Grant Writing for Beginners, Become a Grant Writer and Work at Home

Transcription

(Music)

Jayme Gittings: I find that the out of house grant writer position in the sector is begging to grow. And here's why. So grant writing…

Dan: Today on Time We Discuss, I want to welcome Jayme Gittings and it's time we discuss what it's like working as a grant writer. Jayme, thank you for joining me today.

Jayme: Thank you so much for having me.

Dan: This is particularly awesome because most of the people I don't actually know, but you, I really do know. So this is kind of cool.

Jayme: Yes. We're real life people.

Dan: We are. We are. So one of the things I'd like to start with is typical day. So what is a typical day like for you as a grant writer?

Jayme: Well the nice thing is, is that none of my days are really typical. But there are some that carry a lot of commonality. I have a family. So in the morning I get an opportunity to actually get them off and get them to do their things. Mornings are my sweet spot. They are when I'm very good at writing. I've learned as being a writer for many, many years that that's when I like to sit down and do really in-depth projects. And sometimes look up three hours later and I've written 10,000 words and gotten a big chunk of my stuff done. And then usually midday to early afternoon I handle a lot of the communications and planning that I have to do with my clients. So because I have a amazing group of organizations that I work with, they always have something in the hopper. Something that's either about to be delivered in the progress of drafting. We have to figure something out. We're preparing for a meeting. It can be a whole host of different things or all of those same things on the same day. So that includes interfacing with online types of communication vendor tools like Asana and Teams and whatnot. But it also includes phone calls or going out to visit my clients to see what they're doing and having in-person visits and meeting with them. So it kind of runs the gamut, but most of my days have a good block of writing and a good block of interacting with my clients.

Dan: Your company, Acorn Consulting Group, how did you actually start that as a grant writing organization? Did you just decide that you're going to start this or were you grant writing in-house somewhere? How did that happen?

Jayme: I've been lucky enough that for about the last 25 years I've been working in the nonprofit sector. So I've been able to be in the trenches, working on the front lines, doing the actual work, rolling my sleeves up. And I've done a lot of development work within that. So that's marketing and communications, trying to find donors for the organization. And a component of that has always been grants. And what I noticed during my career was that when the topic of grants would come up, literally everyone would run from the room. It was traumatizing to seasoned nonprofit folks. Nobody wanted to write them. They were kind of this enigma. It was mythical. You never really knew how to get it done, and you could be lost in it for hours and lose days. But it was something I liked. I was just this kind of odd bug who really, really loved the project-based work and loved the writing stuff. And I took it as a challenge. So I was coming to what I knew was going to be the end of my nonprofit career. I was kind of getting burned out. I was starting to lose a little bit of faith in how the work I was doing was really making change. And so I thought, well, how can I make that change happen in a way that resonates specifically with me? So literally two weeks before COVID hit, I decided I'm doing it. And my partner and I, we agreed this is the time we're going to do it. I had dabbled in consulting previously. I walked into the office of my boss at the time, the CEO of the nonprofit I worked at. And I said, I'd like to start my own business. I'm resigning. And she said, oh, no, can we be your first client? And I thought, what a great outcome. What a great outcome. So yes. So my last employer became my first client, and we built from there. And it's been, I think, over five years now. And I've had the benefit of working with dozens of different clients. And I think when I looked last, I think we're up over $7 million worth of resources that have been landed for area nonprofits to get their hard work done to make the community better.

Dan: And that feels great. You talk about area nonprofits. How different is it working locally versus working nationally, internationally? Is there … is it easier to work… I'm assuming it probably is easier to work locally, but talk to me about that part of it.

Jayme: And there's always that kind of discussion in your head or with peers when you're a grant writer, especially when you're starting out. What type of writing do I want to do? Because there's a very big market. People are doing this work all over the country. And you can really market yourself very well now with technology to be able to be a grant writer to people in any part of the country. And I get contacted by folks in all sorts of different areas. But I do try to limit my work to here in this community. One, because I'm so familiar with the nonprofits, I've worked in them. A lot of my previous colleagues are still there. I have people I can pick up the phone and call and say, tell me the real deal on what's going on. And then also whenever I go to meet with funders in person, I get to know them. I establish a relationship. They get to know me. And I can bring that level of expertise to each of my clients rather than having it be a cold relationship that they have to kind of start ahead of time. I do a lot of introductions. So I'll be familiar with a particular funder and say, you know what, I really think you should take a look at this other organization. They're doing great work in a different pillar that you fund. We've been working on your hunger pillar with this one. But over here, you have a housing pillar. They're doing wonderful stuff. Let me get you guys together for a conversation. And then that ultimately blooms into an application and then usually fingers crossed funding. So I think that that's what I bring as an individual that's unique, that's over and above just the task of grant writing.

