Grant Writing

I was the first grant writer to follow the 82-page guidebook to achieve more funds than requested for a start-up charter school in the state.

Many people are intimidated by grant writing because of the amount of data, details required, iteration of information, and the necessary cross-referencing between sections. These kinds of specificities are my jam!

Grant writers get paid for their knowledge, skill, and time. I will collect data from your organization including institutional knowledge from stakeholders and conduct out-of-house research required in a grant, presenting a grant proposal in your industry’s terminology.

It is critical that the applying entity’s needs/function precisely fit the grant specifications. A grant writer’s skill in crafting a proposal is the reason for a proposal’s success or failure- as long as the applying entity is wholly qualified for the grant. If the entity is not qualified, per the instructions of the grant, no grant writer’s proposal would be ”good enough” to obtain the grant award.

All other things being equal (such as the number of pages in the grant instructions, the number of sections due in the application, and the research required) it’s generally no more difficult to write a grant proposal for $100,000 than one for $1,000. Therefore, I charge a fee based on effort.

It is unethical to charge a fee as a percentage of the grant (whether it is awarded or not). Organizations that award grants want the entire grant to be used for the specified purpose. These organizations presume that the grant writer will be in-house or the applying entity has raised other funds to pay a grant writer.