go, but the goals haven't moved an inch. I'm still building toward everything I set out to do on these platforms, still hitting the milestones I set for myself, still working diligently toward monetization, and I want to be intentional about how I get there, not just fast.

If there's one thing I keep coming back to from my grandmother, it's this: no matter what was going on, she kept a smile on her face. She laughed, she loved hard, she gave, she served, she did what needed to be done, and then some.

That's the standard I'm holding myself to right now.

With her watching over me, I'm going to keep making her and my family proud, stick to the goals I set for myself, and figure out how to do that without losing myself in the process.

To everyone who left a comment or a shoutout while I was gone, I see every single one, and I'll be replying to you as soon as I can. Thank you for sticking around.

And since I'm rebuilding things with you in mind, I actually want to know:

Now that I'm back, what do you want more of?

talk soon :)

1 month ago | [YT] | 1

Monroe The Guru

Anyone else been paying attention to the impact these cuts are having on nonprofits, particularly Black and Brown spaces?

August is Black Philanthropy Month — a month dedicated to celebrating and strengthening Black giving and Black-led organizations. The urgency around that conversation hasn't let up. The federal funding cuts, DEI rollbacks, and eliminated grants that started hitting in 2025 are still very much being felt — and Black and Brown-led organizations, which were already underfunded before any of this, are continuing to bear the brunt of it.

What's made it even harder is that as federal dollars disappeared, organizations across the sector started turning to private foundations and institutional funders to fill the gap. 87% of foundations are now reporting increased demand for funding requests — which means more organizations are competing for the same pool of money. And in a space where Black and Brown-led organizations were already less likely to get funded, that increased competition makes access to resources even more out of reach for the spaces that need it most.

I work with nonprofits every single day, and what I'm seeing on the ground hasn't changed.


Have you or someone you know been impacted by the federal funding cuts to nonprofits?

Drop your thoughts in the comments — I want to know what you're seeing.

3 months ago | [YT] | 1

Monroe The Guru

Hey y'all 🤍

So I had a whole content plan ready to execute, and then life said… not so fast.

Mulan (fur baby, age 10) had some complications after her heat cycle, and when I took her to the vet, they thought it might be pyometra; I almost threw up right in the office. She was spayed within 24 hours of that appointment, and I've been in full dog mom recovery mode ever since.

She's okay, she's healing, and I haven't left her side. 🐾 And now that she’s feeling better, I feel better about getting back to it.

The videos are coming, and I'm excited about what's in the queue:

📚 Barnes & Noble book haul — I worked there over the holidays, used my employee discount irresponsibly, and came home with 30 books. Zero regrets.

⏰ Strategic time management for PMs juggling multiple initiatives — the follow-up to my time management video. We're getting tactical.

✍🏾 Subscriber question: What would I do as a new grant writer in 2026? — this one has been sitting in my drafts, and I'm ready.

🎥 Sharing life again: March to May 2026 — a little life update vlog era. It's been a minute.

Mulan says thank you for your patience. 🐶

4 months ago | [YT] | 10

Monroe The Guru

I thought I should reintroduce myself, hi. 👋🏾

I’m Deiona — grant writer, nonprofit strategist, project manager, and content creator now (young Deiona would be so confused).

I built Monroe the Guru because two things don't get talked about enough in our world: how to actually fund the work, and how to actually manage it once the money comes in. grants AND operations. strategy AND execution. the whole thing.

So whether you found me looking for grant writing tips, project management frameworks, nonprofit career advice, or you just liked my nails in the thumbnail… welcome. I'm glad you're here.

I post about nonprofit development, project management, systems, and the occasional latte recreation that i take way too seriously. stick around — it gets good. 🫶🏽

↓ now your turn — introduce yourself & tell me what brought you to this corner of the internet. 👀

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5 months ago | [YT] | 11

Monroe The Guru

👀 Quick rundown of what's coming this week:

Greetings, good day, and I hope everyone has been having a great (and long) weekend.

Took a much-needed day of rotting and reading yesterday; today I’m back in action, working on content. Let’s take a look at what I have in the works for this week:

👩🏽‍💻 TOMORROW: How to Land Your First Paid PM Role (Without Paid PM Experience) — inspired by ‪@stillconfused84‬ , breaking down the exact moves I'd make today.

🤔 WEDNESDAY: What I'd do if I was starting in PM in the next few weeks — lessons from where I was and where I'm at now.

🎈 SUNDAY: My 33rd birthday — overdue, but finally sharing my life again

📚 IN THE WORKS: B&N book haul (I miss the discount…so much)

Which one are you most excited for? 👇

5 months ago | [YT] | 1

Monroe The Guru

33rd; Jesus year. 🎈

I spent 2025 buried.

Entered the new year freshly fired from a job I thought I could trust, just moved back to NYC with no idea of how I was going to survive in a more expensive city, and questioned everything about my worth.

I kept myself hidden, ashamed by my struggles; I didn’t feel right being around anyone, but forced myself out of the house to keep up a brave face. I didn’t want my community to worry, and didn’t know how to be honest about how buried I truly was — I couldn’t handle this truth.

Until I realized this wasn’t the truth at all.

I had nothing to be ashamed of, and the fear was based on a lie I kept allowing that little voice in the back of my heart to push as my narrative; “you’re not worth it” almost became my truth, and I spent 2025 accepting it and rejecting it, telling the voice to shut up but then feeling like it was right. I cried more than I wanted to, and some days simply getting out of bed was a task.

