What it’s like to be a grant writer right now

With what feels like the fate of their organizations on their shoulders, grant writers say their work has become heavier, more competitive, yet even more important. “There’s a lot of stress on you to be productive,” said Yvan Tonkeu, a freelance grant writer from Cameroon who largely supports North American and European nonprofits. “There’s a lot on you to be consistent with your writing and also with the results despite the fact that the resources are much smaller than five to 10 years ago.” Grant writers have long been a cornerstone of NGO and aid agency fundraising, and their skills remain important even as many organizations look to diversify revenue. They typically spend their days liaising with in-house project officers and monitoring and evaluation specialists to compile applications to various donors. They hope the information they present will be enough to win an award — securing funding for vital development work while sustaining their organization and its staff. “As a grant writer, you see an open call, you do your research, you write a proposal that's between five to 20 pages … balancing the funders’ thematic priorities with your organization’s priorities,” said Gabrielle Esquivel, who began her grant writing career five years ago and is now working as a corporate partnership specialist at an international NGO in the Philippines. “When you send it out, you do that knowing that you’re a needle in a haystack.” Amid heavy funding cuts, that haystack just got bigger, intensifying the pressure on grant writers. “Everyone right now, it feels, is scrambling to survive,” said Esquivel. “Everyone is under pressure to fundraise, even if you're not in fundraising.” Speaking to Devex, grant writers shared what it feels like to be working on proposals at a time of peak change in the sector and when colleagues’ livelihoods and lifesaving programs are somewhat reliant on their grant applications. The work is more challenging “The biggest challenge is really the increased competitiveness,” said Joana Apóstolo, a specialist in institutional fundraising who has held roles with NGOs such as the World Wildlife Fund and the Sustainable Agriculture Network. With less donor money available for aid and development projects, those tasked with writing applications for grants are acutely aware that there will be greater competition, adding to the pressure to ensure their applications stand out. “Everybody’s feeling the need to up their game,” said Apóstolo, who has completed training in corporate fundraising to expand her fundraising repertoire. Alongside the depletion in donor funding, the introduction of artificial intelligence in grant writing is also replacing the role in some instances, forcing fundraising professionals to demonstrate their value-add, said Apóstolo. In a time of cost-cutting measures, AI can be a tempting option for NGOs. It can research, craft, and edit proposals, said Fatou Jammeh, founder of fundraising consultancy Fjammeh Consulting, but it lacks the “human connection and strategy” needed for the role. Nonetheless, this threat to grant-writing work can be demotivating for those who have dedicated their careers to helping nonprofits secure financing. “As a fundraiser, the reality of the funding landscape and what little you can actually do about it is staggering. You’re one writer in a huge system, with forces you have no control over,” Esquivel said. The role is evolving In today’s landscape, nonprofits now require grant writers to be “strategists,” Jammeh said. “The role has shifted from ‘you give me what your programming is, I will write the proposal for you’ to [being] more involved … because they don't have that much capacity,” she explained. That means supporting organizations in assessing what they can realistically deliver and how that might match what a funder requires, she added. For some grant writers, this is not what they want to be doing. Tonkeu said the role used to be more about storytelling and creating a narrative for donors to invest in. Now, the need for greater impact per dollar means grant writing has become more data-focused. “You definitely need to be resilient and hardworking if you want to succeed in the grant industry environment,” he said. To stay competitive in a field becoming oversaturated with candidates, Apóstolo advised building a diverse skill set to “be valuable in a variety of ways to the organization you’re trying to support.” No job is safe With demand for funding high, grant writers are among the roles that organizations are hiring for; in some cases, creating the perception of job security. “You can’t miss a week without seeing hundreds of ads for grant writing positions, either part time, independent contractor,” Tonkeu said. Devex’s jobs board, for example, currently has several advertisements from organizations such as Antea Group and the Canadian Red Cross Society seeking some form of proposal or grant writer, and the Norwegian Refugee Council and Mercy Corps recently hired for similar positions. Grant writers aren’t immune to redundancies though. Apóstolo lost her staff position at the Sustainable Agriculture Network last year and Jammeh has experienced a drop in clients since the widespread aid cuts. “I haven't really had folks come to me in the last few months,” Jammeh said. According to Tonkeu, some organizations are looking to replace existing grant writing staff who may not be seeing success in securing funding. “Board members, CEOs, or program managers don’t actually want to waste time on someone who’s been working and they can’t see the results, so you need to be someone who's ahead of your game,” he said. That idea of replaceability adds another dimension of stress to those currently in these roles. But the work was never meant to be easy, said Esquivel, reminding fellow grant writers of the rewarding nature of the role. “Institutions like the United Nations, for example, were created in response to moments of extreme global failure, like World War II,” she said. “Things were never meant to be perfect. They were meant to exist because things go wrong, like right now.”