Dan: I've spoken with a number of people from different nonprofit organizations. And the one thing I think that is really cool is that there seems to be this camaraderie around people that are in nonprofit organizations. It's not like a corporate environment where everyone's like to exaggerate, cutthroat, you know, but you tend to help kind of each other out. And that's that's really, really cool. So you talked about raising, I think it was 2.7 million dollars, right?

Jayme: No, we raised over seven million.

Dan: Seven million. Okay.

Jayme: Over seven for the clients in five years.

Dan: Big difference there. Okay. So this is more of a question about your opinion, I guess. When it comes to raising, writing and receiving grants, okay. How do you measure success? Is it based on the dollars you bring in or is it based on the amount of the grants you apply for and then you get money out of that? How do you personally measure success?

Jayme: I think it can be different for folks. I have a lot of clients who when they're new and they come to me and they've never worked with a grant writer before, they say, Oh, what is your rate of success? And for the longest time, I actually didn't calculate it because how I judge success is slightly different. And here's why. So an organization, it's similar to when you were a junior in high school and a senior in high school and you're looking at colleges. If you were just applying to the safety schools, then you probably are going to get 100% success rate. And then if you're like, Oh, well, I'm going to throw some like kind of experimental ones in there or Hail Mary's in there and see what happens just to see your success rate is going to invariably go down. But that doesn't mean that that was a bad idea. It just means that you're putting things out there that you haven't tried before. You're taking new risks. Maybe you're looking for a certain college that you didn't think that you were going to originally look for. Very similar in the nonprofit world with grants. If I have a client and their entire portfolio that we have in the previous year has been funded, I'm not doing my job. And that sounds weird because I am doing my job. I'm landing them money. But it also means that we're not taking any risks. We're not reaching for the stars and reaching for the stars, I think is a component of grant rating and success and measuring success because sometimes you don't get it on the first try and then you get feedback and you find out what you can make your application better. And then the second try, maybe you don't get it. Feedback better. Third try, you've landed one of the largest grants you've ever had. So there's this kind of magic that is in it that doesn't get easily described in the numbers. Do I want at least an 80% win rate for my clients? Absolutely. And that's mainly because they're investing in my time with a very limited budget. So I want their money to be worth it. So I'm not going to spend all my time in the stars because that's not going to help them pay their employees. But at the same time, I'm also looking at next year's financials, the year after financials, and laying a real foundation for the vision of the program getting bigger over time. And that is part of my job, is to have that kind of expansion of risk, getting out of your comfort zone, finding new and better things.

Dan: So that's cool. It sounds almost like in a sense you're kind of working strategically with them as well, not only to get money for this year, but what can we do for the next couple of years out and try to also grow. And that's really cool. Okay.

Jayme: Yeah. And I think that that's part of why I structured my business as a consulting agency, because it really does go beyond the task of just grant writing and keeping the spreadsheet of how many grants you have coming up. I draw a lot from my background actually working in nonprofits and seeing things that happen there so that they can inform what I'm doing. So for instance, I can sit down with the CEO and a director of development and we can talk about, oh, well, you guys really want to structure a new program around this particular very large line of funding. And I'm kind of the voice in the room that says, that sounds great, but I don't know of any other funders who would fund this afterwards. So unless you guys have a plan of how to continue this work from your operating budget after it's done, then you're, you're signing yourself up for some problems. Let's think about that now and restructure the way that you're going to do the asks so that you are protected and sustainable and all of that. So there is, there's a lot of strategic thinking and a lot of sitting around tables and listening and hearing where people want to go. And being the person who says, Hey, can I talk to you program person and make sure that the goals that we just set up and put down on paper, she actually feels like she can achieve those with the staff she has. Because I don't want to put your staff in a pickle 12 months from now where I go back and say, wow, we got that great hundred thousand dollar grant. And you said that you could work with 2000 children over the course of the last year. Can you give me the number of children you worked with? And then they look at you with these wide eyes and say, we said that, you know, it becomes a real, then you know you can, you know, work with it and work with funders and everything like that. It's not the end of the world, but there's a lot of strategic work that goes into it. It's very interesting.

