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When I first began working as a grant writing consultant, I had some unusual success. Back then, I did not understand why my grant writing efforts were so successful. I was writing grants for school districts and I had no experience or background in the field of education. However, my lack of experience in education actually worked to my advantage in writing grants for schools. The reasons for my success are the same as the reasons you should consider hiring an external grant writer, no matter what field you are competing for grants within.
Here are three good reasons to hire an external grant writer:
Focus: People who work within an organization are usually very busy. Employees at most non-profits and school districts usually wear many hats and handle many responsibilities. This is especially true for the type of employee who would be experienced enough to be chosen to write a grant. An external grant writer can focus on grant writing. For example, when I wrote grants for schools, I was able to get up and spend my morning energy on writing the education grant proposal, while busy teachers or principals I might be competing with for the same grant were busy during the day. They were either squeezing in writing time between other responsibilities, or writing after hours when tired.
Objectivity: Grant writers within an organization are usually very passionate about the projects they are proposing. This passion can lead to saying too much or sharing too many details about certain aspects of the project that are not relevant to the grant (or at least not as relevant as the questions being asked in the RFP). An external grant writer is better able to make objective decisions about how much detail to include in each section. Since an external grant writer does not have any emotional attachment to the project (other than really, really wanting you to get the grant!), her or she can more easily edit out parts of the narrative that do not contribute to answering the funder’s questions.
Unfamiliarity: Perhaps the biggest advantage of the external grant writer is unfamiliarity. Although familiarity with an organization and its projects can be a good thing, many who write grants for their own organizations make the mistake of assuming too much familiarity on the part of the grant reader. They use too much jargon and too many acronyms commonly understood by people internal to their organization or industry. This jargon is often confusing to a grant reader that may not share this common background. You already knew this, but confusion does not equal grant money.
Since I was unfamiliar with schools and education when I first started grant writing, I had my clients spell out everything for me so I would understand it. This included defining educational jargon and telling me what every acronym stood for. This really paid off. The reduction of jargon and acronyms made my proposals very clear to grant readers and led to higher scores.
Those are just some of the good reasons to hire an external grant writer. Do you know of any biggies that I left out? Disagree? Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
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