But then I started to remember the moments God stepped in and said, “you’re planted, and I have you.” And for a while, I couldn’t distinguish between “planted” and “buried”, until I started leaning into God’s voice more. The dark, cold soil I believed was keeping me trapped was actually protecting me, giving me a space to grow — to evolve, even.

Now, I look back and see just how much God sustained me.

While I questioned my reality, He sent reminders of His truth. While I wrestled with how to keep going, He kept me through it all. When I never thought I could get to the other side of the chaos, He was there walking me through it. Now, 2025 seems so far in the past and I cannot believe how drastically different 2026 started for me.

33 didn’t mark Jesus’ death, but His rebirth. He transitioned from one life into another, and so much had to happen before a new life could begin. The pain He endured, the sacrifices He made, the life He gave up for the life He was destined to have…all of it happened AFTER the burying. And His resurrection is a reminder that He was actually never buried, but planted.

At 32 I was planted, and now at 33 the roots God spent enriching have allowed me to bloom.

Happy birthday to me.🎈

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6 months ago | [YT] | 11

Monroe The Guru

This weekend has gone by entirely too fast.

I'm typing this out at 5:41pm, and I am appalled by how I already have to start thinking about Monday.

Daylight savings swooped in, woke up confused, and feel like I've been playing catch-up all day.

But I am grateful.

I've asked for all the things I'm juggling, and now I've been asking for a way to juggle them all. I'm going to keep reminding myself to be gentle, to learn as much as I can, and to ask questions instead of keeping myself stuck.

And, I finally got my schedule in order, so I can get you all some videos.

But enough about me, how are y'all doing?

7 months ago | [YT] | 0

Monroe The Guru

End-of-Week Check-in | Here's where I'm at right now:

I'm juggling my new full-time job (which is honestly a little intimidating, and I'm still trying to get out of my head about it – I didn't realize how much it would actually take to readjust after not working for over a year).

On top of that, my consulting work came into the new year STRONG, and things haven't slowed down at all. And somehow, I'm still trying to make time to create content and build my platforms.

It's a lot. Like, a lot a lot.

But this morning? I spent time with God, got a devotional done, and I'm ready to map out my week, so I'll take that as a win 🙌🏾.

The truth is, it's been hard. Most of the struggle has been figuring out how to get my days to flow better now that I have completely new demands on my time and energy.

I'm trying to remain gentle with myself in the process, even when I feel like I should have it all figured out already.

I hope we're all walking into this week with the same mindset: determined, but gentle.


So, how are we feeling? How did your week go?

8 months ago | [YT] | 0

Monroe The Guru

Literally just finished journaling, and I was led to share what I wrote today:

To still be blown away by God is an honor.

I started tossing and turning at 4:48am [I’m type A, not too much on me], and after going in and out of sleep for roughly an hour, I rolled out of bed at 6am and just decided to set up my space and clean up a bit before my 7am pilates class.

As I’m wrapping up, I see I missed a notification on my phone: a reminder from my pilates app that class will start in 1 hour. I look at the timestamp, and when I did the math, this meant that my class wasn’t until 7:30am. So I thought, “ok, perfect, I can do my morning devotional then go to class.”

Now that I’m in week 3 of my new job, I’m feeling a lot more comfortable — and I did a good job on a mock call I had to conduct, yayyy. BUT, the first two weeks had me feeling like a great big phony.

I didn’t realize how difficult it would be on my mental to step back into a 9 to 5, specifically because I got fired from my last one and had been in survival mode for over a year. When faced with all this new, I froze and I felt like an imposter in my own body — today’s devotional addressed all of that.

The author talked about dry bones, how she stepped into the new year and felt…nothing. Not excited, not “new year new me”, just empty. She then chose to put God in that empty space and He revealed to her Ezekiel 37: 4-5: “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.” And this passage is what truly moved me:

Many of us enter a new year feeling like those bones. We move, speak, and do what’s expected, but deep down, something feels missing. Hope feels fragile. Joy seems distant. It’s not rebellion—it’s weariness. We’ve prayed, waited, endured—and now, like Ezekiel, we look around and see more silence than signs of life. But just as God called Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones, He invites us to speak His Word over our valleys.

Through this author, God revealed to me that me freezing was not because I’m not capable, but because of the weariness that I walked into 2025 with. I spent the year in a valley, feeling like my spirit was soulless and my hope was depleted. Today, Ezekiel was my reminder that God does the most amazing work in the most desolate places. That my dry bones were’t death, but a year on survival mode made them lose life.

God asked “Can these bones live?” and the Word shows me “yes”, and I say show because God doesn’t just simply say He will breath life into dry bones, He does, and scripture shows how Ezekiel watched a valley of death turn into one of life.

Today, I learned that when God asks “Can these bones live?”, it’s not a question of possibility, it is an invitation to believe again. It is calling us to speak over our lives, our spirits, our hearts, our souls, and ask God to breathe life into them once more. If He breathed into dry bones and gave them life once more, then He will do it again, we just have to bring Him into our valley.

If you want to check out the devotional for yourself, you can find it via YouVersion: Out of the Valley into God’s Victory by Annie David.

8 months ago | [YT] | 1