How did you get started in grant writing?
I have always found it interesting how grant writers come to the profession. How did you get started? If you are a consultant, what were your first steps in starting your own business? What experience did you have in fundraising?
For my part, I started my career on the for profit side, but since I had always been passionate about community service, I really wanted to bring it to a forefront in the work I do every day. I transitioned from a career in strategic business planning, marketing research, and public relations to establish my own business helping nonprofits and social entrepreneurs. When I first started, grant writing wasn't the focus of my business; public relations was. But that changed when I meet a key client on www.elance.com. Now grant writing is the biggest part of my company.
When I was first getting started, I consulted sites like www.volunteermatch.org and www.vmcnj.org to identify local grant writing opportunities. I also explored these sites to identify which areas of nonprofit mission I was particularly drawn to. I reached out to several local organizations and set up meetings with them to review my background and ask how they would use my skills. To my surprise, they always had a way they wanted to use my skills that I hadn't thought of.
In the first two years of my business, I did most work for nonprofits as a volunteer. It gave me an opportunity to see myself differently and develop a portfolio of work.
Once my business was more established (and I realized I wouldn't be able to continue helping nonprofit organizations if I didn't make any money), I began offering my services to nonprofits on a paid basis. It took some time to refine my pricing levels, but now I offer a tiered pricing structure based on the age, budget, and size of the nonprofit (or entrepreneur) that I'm working with.
Another experience that was tremendously important to me in my first few years was participating on the Board of Directors of a local nonprofit organization. If you have never worked within a nonprofit organization, I highly recommend this. You'll be amazed by how much insight you'll gain. You'll see where your skills are most needed and useful, and you'll get a strong foundation in nonprofit financials.
Best of luck! I look forward to your insights.
Best Regards,
Melanie
For my part, I started my career on the for profit side, but since I had always been passionate about community service, I really wanted to bring it to a forefront in the work I do every day. I transitioned from a career in strategic business planning, marketing research, and public relations to establish my own business helping nonprofits and social entrepreneurs. When I first started, grant writing wasn't the focus of my business; public relations was. But that changed when I meet a key client on www.elance.com. Now grant writing is the biggest part of my company.
When I was first getting started, I consulted sites like www.volunteermatch.org and www.vmcnj.org to identify local grant writing opportunities. I also explored these sites to identify which areas of nonprofit mission I was particularly drawn to. I reached out to several local organizations and set up meetings with them to review my background and ask how they would use my skills. To my surprise, they always had a way they wanted to use my skills that I hadn't thought of.
In the first two years of my business, I did most work for nonprofits as a volunteer. It gave me an opportunity to see myself differently and develop a portfolio of work.
Once my business was more established (and I realized I wouldn't be able to continue helping nonprofit organizations if I didn't make any money), I began offering my services to nonprofits on a paid basis. It took some time to refine my pricing levels, but now I offer a tiered pricing structure based on the age, budget, and size of the nonprofit (or entrepreneur) that I'm working with.
Another experience that was tremendously important to me in my first few years was participating on the Board of Directors of a local nonprofit organization. If you have never worked within a nonprofit organization, I highly recommend this. You'll be amazed by how much insight you'll gain. You'll see where your skills are most needed and useful, and you'll get a strong foundation in nonprofit financials.
Best of luck! I look forward to your insights.
Best Regards,
Melanie
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by April Northstrom on -
Hi all,
I began grant writing out of necessity, but stuck with it because I found it to be my passion more than annual giving or major gifts. I worked with several nonprofits, large and small, in development and public relations. I worked with direct mail, special events, donor gatherings, giving clubs and major gifts. Every experience built my knowledge-base, but nothing excited me as much as grant writing.
Whenever there was an opportunity to develop a new program or case for support, I enjoyed the planning process, meeting with program staff, budgeting for future growth and then presenting our case to a donor who shared support for our cause. As a development professional, I most enjoy grant writing because it brings me closest to the mission that I am supporting.
Today, I am lucky enough to work as a grant writer with missions and organizations that matter most to me and my community. However, I wouldn't have the insight or experience to know my skill set if I hadn't tried other avenues first. My failures, my successes and the people I learned from, helped me make the best choice for my career.
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Permalink Reply by Barbara Roberts on -
Hi Melanie,
As many people do, I fell into grant development while doing something else. At the time, I was a multi-disciplinary team coordinator for a collaborative project of five agencies, and the director of our project was writing a proposal for $300K for a new project his agency wanted to initiate (each of us in the office was employed by one of the five agencies). He is from Honduras and although is spoken English is excellent, he was struggling with thinking/writing/typing simultaneously, and I offered to help. Between us we won the grant, and then his agency asked me to help him with a second proposal for $100K for another new program, and we won that one, too. So, I'm thinking, what's so hard about this grant thing that everyone complains about all the time?
As luck would have it, shortly after winning that second grant, the federal funding for our project was changing, and my job was going to be eliminated. My boss at the community health center that employed me then asked me to come to the administrative office to be a half-time grants person and half-time project coordinator, and she proceeded to teach me everything she knew about grant development, which she had done for 20 years. It was never a goal of mine to be a grant development professional...never even considered it...but as with so many things in my life, the Greater Plan for my life took me where my talents would be most useful.
