With the United States’ economy in a steady decline, more non profits and government funded entities than ever are looking to grants as a way to fund projects or help with operating expenses. Tightening budgets cause already cash strapped organizations to carefully evaluate how they spend their money, and hiring a grant writer may often seem like an easy way to improve a shrinking operating account.
Once your organization has made the decision to hire a grant writer, you will need to determine a few things:
• Do your organizations bylaws have rules in place for hiring an independent contractor? If so, you will need to comply with those rules. Some organizations can make phone calls to solicit resumes or bids, while others will need to publicly post the opportunity
• Will you want the grant writer to research available grants, or do you have the resources to do so in house? Grant writers often charge fairly high rates for their services, and researching grants can take a lot of time. It may be more cost efficient to increase a current part-time employee’s hours to include grant research than to pay the grant writer to research available grants for you.
• How will you pay the grant writer? Will you pay your grant writer by the hour, or a flat rate, or a percentage of a successful grant, also known as a bounty? Most federal grants, and many private foundation grants, no longer allow bounty payment for grant writing, even if the bounty comes from your operating budget and not the grant budget. Most grant writers are now paid hourly, which means you will pay your grant writer whether they are successful or not. It is important, for this reason, to look at your potential grant writer’s prior success rate. It is not unreasonable to see some unfunded grant proposals in your grant writer’s resume, but they should have more successes than failures.
When looking for a grant writer, your organization should always attempt to look within your own community. Often, grant writers from within your organizations operating area will be more familiar with grant providers that are local, and who want their money to stay within the community. This can be a benefit in that your grant writer will spend less time researching available grants, and more time writing them. To find grant writers in your area, try contacting other organizations similar to yours and see if they can recommend someone. Your local Council of Governments, Community Resource Center or Junior College may also be able to make recommendations. If your bylaws require you to post the grant writing opportunity, you may probably still be able to contact potential grant writers to notify them of the posting.
Most often, your Board of Directors or Executive Director will have the ultimate say in who your organization hires to write your grant. Again, let your organizations’ bylaws be your guide. If your bylaws do not have a provision for a hiring process for independent contractors, your Board should modify the bylaws so that one is in place. This insures transparency in the hiring process, which is something that grant providers want to see.
Your organization should be prepared to spend a significant amount of time with the grant writer developing and researching information that is common to many grants, prior to or during the writing of the first few grants. Once three to five grants have been submitted, the information gathering phase of the grant writing process will be fairly streamlined, so subsequent grants will not take as much time to write, although development of a quality narrative, which should be individualized for each grant, can still take a significant number of hours. Many states or regions have a Common Grant Application, which, once completed, can be used for a number of different grants, with only minor changes depending on the type of information a particular foundation may want. Filling out your state or regions Common Grant Application will further streamline the grant writing process. Prior to this, your grant writer will work with your organization to develop a Mission Statement, determine budget input, collect information on the types of services you perform and the population you serve, and determine board members’ affiliations, charitable contributions to your organization, and diversity.
Because of the amount of time that is involved in grant writing, your organization should be prepared to spend a significant amount of money up front. The old adage “you’ve got to spend money, to make money” certainly holds true with regard to grant writing. You can save some money by letting an administrative assistant or other qualified employee or volunteer put together much of the information your grant writer will need. If you Google “Common Grant Application (Your State)” you should be able to determine much of the information that your grant writer will need. If you can put this information together in an easy to follow and editable format, your grant writer can use it as a research tool when writing your grant proposals, then follow up with specific questions when additional information is needed. As your organization grows and changes, your grant information will change as well, and this should be regularly maintained. An organization should expect to spend forty to sixty hours, at a minimum, developing this information, and then a few hours each month or quarter updating your information.
When looking over your potential grant writer’s resume, you will want to look for experience that fits your needs. If you are primarily interested in writing grants to private foundations, make sure your potential grant writer has done some of that. He or she will have a good idea of what those philanthropic boards are looking for, which is completely different than what a federal grant program is looking for. Your grant writer should be able to write for the audience who will be reviewing your grant, particularly the narrative portion. He or she should also be prepared for the time commitment. Once the initial information is gathered, a private foundation grant can be written in as few as eight to twelve hours, while a federal grant can take six times as much work. If your grant writer has a background that matches your needs, then the next major decision is payment.
Determining what to pay your grant writer is often one of the most difficult considerations when an organization is looking into hiring a grant writer. Often, a grant writer will ask what he or she perceives the market will bear, but there are tremendous differences between what a start up non-profit can afford and what an established program looking to start a new project can afford. At the same time, you don’t want to choose your grant writer based on cost alone. The most expensive grant writer may not be the best, and the least expensive may not be the worst. Usually, newer grant writers who are trying to get established will charge a lower rate; this doesn’t mean they are a bad grant writer, just new. However, an experienced grant writer will understand your needs and will probably be willing to negotiate to a point. They will also have the luxury of being able to pick and choose their jobs, simply because of that experience. If you really want to hire a particular grant writer, but can’t afford them, try offering a lower rate on the first grant, with an increase for later grants if the first is successful. If all else fails, you can always ask for references. Often grant writers will be familiar with others’ work through various community activities, and may be the first in the community to be aware of promising new grant writers.
While hiring a grant writer may seem like a daunting process, it really is not. However, when so much money is on the line, both in the form of potential grant awards and what you’re paying a grant writer, its important to be thorough in the decision making process.
