How Much Should We Pay a Grant Writer?

“How much should we pay a grant writer?”   

This question pops up a lot in the nonprofit world, and honestly, the answer varies. 

One of the first questions we ask is, “What responsibilities will this grant writer be tasked with for your organization?” Thinking through this will help you advertise and locate the appropriate professionals to meet your current needs.

• Are they simply writing proposals?

• Are they researching prospects?

• Are they managing the grant after submission through data tracking and reporting to a foundation?

• Are they building relationships with the foundations?

• Are they creating grant templates for other staff to use?

• Are they meeting with community partners to create MOAs/MOUs?

• Are they working with other staff to create measurable goals/objectives, or are those being provided to them?

• Are they working with your team to create budgets, or are those being provided to them?

• Are they being asked to work on foundations grants or also state and federal proposals? (Rates for writing state/federal proposals are often 3-4 times higher than foundations grants…for a good reason. State/federal proposals have a lot more moving parts and require an intense work schedule in a short time.)

• What are the timelines for the turnaround of their work?

• When are the grants due and are grant professionals being asked to rush to complete a proposal in an unrealistic time frame? (We always required a 4-6 week window before a grant is due.) 

There is a great deal a grant writer could do, depending on the needs of the individual organization.

You must first look closely as what you are doing, what you have time to do, and then what you are asking a grant writer to do for you. Rates will vary based on these variables, as well as experience level and history of success of the grant writers or consulting agency you contract. If you are working with a writer who wants experience because they are new, obviously, this person might not be able to charge as much as a tenured writer with 10 years of great experience under their belt and a great history of success.

In determining ‘success’, what questions are you asking, and do you know how to evaluate the answers you receive? 

Are you asking about success rates without knowing how that answer is determined? 

If I tell you I have a 90% success rate, that sounds amazing. But, if you don’t know that I write the same 10 grants every year, and 5 of them are to Wal-Mart Community Giving Programs, or family foundations who give my organization dollars every year, you are missing a big piece of the puzzle. 

You should be considering how many grants are being written, to whom, how often, for gen ops or programs/projects/capital, etc. , and for how much. These variables make a big difference in the actual experience and success of the grant writers you may be meeting. 

Keep I mind that just because someone doesn’t have the Grant Writers ‘title’ behind their name, doesn’t mean they aren’t an amazing prospect with years of experience and success. Many small shops have an amazing leader who writes all their proposals like an ED or Founder and those folks wear many hats. They may not identify themselves as a grant writer or development person, but they certainly have experience that says otherwise. 

Additionally, your location will pre-determine ‘going rates’ for grant writers, if you are looking to hire locally. If you are in a major metropolitan city with lots of qualified grant writers to choose from, the fee scale will be different than if you are in a small town where there are fewer experienced writers, but also, less demand.

There are websites that exist specifically to inform folks of the average salary range of an occupation based on geographic location. You should visit one of these sites and compare grant writing salaries for those areas around you, and your specific area. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/index.htm is one such site. There are many to choose from.

Commission-based grant writing versus fee-based grant writing is another topic that will likely come up in your conversation with professionals. Many organizations exist to protect the professionals in our field with a code of ethics. The Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) is one such organization. AFPs Code of Ethical Standards include not accepting compensation or entering into a contract that is based on a percentage of contributions: nor shall members accept finder’s fees or contingent fees. Some grant writers don’t mind working and only being paid if an organization receives a grant, but there are numerous issues with this train of thought.

If the grant is not funded, the grant writer does not get compensated – even though they did the work and submitted the highest quality proposal possible. Very few foundations allow an organization to write in the salary of the grant writer, so it can seem a little unethical to pay a writer out of the grant funds, when they are often not an actual line item in the application. The practice of commission-based grant writing continually devalues the actual skill and experience of grant writers.

My favorite analogy of this situation is:

If you go to a medical doctor because you are sick, do you say, “I’m only going to pay you if you cure me”? I think not. We understand, as a society, that doctors’ work is not an exact science. They may or may not be able to ‘fix’ you on-the-spot. But, no one would think of saying they weren’t going to pay the office visit or fees associated with medicines that ‘might’ cure the problem, right? So why in the world do folks expect grant writers to write quality applications and not be paid for that work? No one has control over what a board decides concerning grant funding, so how can grant writers be held accountable if a grant is not funded? 

The nonprofit staff that will be managing or supervising the contract grant writer(s) need to be educated enough on the process of grant writing to have the ability to review a completed proposal and determine if it has fully addressed the questions, covered all aspects of the need in a compelling manner, and positioned your organization to submit the highest-quality proposal for consideration.

Other things you will want to consider when seeking a grant writer for your organization:

Are you seeking full-time, part-time or contract staff and will this person work outside of your office space?Are you seeking a grant writer for a project that has an end-date, like a capital campaign, ,or maybe a one-time state/federal grant, are you looking for a long-term relationship with ongoing writing needs?Do you have someone in-house who would like to learn the grant writing skillset and could possibly use a coach or learn alongside a contractor to eventually take on the role?

As you think through the answers to the many questions posed here, I also encourage you to consider services such a template creation, program design, and document review as ways you can engage with professionals to increase your in-house education/experience, reduce your outsourcing costs, and gain valuable professional expertise on your team.