Dan: I want to talk about education briefly. So when it comes to education, how important is it for someone to get a four year degree in grant writing? Or can they just … how does someone get started as a grant writer from an education perspective?

Jayme: Right. And I joke that like no one in high school or college is saying I want to grow up and be a grant writer like there are people who are in the nonprofit sector and who are like, I don't want to be a grant… There's many ways that you can back your way into this, but it is absolutely not essential to get a degree in it. It's not essential to do it as a line of study. I would recommend folks if they're doing a two year or four year college experience to focus on areas that would support this. So writing, critical thinking, persuasive writing in particular, understanding structures of nonprofits and how they work and how their budgets are. Oftentimes these are electives. These are minors that you can do at the undergraduate level. If you're interested in doing master's level work around it, there's work in social work or there's degrees in social work that you could do that could really line you up well, but they're really not necessary. On the ground experience is super helpful. Seeing a nonprofit operate from the inside, seeing how it works. I had the great benefit of working at very small nonprofits, medium sized nonprofits and international nonprofits in Washington, D.C. I got a feel for the differences in all of them, which really informs what I do right now. And it lets me have intelligent conversations with my clients and they don't have to kind of keep pulling me in on what it's like to do their work. There are for grant writers two main grant writing organizations who provide certificates. And that's that route that I would say is definitely something to consider if you haven't been doing grant writing as part of your work, but you're interested in it. The certificate programs go through structures of grants, how they work, the ethics of grant writing. There's ethics involved that you should know as a grant writer and be able to feel aligned with them. And you come out with a certificate that then elevates you when folks are looking at you to say, oh, do I want them to be my grant writer? I didn't need to get the certificates because I had 20 years of grant writing under my belt already before I even started my business. So that wasn't a concern for me. But if you're entering the field, exploring one of those two certificate programs would be a good idea. And it's a relatively low investment. It's I would say probably below three thousand dollars stem to start. I also, because I enjoy the writing component of it, I got a certificate in editing. Don't have to do it. But boy, was it helpful. I know where all my commas go and I know why. I know how to edit a piece of work in a way that is collaborative. And I would recommend the University of Chicago, the home of the Chicago Manual of Style. That's my pitch for them. But but any sort of education you get in editing and writing will feed right into this.

Dan: But essentially, you talk about using commas. A lot of times I try to use different A.I. applications to try to kind of offload some of my work that I have to do. And one of the things I noticed recently is that it doesn't always include commas where it should. And it's a very new thing. I'm thinking, what's what's happening here? This used to be fine. All of a sudden, no commas. That is a problem.

Jayme: Well, interestingly, there are different style manuals for different fields, for novels versus journals versus this, that and the other thing. And there's actually a fair amount of discretion in editing and in punctuation and grammar and everything like that. But you learn how to identify who your audience is and then align yourself with how it's done. So, I mean, I could go down a rabbit hole with you on that. I won't bore your listeners with editing because I'm sure that, you know, zero point zero one percent of them are interested in that. But that's a great example of something that you can do to really make yourself exceptional with the underlying work so that it comes quite easily to you. So that then you can spend your energies on how do I build the business? How do I make sure I can manage multiple clients? How do I make sure I'm delivering on time? All of that business element is a big part of what I do as well.

Dan: How quick is the turnaround time for grants? Typically, is it someone contacts you? They want it,as long as it's in by the deadline. What is that part of it like?

Jayme: Yeah. So you most of the time you have a hard deadline. Sometimes they're soft deadlines where it's a rolling deadline, but it's more appropriate to put it in in the first quarter because they just got fresh money and you want the first stab at it. Or from a timing perspective, the staff's not available till summer and then you work with them then. But I find so, for instance, right now I have four clients and that seems like very few … fills my time. I am a full time. I'm a full time grant writer because they all have robust programs. So each of them has probably 40 to 50 targets every year. And we don't hit all of those. We hit the cream of the crop and then the reaches. But I would say each month I complete around 10 to 15 grants. The turnaround time for them can range from two weeks for a very straightforward bank type of application. We have all the language developed. We're just tweaking it for this one to months of preparation, especially for very significant government grants. They're that's kind of a whole sub-genre of this, but government grants can take a long time. And I say that with kind of a tongue in cheek because, for instance, I have a very large grant that we decided last Friday that we were going to do. And it's due next Thursday to a significant regional funder would be program changing, transformational for the client. They had they're ready. They're ready to go. We're doing it. We're going to make it happen in two weeks. It's like all hands on deck, which essentially is two hands on deck. It's just me, you know. So there is a lot of being able to be agile, being willing to let a perfectly good plan crumble under new things coming in and being willing to move everything around and say to the clients whose wheel isn't squeaking as much. Hey, can we move that to there and that to there and all of that? So if you enjoy project management, if you enjoy keeping ducks in a row, this will scratch that itch for you.

