What happens when you want to pursue grant funding but you don't have the time or the skills to write grants? For many nonprofits and projects, the answer is to outsource the work to a grant writer.If you are a nonprofit or project administrator and are considering hiring a grant writer, there are three common assumptions about grant writers you'll want to avoid when reviewing candidates.

After you identify an opportunity to respond to, you'll want to prepare a proposal binder to organize your materials. You may want to prepare several copies of the binder, one for each member of the proposal team.  The contents of the binder will vary depending on how complicated the proposal is. However, there is some standard information you'll want to include in each proposal binder.

Once you've identified an opportunity to respond to and started to assemble your materials, you'll need to recruit a team to work on the proposal. If you've been anticipating an opportunity's release, you may already have your team in place. If this is the case, you can go directly to assembling your proposal binders and scheduling the initial proposal planning meeting.

It takes multiple drafts to get a proposal ready for submission. Before you begin the writing process, you'll want to create a proposal calendar to plot out how many drafts you'll create on your way to the final draft.

For grant writers, the concept of extreme focus may at first seem difficult to apply. After all, a grant application has multiple pieces that need to be developed simultaneously. What should be the "One Thing" worthy of your focus when everything must get done?

Over the last few posts we've covered creating a proposal binder, organizing your proposal team, and planning your draft process. After these preparations, you're almost ready to start writing. Before the writing begins, you'll need to do one more thing, which is to create a framework for the proposal.

In this post, we'll cover two more essential pieces of the proposal management process. The first is to create a template or proposal "shell" for the drafting process. The second piece we'll review is some of the tools you can use to manage the draft  process and keep team members informed of changes to the proposal schedule and proposal development process.

In earlier posts, we reviewed creating a proposal calendar, organizing the drafts, and managing the proposal development process. Now it's time to submit the proposal. The last week of the proposal process can be hectic. Below are six tips to make the final days of the proposal process less stressful and set yourself up for even greater success (and less stress) for the next proposal.

If you work in the nonprofit sector, when you hear "business plan" you may think it doesn't apply to your work setting. But nonprofits, just like for-profits, need to use their resources wisely and plan for the future.

When it comes to grant funding, regardless of whether you are just starting out or have been in operation for years, it's not safe to assume that you'll be able to maintain your organization's operations on grant funding alone. Grants should be part of your business plan, but relying on a steady flow of grant funding as the cornerstone of your funding plan could put you at risk.

If you've never written a proposal before or even if you have, it can be valuable to look at sample proposals, particularly examples of funded proposals. The resource list below consists primarily of links to proposals funded by U.S. government agencies. There are a few foundation sources, including a book released by the Foundation Center that includes more than 30 sample proposals (all successfully funded). Listed below you'll also find links to proposal outlines and grant writing guidance.

Do you work with a new or small non-profit organization? Have you been searching for small grants recently? If have, there’s some good news and bad news….

Grant funding is part of the funding mix for most nonprofits. For some organizations, grants make up the bulk of their funding. However, few organizations can rely solely on grant funding. In part this is because grant funding is unpredictable. Both the number of grants received, and the awarded amounts, can vary considerably from year to year. In addition to the unpredictability of grants, there are other drawbacks. Five are outlined below. Before you embark on the pursuit of grant funding, you'll want to prepare for each of these challenges.

If you are new to grant writing, your first question is likely to be: How Do I Write a Grant Proposal?At its core, writing a grant proposal comes down to five steps. Each of the five steps is described briefly below. If you are interested in reading more, you'll find links to earlier posts that describe the steps in detail.

This post will take a closer look at the application process and the standard sections you are likely to encounter so you'll know what to expect. As you review these standard pieces, you may find you have some of the information and text already on hand or that it will be relatively easy to pull it together.

A style sheet is a useful tool to capture your (or your organization’s) preferences for how to handle basic style questions. The style sheet is not exhaustive—it won’t replace a style guide such as The Chicago Manual of Style—but it should cover many of the common style questions that affect how a document looks. Your employer may already have developed a style sheet to ensure uniformity across the various types of publications it produces. If your employer does not have a style sheet, it is worth taking time early in the proposal process to create one that incorporates not only basic style elements but also the specific requirements for the grant application you're working on.

Writing a grant proposal is rarely, if ever, a solo activity. Unless you are starting a nonprofit on your own and trying to land that first grant, preparing a grant involves multiple people. The proposal team could be configured different ways: You might have several people writing content, or maybe one person doing the bulk of the writing and a handful of people involved as reviewers. Either way, more than one person will be involved. All of these individuals require coordination.

A core part of the prospect research process involves evaluating potential sources of funding such as private foundations, community foundations, and government agencies to determine which sources of funding are the right “fit” for your organization or project and worth pursuing.

Writing grant proposals requires skills in a number of areas, including the use of software programs like Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat,  knowledge of funders, and the ability to write compelling prose. There are several ways to build your skills in these areas.

For some funding opportunities, you may need to hire a consultant to prepare the proposal. The consultant may be a subject-matter expert who can work with you on strategy, a grant writer who can write the content and manage the proposal process, or a former government or foundation staff member who can help with the review process and ensure that your proposal is responsive to the funder’s needs.