Source: Unsplash
Having a grant writer is essential to most not-for-profits, universities, and healthcare systems. Since grant writing is often considered a component of a job, there’s a variety of career paths someone can take with grant writing skills.
What Do Grant Writers Do?
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, grant writers research, draft, and submit proposals that help organizations or individuals receive grant funding.
Grant writers need to be able to find and identify RFPs (requests for proposals) to make sure they fit their organization's or client’s needs. The formatting of the proposals varies from online to printed formats, and various guidelines such as character limits, word counts, and page lengths.
Depending on the job role, they could do various other tasks related to fundraising and donor relations.
Grant Writing Job Titles
The job titles for a career in grant writing vary. For example, some organizations may call the position a grant specialist, grant manager, grant officer, or director of grants. They are all very similar to each other, but may slightly differ per organization.
Some positions will require more involvement with donor relations or stewardship depending on the size of the company. If you’re working for a university, you might have a more specific role such as being a major gifts officer or writing grants specifically for corporations or foundations.
Who Needs Grant Writers?
Non-profits of all sizes rely on grant writers for funding. Universities, private schools, public schools, and healthcare organizations all need grant writers as well. Working as a grant writer for museums is a great way to combine a love of history with writing.
There are also grant opportunities for individuals such as artists, creative writers, and filmmakers to supply them with an opportunity to create without worrying about the cost. Freelancing and writing grants for various organizations is another great option.
Freelance Grant Writing
Grant writers have the flexibility to work freelance, full-time, part-time, or on a contract basis. Freelance grant writing allows writers to work with multiple organizations. Usually, you would have a niche such as writing for small businesses, children-focused non-profits, or specializing in federal grants to name a few.
Grant writing can be done in person, remotely, or on a hybrid schedule. You may find that working in person with one organization that lines up with your passions might be the best route for you. Or, having the flexibility to work at home and write for multiple organizations could be better suited for you.
Similar Careers
If grant writing sounds like a good fit but you’d like more variety in tasks, consider careers in development. These roles in non-profits consist of tasks such as grant writing, managing donor relations, post-award management, and limited communications and marketing tasks. You would be asked to occasionally work on newsletters and printed materials for events. It’s possible it would also include social media management, strategies, and content creation.
Another similar role is project management. This role would work more in-depth in the programs designed in the grant writing proposal. They oversee and check in with different departments to make sure the programs are running on time and successfully making progress.
If you’re willing to stray away from grant writing but want to do something similar consider becoming a volunteer manager, communications specialist, or fundraising coordinator.
Grant writing is an incredibly useful and flexible skill that is needed in various organizations and businesses. Depending on your goals and values, you’ll be able to find a career that best fits your needs within grant writing.