Dan: How common is it for nonprofit organizations to utilize an in-house grant writer versus using a consultant? Is that a trend that's changing? Is it common? What is that like?

Jayme: I find that the out of house grant writer position and the sector is is begging to grow. And here's why. So grant writing is relatively niche if you … as a skill, if you are doing it in-house as a staffer, you're likely also doing another 13 things. And grant writing also will get pushed to the end and then you're doing it late and it's very unpleasant and all of that. So it's usually falling under the umbrella, broader development based work. Sometimes for very small organizations, even the executive director is handling writing these things, which is taking him or her time away from going out and doing the real work that no consultant can do for them. So my argument to folks who are like, why would we pay somebody out of house with an hourly salary that we wouldn't pay somebody in-house is I don't need a computer. I don't need to be onboarded and you don't need to manage me. In fact, I'm managing you because I'm the one who has all of your deadlines. I have your calendars. I'm coming to you and telling you, don't forget to do this. And you don't have to train me. I'm walking in with the skills that you need to be able to do this. And I'm bringing institutional knowledge with me. So they, in order to buy that for an employee, they would be paying a very high salary. And oftentimes it's the organizations that need the grant money that don't yet have the operational funds to bring on a full-time employee in that capacity. And that's a nuance of what I do, which is none of the grants that I write can fund me. They have to find the dollars for me out of operations. So you will not find a funder out there who will be like, okay, and we're going to give you 5% to pay for the person who made this grant happen. That is an operational expense that they will not cover. Not even the state, the state or the federal government won't cover it. So you find these organizations at this like real nexus point where they need somebody to do this task for long enough that they can build up a big enough program so that then they can have the operating expenses, you know, available to them, pull somebody inside. So oftentimes it's my role is during a period of transition for an organization. They're getting bigger, they're getting larger. And ultimately I'll be handing off all of the stuff that I do to their first development director who comes in. And then that person will take that and run with it. But I've also had organizations that say, we just like having you and it's like one and done. And then their development person they hire is great people skills likes to get out there, likes to do the relationship building and everything like that. And you're like, it's just a wonderful carve out. So I can tell you for this region here, we are sadly, woefully understaffed with consultants. There is an opportunity for people who are willing to learn, who are willing to hit the pavement, willing to do what they need to do for their clients in this region. And I would not be surprised if that's true in lots of different places, mainly because the nonprofit sector in general is losing pipelined candidates. So we're getting older in nonprofits and we're not replacing our people. And so therefore we're running out of people to go out into the field and start their own grant writing stuff. So, I mean, if somebody's listening and they like writing and they like keeping spreadsheets and they like working with people who are doing amazing things, like do it, look into it. Write me and I will, I'll mentor you and we'll get you off your feet. But it's a really wonderful way to stay in touch with your community, be a part of it getting better and stronger. And one little element of it that's really nice is I get to pick my clients. There are issues I love and within certain barriers of ethics, I get to say, yeah, that I would really love to help the housing sector here in my area get better. Because I look around and I know that that's something that's needed and I can do that. Now, from an ethical standpoint, I can't have two housing clients because then we're going fisticuffs with the same money streams. But, but yeah, it's a really great area of work.

Dan: That's cool. So you can actually kind of almost see and make change happen in your area. That is really, really cool. One thing I want to talk about, and I never like to talk about specifics when it comes to money, but how, and you said that the organizations that has to come from their organizational funds, they can't get … the money can't come from the grant. And that makes complete sense. Do you get paid based on the success of the grant? If they get the grant money, you get X amount of dollars if they don't get the grant, you get half of that.

