Nonprofit Organizations Benefit from Skilled Grant Writers

Tell someone you are a grant writer, and they will likely say "I have a friend/neighbor/cousin who writes grants as part of her job, it's not that difficult." This preconception is largely due to the prevalence of individuals whose jobs encompass limited grant writing responsibilities or who have contributed to the submission of a grant at some time. But for skilled grant writers, this is a frustrating notion.

Grant writers serve as brokers between grant fund seekers and grant donors, but unlike accountants or other professionals, are not required to have specific training or education, and are not regulated by an authoritative body. As such, grant writing is frequently viewed as a skill that can be acquired with a few days of training.

Prevalence

As the American Association of Grant Professionals (AAGP) web site states, "Only to the dedicated grant professional is the activity that occurs between seeker and funder understood as a process that will demand at any given time a combination of these skills: research, planning, outreach, cultivation, technical writing and accountability, all conducted within an ethical framework."

An estimated 100,000 individuals work in the grant writing field in the United States. According to the July 2007 Payscale.com survey, the median salary for a full-time grant writer working for a non-profit organization was $38,926, while individuals working for hospitals garnered an average of $40,725, and $42,001 for government agencies.

The June 2007 report by The Foundation Center estimated that giving by foundations in 2006 rose by 11.7 percent from the previous year to $40.7 billion, while corporate foundation giving rose by 16.5 percent from 2005. According to data from the AAGP, in the United States currently there are more than 850,000 charities, 500,000 churches, 725,000 nonprofit organizations and 23,485 educational institutions. These figures indicate the need for qualified grant writers.

Training

In some ways, grant writing is like playing the lottery over which the grant writer has no control. To receive a grant, an organization must submit a technically correct proposal for a program for which it is eligible. After that, funding decisions depend on many variables, such as the number of applications submitted, mood of the reviewers, geographic and political considerations and many other factors not easily identifiable. However, the higher the quality of proposals an organization submits, the more grants it is likely to receive. A skilled Grant Writer can achieve a 25-50 percent success rate.

Many colleges and community organizations offer grant writing courses and seminars, and how-to books flood the market. Additionally, attending learning workshops and networking opportunities is a good way to learn skills and tricks of the trade. Formal training through Certificate and Certification programs are also available through AAGP, master's degree programs, and The Center on Philanthropy Fundraising School.

Like anything else, grant writing is a skill and there is a strong correlation between a grant writer's skills and the success rate of grant proposals. So while anyone can say "I can write a grant proposal," not everyone can do it well or successfully. And for many organizations, at the end of the day, you get what you pay for.

Source:

Payscale.com

Foundation Center

American Association of Grant Professionals