Navigating the Process of Engaging a Grant Writer

A step-by-step guide to engaging a grant writer for nonprofit organizations

Engaging a grant writer can feel intimidating and overwhelming. Handing your grant program to someone outside your team requires deep trust and respect. Additionally, several layers of approval may be required to begin partnering with a grant writer. In this blog post, I will walk you through the process of engaging a grant writer and provide tips on preparing for each stage to help you navigate the process with confidence. 

Why Engage a Grant Writer

Like most nonprofit professionals, I’ve worn many hats. With several years of experience in executive leadership, fundraising, programs, and boards of directors, I understand the many hurdles organizations face in fulfilling their mission. 

Applying for grants is a time-consuming process and requires constant attention from prospect research, managing deadlines, relationship building with funders, grant writing, and reporting. It entails more than simply writing grants. Managing the process with limited capacity and greater organizational demands can be tedious. From research and practice, I know that resources are abundant, and acquiring a sustainable base of funders invested in your nonprofit's mission is possible. 

A grant writer can help your organization secure the funds it needs to bloom. Grant writers have a specialized skill set to harness grants as tools to strengthen organizations. Grant writers are excellent communicators and project managers who thrive in untangling the complexities of your organization’s work and developing clear, concise language to communicate its unique mission-aligned impact to funders. 

However, a grant writing consultant can do more than simply write grants for your organization. At Bloom Grant Consulting, we offer various services, including leading all grant writing efforts as your outsourced teammate, building new grant programs, developing content or boilerplate, creating grant trackers and calendars, researching and qualifying funders, coaching, and more. Our comprehensive approach ensures your organization has the tools, resources, and language to communicate with funders confidently and consistently. 

Explore the financial benefits of hiring a grant writing consultant versus a full-time, in-house grant writer in our blog, Unlocking Savings: Why Contracting a Grant Writer is a Cost-Effective Choice for Your Organization.

The Process of Engaging a Grant Writer

Define Your Organization's Needs

First, it’s essential to outline your nonprofit’s grant writing needs. 

Consider the following questions to define your organization’s needs: 

1. What is the status of your organization’s grant program? Are you approaching grants for the first time? Are you restarting after a prolonged period of inactivity? Are you actively applying for grants? 

2. How much support does your organization need with its grant program? Do you want a grant writing partner to manage your grants start-to-finish, or are you interested in support with research and strategy? 

3. What are your funding needs? 

4. Who will be the primary contact for your grant program? 

5. What is your budget for grant writing? 

6. Do you need organizational approval from executive leadership or the board of directors to contract a grant writer?

   
   

Research Grant Writing Consultants

You can find grant writers on various online databases. Nonprofit professional associations or organizations may have trusted recommendations for consultants. We are members of the Puget Sound Grant Writers Association and the Nonprofit Association of Oregon and can be found in their respective grant writer and nonprofit service provider directories.  

Consider the following when researching grant writing consultants: 

• History of success: The grant writer has a portfolio of existing or past clients and has delivered results. 

• Referrals or testimonials: The grant writer is recommended by existing or past clients who speak highly of their work.  

• Excellent communication: The grant writer exhibits strong writing skills and is responsive to your outreach. 

• Service options: The grant writer offers various services to meet your organization’s needs within budget.

• Compatibility: The grant writer aligns well with your team. 

Your organization may have additional priorities when hiring a grant writing consultant, including familiarity with your organization, mission space, or location. 

Similarly, grant writing consultants have priorities when evaluating potential nonprofit partners. Bloom Grant Consulting is excited to work with passionate nonprofit leaders who are ready to make an impact. We prefer to work with established nonprofit organizations with paid staff and two or more years of 990 filings. These nonprofit organizations have a solid foundation to secure and implement mission-driven services and programming supported by grant funding.   

Schedule Consultations with Select Grant Writers 

Once you’ve narrowed down your research, contact the grant writing consultants on your list to schedule consultations to learn more about how they can support you and your organization. 

During a consultation, be prepared to speak about your organization's mission, goals, objectives, budget size, team structure, and more. 

As grant writing consultants, we are focused on building successful and collaborative partnerships with organizations to ensure long-term sustainability and mission impact. This requires meaningful participation and communication. This meeting is an opportunity to get to know one another and ensure compatibility for a future partnership.

Establish a Scope of Work and Sign a Contract

Following a successful consultation, we’ll align a scope of work for your nonprofit organization, valid for two weeks. Once we’ve agreed on a scope of work, we’ll prepare a contract for your organization to formalize our engagement. Once a contract is in place, we’ll begin the discovery phase. 

Dive into Discovery

The discovery phase is just what it sounds like! It’s an opportunity for our team and your organization to lay the groundwork for our work together. We begin discovery by providing our clients with a document discovery checklist. 

