Info on Working as a "Grant Writer"??

[Cathe Bedard <cbbedard -at- YAHOO -dot- COM>]

Deborah L. Crossman asked about writing grants.

I've worked on several grants in the past and found that, like most other jobs I've had, what you do varies from place to place.

When I've worked in larger organizations that seem similar to the one you are describing, I have gotten budget info from someone else and completed the forms.  Of course I put the info into a spread sheet and made certain everything worked.  Sometimes it didn't and then I'd have to find out why and fix it before I completed the forms.

I always used a lot of "canned" background info (boilerplate).  Sometimes I inherited that info from previous grants or from administrative PR people who had rigid versions that I had to use.  Sometimes I was able to write or edit the background info and then modify it for future use.  Just like tech writing, you need to target the info for your audience.  This is really critical for grant applications.

I would expect info about research significance to come from your interviews with the researchers or from reading info from other grants or publications.

I think all the grants I ever worked on had guidelines including info about how the application would be scored.  I was surprised at how many people paid little attention to that info.  It basically told you what the funding source wanted and how they wanted it presented.  See if you can review some Request for Proposals (RFPs) to which the organization is responding to see what they want.

When I was writing grants the Grantsmanship Center was really helpful.  They provided training (not free) and I think they maintained grant resource centers in public and college libraries in major cities in most states.  They have a web site:  www.tgci.com.  I've never been affiliated with them and have no clue what they are doing now.

E-mail me directly if you have more questions.

Good luck!
Cathe