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Permalink Reply by Stephanie Golden on -
Hi,
I'm a freelance writer, and was hired through a referral by the ED of a local community arts organization to help them write a program manual. I went on to write articles for their newsletter. When the part-time development person left, the ED asked me to replace her--she knew me well enough to realize I could learn to write good grants even though I had no experience. It was a great opportunity--she trained me and also sent me to a useful grantwriting seminar. She had many contacts throughout the foundation world and government agencies at all levels, so I wrote every type of grant. I happily did this until 9/11, after which all the NY foundations shifted their funding to help victims, and the organization lost so much funding they had to lay several people off, including me.
Since then I've broadened my scope to write grants and other materials for a variety of small nonprofits, though this is still only part of my business.
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Permalink Reply by Joseph V Held on -
I was taking a course on Cultural Anthropology-Ojibwa Indians, which culminated with a canoe trip to the woods of Northern Minnesota. The trip was one week long so we all got to know each other well. My professor taught sociology and is one of the premier grant writers in the country. Our discussions were lengthy and very enjoyable. After hearing some of his stories, I decided to enroll in his Graduate Certificate in Grant Proposal Writing and Program Evaluation the next semester. I loved the course work as well as the Internship. I fell in love and eventually changed my major to reflect the emphasis on grant writing with a lot of sociological theory, community development coursework, and some additional research courses. The rest is history. After my internship, word spread of a middle aged man who just finished his degree in grant writing, although it isn't quite worded that way, was willing to gain experience in exchange for volunteering. So I volunteered until my fingers almost fell off from so many grant applications. It worked, eventually one of the people within my ever growing network of volunteer organizations mentioned my ability and talents and of course success rate to her. She called me up and I have been working for her ranch ever since gaining very valuable experience while still continuing to increase my education within the same discipline of non-profit management including the grant writing process.
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Permalink Reply by Melanie R. Negrin, GPC on -
Wow, neat start Joseph. What school did you attend for your Graduate Certificate?
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Permalink Reply by Joseph V Held on
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Fort Hays State University
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Permalink Reply by Candace Schuler, GPC, CFRE on -
Like Stephanie, I am a freelance writer. Altlhough writing grant proposals is a significant part of my business, it is not my only focus. I also write user guides, policy and procedure manuals, business letters, business plans, marketing collateral, press releases and media kits, speeches, business profiles, case studies, white papers, articles, newsletter and website content, etc. I've also written 27 romance novels, mostly for Harlequin.
I wrote my first grant proposal about ten years ago for funds available through the No Child Left Behind Act. It was funded for $1M. Since then, I've written upwards of 300 grants, which have been submitted to federal and state government agencies, and private and public foundations. I also write donor solicitation materials, case statements, and other types of development writing.
Along the way, I continually worked to educate myself about the process. Early on, I took a week-long grant writing class through The Grantsmanship Training Center to hone my grant writing skills. I joined the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and the American Association of Grant Professionals (AAGP). As soon as I was eligible I sat for both my CFRE and GPC certifications. As a free-lancer, these certifications have had a very direct, very positive impact on my bottom line.
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Permalink Reply by monique cammon-martin on -
hi, my name is monique and i am on the board of a non-profit organization, it has only been in operation for 2years, we were relying strictly on donations from the public. then i spoke to someone about getting grants to help us to help the needy in our area, i just want to know do i have to go to school or something to be a grant writer
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Permalink Reply by Derek Link on -
Hi Melanie,
I'm new here but I've been a grant writer for some time now. I first learned how to write a grant as a job requirement but soon found that I had a knack for it. I love the intensity of being engaged in a narrative and working against the clock. My career path led me to working full time as a grant writing consultant for a friend of mine, then on my own for ten years, then again now for a different friend of mine. It has been a fun job and I've met so many wonderful people in the course of things.
Thanks for offering this forum, I look forward to participating.
Derek
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Permalink Reply by Sergei Shkurkin on -
I started by being a program director in a non profit organization. I had general managment experince but had not written any grants. Writing grants was part of the job. The organization was part of coalition with other agencies. That coalition had an experienced grant writer that advised and critiqued my early work.
I had early success getting the first few grants that I wrote. This encouraged me. After five years at the agency, I applied for a grant writing consulting contract at the county that was a three year contract and had me writing for not only for my old agency but the other agencies in the coalition. I got that contract, and that gave me a basis for developing other contracts. I expanded into other areas doing evaluation and some contract program administration along with the grant writing. I also expanded into a few areas that I developed as specialities. I developed a pricing model that offered medium size agencies the benefit of a regular development and grant director, for a price they could afford. This involved being on retainer for a year or more, and taking on the entire development responsibility for an agency. I would charge half of what the employment cost is for a typical development director. I found I could handle three or four of these at the same time. Later I developed a specialization in homeless shelter development, that provided not only funds for grant writing, but an opportunity to be paid for project management. Over time I realized that grant writing and business plan writing were very similar skill sets, as were tender and RFP responses for private companies seeking government contracts. This became another area of enterprise. In my 18 years as private consultant the key has been to be diversified and to constantly develop new ways to be useful. This continues to be a challenge. You are only as good as your last grant.
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Permalink Reply by Norma Bucelato on
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I was doing fundraising for a College Foundation and identified a Foundtion for the capital campaign. I wrote the grant application and was recognized by the President who moved me to the Grants Office where I started as the Grant Writer and them moved into the Director position.
© 2012 Created by Melanie R. Negrin, GPC.
