When do I have to pay my grant writer?

I have had some potential clients approach me and ask, “Can we just pay you with some of the grant money if it is awarded?” and “Do I still have to pay you even if I don’t get awarded the grant money?”.

I would LOVE to assist all of the amazing nonprofits out there for free, however, that’s not a sustainable business plan for me. Most grants will not allow you to utilize their funding to pay a grant professional to prepare your grant (some will allow up to 10% for the administration portion of the grant once it has been funded though).

While I cannot guarantee that you will get every grant that you apply for, I can guarantee that when you work with The Dotted i you will get:

• a clear, concise, and comprehensive grant application that is submitted on time and in your organization’s name (I am a ghostwriter, therefore I take zero credit);
• ownership of the application in both an editable (Word) and .pdf document for use in any way that you like (hint, hint: take the narrative, edit it for future applications, and reuse until your heart’s content); and,
• the knowledge and skills of a professional grant writer (who is passionate about seeing you succeed) that has been writing these types of applications for over 8 years.

I have worked closely with the majority of these funders over the course of my career and have had honest conversations with their staff about exactly what they like to see in a proposal. That knowledge can help give your proposal the extra edge it needs to succeed.

I would encourage you to carefully consider grant writers that will work off of a commission based pay. If the grant that they write is funded, oftentimes the percentage that they take (which you are usually paying out of pocket because most funders won’t allow you to use the money to pay for a grant writer to develop the application) is larger than what it would have cost for you to hire a consultant that has a set fee. The best option is to get several price quotes so you know exactly what you are getting into.

Do you have a proposal that you’d like to submit but aren’t sure how much it will cost to have me prepare it for you? Shoot me an email and I’ll send you over a quote!

Cheers,

Bre

P.s. What are your thoughts about this blog post? I’d love to hear from you below!