These core materials will help our team understand your organization’s structure and financial foundation. Many of these documents lay the foundation for future grant applications we will submit in collaboration with your team. 

We understand that our clients may not have all of the documents on our list, so we provide indicators for what documents you have, what documents are in progress, and the ones you don’t have. We’re here to help you fill in the gaps! 

We give our clients two weeks to complete the checklist before we jump into a kickoff meeting. Our client kickoff meeting is about setting expectations. In the first half of the meeting, we review the agreed-upon scope of work and timeline. The second half of the meeting is an in-depth discussion of prospect research. We discuss what type of funding prospects are suitable for your organization. This conversation leads seamlessly into the research phase. 

---

Our Grant Readiness Checklist can help your organization prepare for the discovery phase. 

At Bloom Grant Consulting, we are all about finding ways to help you reach your grant potential. This will help you assess your grant readiness before investing in a grant consultant, including a comprehensive checklist, detailed assessment questions, and space to self-reflect and strategize.

---

Begin Research

Research is pivotal to our work at Bloom Grant Consulting. Whether assessing an organization’s grant preparedness or identifying funding prospects, we are meticulous in our research. We use public data, subscription-based tools, and our experience in the field to provide you with an organized matrix packed with information to help your organization confidently approach the right funders. 

Continue Based on Your Scope of Work

Once discovery and research are complete, we continue based on your organization’s unique scope of work. Throughout our engagement, this could include reviewing funding prospects, providing personalized training, one-on-one coaching, and more. 

Our process for ongoing support is custom-made for our nonprofit partners. We become an integrated member of your team, executing your grant to-do list. This service is for organizations that need a partner to increase their capacity for grant writing, develop a regular cadence of proposal submission, meet deadlines, and build authentic relationships with funders. These are long-term engagements with six- to twelve-month contracts. We meet with our ongoing support clients bi-weekly for one hour to review and discuss upcoming grant proposals, develop funder outreach strategies, and provide cultivation coaching. 

---

Engaging a grant writer is like planting the seeds for your nonprofit’s growth. By defining your needs and carefully selecting the right grant writing consultant, you can cultivate a partnership to help your organization thrive.

Plant seeds for future growth. Contact us to schedule a free 30-minute consultation today. We’re excited to meet you, explore how we can nurture your mission together, and watch it bloom! 

How to Develop a Grant Writing Style Guide

Effective communication is essential to your nonprofit organization’s success. A writing style guide can help your team craft seamless grant proposals that consistently reflect your organization, no matter the character count. A consistent and clear writing style is crucial for grant writers to effectively convey their proposals. Without this unified approach, it may be challenging to maintain consistency and clarity across different proposals. In this blog post, we’ll walk you through what a style guide is, how it can benefit your organization, and how to begin developing your very own.

What is a Style Guide? 

A style guide provides a foundation for how your organization communicates. A writing style guide, or content style guide as it is sometimes referred to, is often an extension of your brand guide that outlines how your organization communicates visually. A style guide serves as a writing rulebook, helping your team represent the organization seamlessly throughout written communications, whether composing a winning grant proposal or posting on social media. 

Why Use a Style Guide? 

A style guide offers many benefits by helping to unify your team with a common language. This can empower team and board members with key language to describe your organization’s important work. 

A style guide helps grant writers maintain consistency, clarity, and professionalism in all grant proposals and documents submitted to funders. Although not a requirement, whether a full-time, in-house grant writer or contracted grant writer, a style guide can help simplify the grant writing process.  It can be especially helpful during the initial phase of grant writing when having predefined terms and language can streamline the process of gathering and presenting information. For organizations considering contracting a grant writer, a style guide can provide important information in the discovery phase, such as mission, vision, places, programs, and projects. 

How to Develop a Style Guide 

Now that you understand what a style guide is and its benefits, we’ll review what is typically included in a style guide. This can be used as a framework to develop one for your nonprofit. Plus, we’ll cover steps to implement this style guide across your organization. 

What is included in a style guide: 

• Established Style Guide

Many organizations' writing style guides are based on established ones, such as the Chicago Manual of Style or the Associated Press Style. Designate an established style guide to develop a strong foundation to build upon. Your style guide will add rules specific to your organization and field of work. 

• Mission

What is your organization’s mission statement? 

• Vision 

What is your organization's vision statement? 

• Values

What are your organization’s values? 

• Voice and Tone

Describe your organization’s personality in written communication and the tone of your communications. This may change based on the audience you’re writing. 

• Audience

Who are you engaging with through written communication? As noted above, voice and tone may change depending on the audience you are engaging with. 

• Common Mistakes

These may be spelling, grammatical, or brand language errors that regularly occur. These mistakes could be made internally by members of your organization or externally by members, funders, or journalists. 