Jayme: Gosh, I wish. Now that I've been doing it for a while and winning a lot of grants, I wish that that were the case. But actually, kind of the overarching organization for professional fundraisers. The association professional funders, they have they have ethical guidelines that says, listen, it is not appropriate to to tag financial consideration for your grant writer to the winning of the grant. Mainly because what you're doing is you're making an argument to the funder. This is what we're going to do with your money and it's going to be all to make programs happen. And I'm not a program person. I'm incident to that. So but the structure that it's in works quite well. You can do it two different ways as a grant writer. You can actually do a bid out a project in its entirety. So you can say, I will write that grant for you for X number of dollars and it will include at least X number of revisions and all of that. And then you get the product in the end. I tend to stay away from that because I work with clients who have so many that we would spend half of our time contracting for each of them. That it would just be a barrier. So I have an hourly rate and it's for everything that I do. It is for when I email you. It's for when I call you. It's for when I'm working on your spreadsheet and is for when I am sitting down and doing unique writing for you. So that hourly rate travels with us for a year. And then every so often I will incrementally increase it as this sector begins to pay folks a little bit more. And then and then I just count my hours for them every month and then I bill them once a month. And it's a very easy exchange. And I make sure that my billing process allows for them to calculate return on in-depth investment. So they know that I worked for seven and a half hours on the William Penn grant and I worked for one and a half hours on the TD Charitable grant. And I worked for three hours doing research for them, five hours on emails. They can see what's being productive and what return on investment is happening for them if they want to go and do that calculation themselves. So that's something that I built in so that they can make sure that their money is worth it. And sometimes, you know, we have caps. They say, all right, I've got a cap for you. I cannot go over this amount of hours. I said totally fine. I will check in with you along the month and I will say, hey, we're 80% to our cap. Are you sure you want me to do both of those projects? Because only one of them probably is going to get done. Which one do you want me to do? And they'll say, OK, well, I'm going to have this other staffer take over that particular project. I want you to focus on this and then we won't go over our hours. So it becomes very collaborative. But I do say that if you're coming into this sector, I say, don't be shy about your rate. Everything that you do needs to be folded into your rate. All of my computers, my electricity, every piece of paper I have to buy, all my Staples runs like everything is folded into that. And then a chunk goes away for quarterly taxes. And, you know, so you really need it to encompass the totality of your work and the value of your work. So don't under do it. Don't think, oh, I'm going to low ball my stuff in the beginning so that people with … what you're going to do is why end up getting clients who actually don't have the financial stability to actually hire you. And instead, they've low balled themselves and nothing good will come of this. You're seeking the clients who have enough money to be able to put aside a couple thousand a month so that you can do a solid amount of work so that you can help them evolve their program. So don't be shy.

Dan: That is awesome. I was actually just speaking with a financial advisor. Her episode drops the week before yours. And we also spoke about the importance of setting the correct rate for your business. And this kind of ties into that very nicely. Unfortunately, I am running short on time. But one of the things I like to do, whatever I'm speaking with someone, I like to give them the opportunity to talk about a project they're working on, a cause they believe in, more about their business. So if there's something specific that you'd like to discuss, the floor is yours.

Jayme: I have so many wonderful clients. It would be hard to, like, elevate just one of them. But what I would say call to action to folks who are listening is if you've ever been interested in getting involved in your community, I think the communities these days really, really need expertise. So even if grant writing isn't something you want to do, still try to find a way to reach out into your community and see if they need help with even small things. You don't have to be on a board. You don't have to donate 40 hours worth of volunteer work to be valuable. Sometimes it is a skill that a nonprofit doesn't have. Maybe they just can't get Canva and you get Canva and they need to be able to put five things out on social media. And that is just a pain point for them that you could step right in and do. Look and see what your skill is. Don't think that it has to be a momentous type of step into it. Little can go a long way. And then once you get involved, invite a friend and have them get involved as well. And that's how these organizations keep their lifeblood alive and keep everybody doing better every year.

Dan: Jayme, what you're saying about helping out the community, that sounds really, really cool. And it's very reminiscent of last year spoke with Erica Wright from Steven's Wings, which is a local nonprofit here. And she talked about that idea when you're first starting a nonprofit, how you can essentially barter with other other people or other nonprofits. Because money is tight, especially in the beginning of any business and nonprofits included. Where you can kind of start to build things up by leveraging other people's skills. So it kind of reminds me of that. Very, very cool.

Jayme: Absolutely.

Dan: Jayme, it's been absolutely awesome having you on Time We Discuss and we learned what it's like being a grant writer.

Jayme: Thank you so much for having me. It was a great, great fun time. I really appreciate it.