Finding the Perfect Grant Writer
So how do you sort the wheat from the chaff and find the ‘perfect’ Grant Writer?
Let’s look at some key markers that can help you in your search.
Experience with Grants
Grant Writers with years of experience have an upper edge over newer grant writers because they have developed an innate understanding of the key focal points for grants offered across different bodies (federal government vs state vs council vs corporate, etc). On the other hand, newer Grant Writers can have a fresher approach to emerging trends and the available research to tie into those trends in order to support your application. The ‘perfect’ Grant Writer in this case depends on the focus of your project and the appropriate ‘fit for purpose’.
Industry Expertise
Most Grant Writers have developed their expertise in one or a few industries, but never all industries. A Grant Writer’s expertise may be due to work experience via an employment history in the industry, or due to their familiarity developed over many rounds of funding focused on servicing clients from the specific industry. The ‘perfect’ Grant Writer would be the one that has both sides of this expertise, yet this is quite rare. A more likely and near to perfect option would be to find a Grant Writer who can tick either of these boxes, as well as having unfettered access to experts on the side that they lack.
Lived Experiences
There is an invaluable and unmeasurable quality to Grant Writers who have lived experiences via diversity throughout their lives in terms of financial challenges, work history, migration history and even their own personal history. The more diverse a Grant Writer’s lived experiences, then the better perspective they will bring to their grant writing activities, via their understanding of how all moving parts in our society have a ripple effect to other seemingly unrelated parts. These Grant Writers present a wider view into community and societal benefits that can be achieved via funding projects which they put forward. It is these views that can make a particular grant application stand out in a sea of applications, thus improving the likelihood of grant writing success.
Availability & Capacity to Provide Timely Service
Even though your search may have been for ‘Grant Writer Sydney’ it is inevitable that some search results will show Grant Writers from offshore. Whilst this can be great for working with these grant writing parties on your grant application outside of your day-to-day business activities, it can also prove challenging in terms of solving real-time questions and issues as you may find yourself waiting until the next day if the Grant Writer lives in an opposite time-zone. This can also limit your ability to keep your downtime dedicated to other quality of life activities, particularly as the grant closure dates loom closer. The ‘perfect’ Grant Writer will match your expectations of the hours in which you can communicate as well as the timeliness in which they will respond.
Communication Methods and Quality
It is vital that a Grant Writer offers multiple means of communication, the very least of which must be phone and email. A Grant Writer’s written expression must be concise, professional and devoid of spelling and grammatical errors. Even more important is that Grant Writers must be interesting, articulate and persuasive to their reading audience. The ability of the Grant Writer to put forward a compelling case in the most succinct and compelling way possible is a key factor that will impact the likelihood of success in grant approvals.
Past Successes
Grant Writers who can present a history of high success rates on their past grant writing endeavours are always in high demand and an obvious choice when looking for the ideal Grant Writer. Often though, these Grant Writers are in high demand and may not have capacity to give your project the required attention. Sometimes, the perfect Grant Writer may be the person who has loads of capacity and, even though they do not have the strings in their bow, they do have access to support from a whole team of Grant Writers with many, many successes under their belts.
The Human Touch
One of the most under-rated qualities of a Grant Writer is their ‘Human Touch’. Interestingly, even though many Grant Writers study journalism in order to ‘qualify’ as a good Grant Writer, some of the best Grant Writers are those who have capacity to walk in other shoes and portray that to their readers. This can have nothing to do with their tertiary experience, yet everything to do with who they are as a person and how much they care about others. The qualities typically shown by these Grant Writers are that they are personable, approachable, empathetic to your cause, passionate about helping others and have an inherent understanding of the greater good that can be achieved via helping your organisation get funding. When this Grant Writer’s passion and conviction translate onto a grant application through every answer to the criteria, again it makes the application stand out from the many others seeking the same funding.
The Tip of the Iceberg
There is so much more that could be put forward as the qualities of a ‘perfect’ Grant Writer, yet, in essence, there is no one single ‘perfect Grant Writer’ that can win every grant application and meet every organisation’s needs. At the end of the day, it comes down to best fit for your current needs and the application at hand. There can be immense value in engaging one of the many independent Grant Writers, yet you may find that you need to have more than one independent Grant Writer up your sleeve to cover the diversity of applications that you wish to apply for.
A viable alternative can be to engage an organisation that specialises in providing grant writing services. Red Tape Busters offer a team that collectively offer over 50 years of grant writing experience across the full scale of possible grants. Our team of over 10 consultants bring access to a wide breadth and depth of experience from real world non-profits, more than 30 industries across small and large business, governments and many professional backgrounds. Many of our consultants have been successful professionals that have now set aside their original career and are now passionate about giving back through grant writing to help worthy organisations flourish and succeed with the support of grant funding.
Feel free to give us a call to discuss how we address each of these key markers in order to delight our clients and maximise their chances of success in seeking funding.