• Brand and Industry-Specific Language

This could include brand-specific language, commonly used statements or phrases, or industry-specific jargon. 

• Definitions

Your organization may use unique terminology, including industry-specific jargon. Define these terms so that your team has a clear understanding and can appropriately explain this terminology to others. 

• Punctuation

Outline stylistic punctuation choices. Em dashes and commas are often up for debate in organizational communication.

• Acronyms and Abbreviations

Clearly outline commonly used acronyms and abbreviations. 

• Capitalization

Provide an overview of special capitalization rules. 

• Numbers 

How do you describe numbers in writing?

• Places, Programs, and Projects

Define the names and titles of places, programs, and projects. Organizations operate in many locations and execute uniquely named programs and projects. This section could also include brief place, program, and project descriptions. 

• Platform or Channel-Specific Guidelines

Social media and blog posts have a different structure than grant applications but share the same voice, tone, and vocabulary. Your style guide should reflect these differences. 

• Examples

Provide examples throughout your style guide to ensure understanding.

How to Develop a Style Guide 

Document your organization’s writing style. 

Use this list of what is typically included in a style guide to begin to develop your style guide. 

Engage your team in developing your organization’s style guide. 

You’re creating a shared language, so make sure others share your vocabulary by requesting feedback. 

How to Use Your Style Guide

Present your finalized style guide to your team. 

Provide the style guide to team members as an essential unifying standard. Ensure that the guide is available and easily accessible for use in all written communication. 

In addition to staff, board members will benefit from a common language for describing the organization’s mission, vision, and programs, increasing brand consistency at all levels. 

Consider tools to increase adoption. For example, you can upload your nonprofit’s style guide, including brand tone, on Grammarly to ensure consistency across team members. 

Use your style guide when writing and editing.

Keep your style guide available for reference when writing and editing. When writing a grant, you can use your style guide to complete common proposal requests, such as your mission and vision statements. 

In conclusion, a style guide helps your organization’s writing to flourish by empowering your team with the vocabulary to describe the importance of the organization’s work. A style guide establishes the foundation for a strong grant writing portfolio that is clear, concise, and connects with funders. 

Grant Proposal Review & Revision

How to review and revise your grant proposal. 

Once you’ve completed a draft of your grant proposal, it’s time to review and revise! Editing is a crucial step in the grant writing process that can improve your proposal and increase opportunities for grant funding. In this blog post, we share how to review and revise your grant proposal. 

Proofread & Edit Your Grant Proposal

Begin the editing process by proofreading your grant proposal. Reading your proposal aloud can help to identify confusing sentence structure and repetitive phrasing. As you read your proposal, markup your writing with edits and comments. Review your proposal for spelling, grammar, clarity, and conciseness. Complete the editing process by implementing your markup. Fix spelling mistakes, remove unnecessary words, and rearrange and replace sections.

Spelling and Grammar

Evaluate each sentence for spelling and grammatical errors. In the days of modern word processing applications, your grant proposal should be free of spelling errors. Tools like Grammarly can help improve your writing by addressing grammatical errors and providing suggestions to improve writing clarity. 

Clarity and Conciseness

Assess your grant proposal for clarity and conciseness. Your proposal should reflect the intentions and mission of your organization. Ensure each section responds directly to the grant guidelines and application requirements. 

Evaluate 

Once you’ve proofed and edited your grant proposal for spelling, grammar, clarity, and conciseness, we recommend critically evaluating your proposal against the funding guidelines, application requirements, and evaluation criteria. Continue to markup your grant as you assess your proposal. This process should be repeated until you feel you have responded to all funder requirements concisely and consistently throughout your proposal. 

Each funder has unique requirements and funding priorities. This evaluation will look different for each proposal you write, but the process will remain the same. 

Request Feedback on Your Grant Proposal

Request feedback from trusted advisors. Feedback from wide-ranging perspectives can help you understand areas of your grant proposal that need improvement or further explanation. 

Request feedback from colleagues or mentors. Team members, volunteers, and board members serve as excellent readers, as they are invested in the organization’s success. 

Funders might be open to pre-reviewing a portion of the proposal for alignment before the deadline.  Pre-reviews allow your organization to connect with funders and share your intentions. They can be excellent partners in the development of a strong proposal. Few funders offer this, but when they do, we recommend engaging them!

Be sure to equip reviewers with the funding guidelines, application requirements, and evaluation criteria to ensure suggestions are relevant and appropriate. 

Constructive feedback is key to the grant writing process. It will help you to improve your writing and increase your chances of success both on the application you are writing today and in future applications. 

---

In conclusion, it’s imperative to review and revise your grant proposal. Adopting a thorough review and revision as part of your grant writing process can improve your writing and polish your grant proposals.