Tips for Successful Grant Writing - Grant Writing Jobs
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With organizations desperate for funds, many turn to freelance grant writers to craft proposals for grant money. With the exception of scholarships, grants are almost always for non-profit organizations. Education, health, arts, public affairs and religious organizations are usually funded privately, and they never have as much money as they need - so there's always a need for grant writers. Here are a few tips to help you make the most of freelance grantwriting jobs:
Select your donors carefully. Look at the organization's previous projects and see who donated money in the past. Take the opposite tack, too - look at big donors in your area. Do they give money to projects in your area of interest, and in your geographic location? Will the size of one of their donations cover your estimated budget? Picking the right donor is almost as important as writing a great grant proposal.
As a freelance grant writer, you should cultivate relationships at the donor organization. Whether you're doing government grant writing or working in the private sector, creating a good relationship with someone in a position to give you money is always a good thing. It will also save you time, if a call to the donor will let you know that they absolutely won't fund a project before you've spent months writing a proposal.
Follow instructions, proofread your work, meet your deadlines. You'll find that a lot of proposals, like business grant writing and government grant writing, require applicants to follow a very strict protocol involving specific formats. Some require you to fill out online application forms, and some want a three-page concept paper before accepting your full proposal. Whatever they want, do exactly that, and remember that even otherwise correct and fundable proposals could be downgraded for typographical errors, or for being submitted in the wrong file format. And meet your deadlines - missing a deadline as a freelance grant writer is deadly, and may mean that you missed the chance to get funded.
In the end, be persistent. Even if the proposal is rejected, you can ask for advice on how to improve your applications in the future. After you've got a few freelance grant writing jobs under your belt, you'll find your skill in demand by other organizations. You can find out more in other areas of Go Freelance about creating a lucrative career for yourself by taking freelance grantwriting jobs.
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