How to Find a Grant Writer
Knowing how to find a grant writer starts before any search. A nonprofit that first decides what it needs (one proposal, a year of ongoing help, or a review of its own drafts) finds the right person faster. After that, it looks in a few reliable places, reads writing samples, checks references and agrees a fee that is never a share of the award.
This post is written for the hiring side. It is also useful to anyone thinking of becoming a grant writer, because the checks a careful nonprofit runs are the checks a new writer has to pass. A section near the end says plainly what that means for someone starting out.
Decide what kind of help you need
Grant writing help comes in different shapes, and hiring the wrong shape wastes money even when the writer is good. The first decision is whether the need is one application, a year of steady funding work, or building the skill inside the organization. The cards below compare the three.
A freelancer per proposal
Where it breaksIt gets expensive when every application needs a fresh briefing.
A consultant on retainer
Where it breaksQuiet months are wasted unless the scope includes research.
Training a staff member
Where it breaksIt takes months before a newly trained writer works at full speed.
Put briefly, occasional or unusually complex applications favor an outside writer, and regular applications to the same funders favor building the skill in-house. Our guide to grant writing for nonprofits looks at that decision in more detail.
The third option is more common than many boards assume. Grant work often sits inside a wider fundraising or program job rather than a dedicated post. In our experience at the Professional Grant Writing Institute, about one student in four over the last three years enrolled because an employer had handed them the grants on top of other fundraising duties.
Where nonprofits find grant writers
Most good grant writers are found through people rather than advertisements, because the work is bought on trust. Once the kind of help is settled, these are the places worth checking, roughly in order of how often they produce a good hire:
- Similar organizations nearby. Ask who wrote their successful applications, and whether they would hire that person again.
- Professional associations. The Grant Professionals Association has members who do freelance work, and many states have a nonprofit association with links to local consultants.
- Community foundations. Program staff often know which writers local organizations have used, though they will not usually endorse one.
- General freelance marketplaces. These can work for a small, well-defined job, but the platform does not vet grant writing experience.
The last source needs the most care. A profile full of praise is no substitute for reading the writer's actual proposals, so the checks in the next section matter even more there.
How to vet a grant writer
Vetting comes down to seeing the work, hearing how the writer works, and confirming both with someone who hired them before. The sequence below keeps that manageable, even for a small organization without a development director.
- 1
Write a short brief
Describe the funder, the program, the deadline and what your staff can supply.
Hands on a brief every candidate answers in the same terms - 2
Read samples
Ask for two or three proposals similar in size and funder type to yours.
Hands on a shortlist of two or three - 3
Interview
Ask how they would approach your application and what they would need from staff.
Hands on a clear picture of their process - 4
Check references
Speak to at least two past clients about deadlines, communication and revisions.
Hands on confirmation of what they told you - 5
Agree the scope in writing
Set out the fee, deliverables, revision rounds, deadlines and who submits.
Of those steps, the samples deserve the closest reading. Look for a need statement backed by sourced figures, objectives that could actually be measured, and a budget that matches the activities described. Those features are hard to fake, and they show whether the writer understands how reviewers score a proposal.
Ask too whether the samples were funded, but weigh the answer carefully. A funded proposal shows the work survived review, while a declined one may still be excellent writing for a program the funder did not prioritize that year. The quality on the page tells a hiring manager more than the outcome.
Questions to ask in the interview
The interview is less about credentials than about process. The table pairs four useful questions with what a strong answer sounds like and what should give a hiring manager pause.
| Question | A strong answer | A warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| How would you approach this application? | Starts with the guidelines, the scoring criteria and your program | Starts writing before asking about the program |
| How do you charge? | An hourly rate, a flat fee or a retainer, with scope in writing | A percentage of the award |
| What happens if we are declined? | Offers to request reviewer comments and revise | Promises a success rate or a guaranteed award |
| What will you need from our staff? | A specific list of data, documents and meetings, with dates | Says they will not need much from you |
The fee question matters most. A grant writer asking for a percentage of the award is proposing an arrangement that funders and professional bodies treat as improper, and many funders do not permit grant money to be used that way. The companion post on what grant writers charge explains the fair models with worked examples.
A certificate or credential is a reasonable thing to ask about, but it answers a narrower question. It shows that the writer was trained in the process. Samples and references show whether they can deliver it for an organization like yours, so they should carry more weight in the decision.
Warning signs and who owns the application
Most grant writers are honest professionals, but the field attracts some people selling something else. The Grants.gov page on grant fraud notes that applying for a federal grant is free, and warns about offers of grant access for a fee. A hiring manager should walk away from anyone who:
- asks to be paid a percentage of whatever the organization is awarded
- promises an award, a success rate or "guaranteed" funding
- sells "access" to grants rather than work on an application
- wants to submit through their own account instead of the organization's
- cannot show a single full proposal they wrote
The account point is about control as much as fraud. On federal applications, the Grants.gov applicant registration page explains that the organization's own registered contact grants roles to anyone who works on its applications. An outside writer can be given access without ever owning the account.
The same principle belongs in the written agreement for every funder. The organization should own the application, submit it itself and keep copies of every file. Holding the materials in-house means the next proposal can build on this one, whoever writes it.
What this means if you want to be the one hired
Everything above doubles as a description of what a new grant writer has to show. A nonprofit following these steps will ask for samples, call references and listen to how the writer plans an application. Someone starting out needs something to offer at each of those points.
That is harder without a track record, and there is no point pretending otherwise. Training and a credential help a new writer get a first conversation and show they know the process, but they do not replace samples. Most new writers build those by writing for an organization they already know, as described in how to start grant writing.
The interview questions are worth rehearsing as well. A new writer who can explain their process clearly, charges by the hour or the project, and never promises an award already answers three of the four questions the way a careful client hopes. The fourth, a list of what they need from staff, comes from having written a proposal before.
Where the course fits
For nonprofits that decide to build the skill internally, the Professional Grant Writing Course covers the full process across six units, from funder research and proposal structure to narratives, budgets, and logic models with evaluation plans.
For readers planning to be hired, the Advanced Grant Writing Course adds four units. Unit 10 covers positioning for roles or freelance work, setting rates, structuring client relationships and working inside the field's published ethics codes, which is the other side of the hiring process described here.
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