Grant writing is a service, and like all services, we want the client to be satisfied and happy. This is important as it can lead to a long-term relationship with your clients and thus, they can bring in more projects and more work for you. 

Furthermore, it can alleviate much of the grant writing stress. An upset client can ruin a project. It may mean payment will not be made on time, the client may opt-out and hire a new grant writer, etc. Hence, it is crucial to ensure that your client is satisfied and happy.

Communication

Communication is key to every relationship. The same goes for a relationship between a grant writer and his/her client. When speaking to your client, make sure that you are clear and understood. You do not want the client dissatisfied with your work because he/she wanted something else to be done or did not understand the procedure.

Further, make sure to contact your client right away when a bid is accepted or when the grant seeker hires you. This presents a level of professionalism and responsibility – that you are reaching out to the client immediately. This will be much appreciated by your client.

Always respond to emails and phone calls. Do not leave your client wondering what is going on with the project; this can lead to much frustration and confusion. If you are unavailable at the time, respond to the email or call and let your client know that you are unavailable and will respond or call back in a certain time frame. 

In addition to this, update your client constantly so that your client is aware of what is going on with the project, what work is being done, what is needed, when to pay, etc.

Collect documents

Be sure to collect all documents necessary from the client. No one is happy when the client is scrambling for paperwork the date of the grantor’s deadline!

Transparency

Be transparent with all your work for your grant writer.

Create a contract with a series of deliverables (similar to GrantWriterTeam’s contract template), so that the client knows clearly what date the work will be completed. This will also help you complete the project in a timely fashion.

Moreover, make sure that each deliverable is clear as to what work will be delivered. So that the client is aware of the process and the work before signing the contract. If any confusion occurs, you can always point the client to the contract that he/she signed.

When submitting a draft to the client in your deliverable, be sure to label it as a draft – so that the client does not get upset from errors that may appear.

Professionalism

Always keep a professional decorum so that the client is ensured that they are in good hands. You need the client to trust your work and believe that you will provide excellent work to them.

Check your spelling and grammar for anything that you send to your client. You must maintain a professional persona in any of your emails, letters, and conversations with the client. If your emails have errors, the client may think that your grant writing work will have errors.

If any mistakes are made, take responsibility for it, and happily fix your errors. If the client does not like something that is written – edit it, instead of not acknowledging their request because you believe that you know better.  Many grant writers seek to create the best proposal to get the grant awarded. Since the client is paying you for your work, their requests must be completed accordingly.

Create a long-term relationship

Thank your client for working with them and let them know that you are available for any further work that may be needed in the future. If your client is happy, chances are that he/she will contact you if he/she needs grant writing services again.

GrantWriterTeam allows you to work for many different clients, and to build long-term relationships. Deliverables can always be added to a contract. We also seek to ensure that all of our grant writers and their clients are happy with the work completed and the process. We check in on our clients at times to ask how satisfied and happy they are with their grant writer’s work and process of things.

Whether you are an amateur writer or an already established one, we suppose that you have already mastered the English language. However, being a good writer is not only about making your work understandable; it is way more complicated.

Surprisingly, outstanding writing skills are more about editing. First, you put your words on the paper. Usually, most writers do it quickly, in a creative outburst. Then they spend far more time polishing their work, adding or cutting some things out.

You can learn how to write well enough, but there are hardly any self-editing courses. More than just proofreading, good editing improves the clarity and forcefulness of your work.

Self-editing also helps you detect obvious mistakes like grammatical or spelling errors.

Submitting an article packed with errors is immensely unprofessional. Thus, make sure to always proofread the final version of your copy. There are numerous editing tips you can use to make sure your work is flawless. We have chosen some of the most efficient that will definitely improve your editing experience.

1. Read in reverse. Instead of reading your work from the very beginning, try reading backward. This proofreading trick bypasses your brain’s tendency to fill in what it expects to see. Thus, you will be able to find mistakes you might otherwise gloss over. However, this doesn’t work with pieces of writing where the idea is perceived from phrases and word order. In this case, try reading in reverse, sentence by sentence to save coherence.
2. Sleep on it. Writers rarely splutter their best piece of work on the first try. Drafts serve to hash your thoughts out on paper. So, after producing the first copy, it is nice to wait for a while. This way, your mind will be clear, and all false mental connections will be gone, and you will be able to edit your work with fresh eyes.
3. Avoid elegant variations. This tip has to do with the content. The term “elegant variation” appeared thanks to usage commentator Henry Watson Fowler. It refers to the excessive use of rare or poetic synonyms for more common words. “Elegant variation” is considered to be ironic, as it usually feels overwrought. Therefore, next time you’ll want to avoid repeating, don’t try too hard. It might be engaging to a certain degree, however, really easy to overdo.
4. Ditch Empty Filler Words: Filler words or grammar expletives tend to weaken your writing. Thus, it would be a wise decision to avoid watering down your writing with excessive wording that simply shifts the focus from the main point. Common examples of filler words include unnecessary adverbs like just or basically, and grammar constructions like it won’t, it takes, here is, etc. You will greatly benefit from training yourself to cut out such expletives in order to make your writing more straight-to-the-point.
5. Don’t be too fancy. Some writers tend to use stuffy words that sound more complicated. But instead of getting the point across, such words are often confusing for a reader. If a reader needs to find a dictionary to read an article (of course if you are not submitting it to a scientific journal), your writing can use some improvement. The English language is considered to be one of the richest languages in terms of the expansiveness of its vocabulary. It’s better to find a simpler or more common word than jargon or fancy one – luckily you have a lot to choose from.
6. Paragraphing is crucial. Most writers overlook the importance of paragraphing. Long and never-ending paragraphs confuse the reader and dilute your writing. To grasp any reader’s interest, try dividing your passage into small paragraphs.
   Also, bullet points help to make your content scannable: they grab the attention of the audience and make them read on. While editing, make sure that all of your paragraphs are short enough, however, remain coherent.
7. Know your tells: You can be an experienced writer, but you can still have the tendency to build sentences in a stylistically disadvantageous way or use repetitive vocabulary. The more you edit, the more you acknowledge your tells, as well as the more merciless you are to cut them out from your draft.
   So let’s say, “allow to” combination plagues your writing, forcing you to overuse this phrase within one copy. But once you look for it during revisions, you are able to fix it.
   (Tip: If you are unable to catch it yourself, Google Doc’s search function can help you out. You’ll find any word, hence you can fix this problem.)
8. Refine your content: If you are writing for a blog or online magazine, you will need tools to take your content to another level. Packing your piece of work with big data can be challenging unless you use some useful resources:
   OptinMonster is a robust customer acquisition and lead-generation application. It helps you generate highly effective opt-in forms. They, in turn,  guarantee your growth maximization. The service allows you to convert your leaving website visitors into followers or clients.
   Dummies have always been helpful in taking on multiplex concepts and making them simple to grasp. The service is the best at helping everyone be more knowledgeable and confident in applying what they know.
   Every writer knows that adhering to a deadline is key when it comes to professionalism. Make use of helpful services like HubSpot Free Content Calendar that set non-negotiable deadlines. And having non-negotiable deadlines on content is crucial to be consistent.
9. Make use of big data. Even if you are developing a small blog, you can still enjoy the benefits of its resources. One of the principal search engine ranking components is backlinks. These are basically “votes” from other websites. They have a positive effect on your site’s ranking position. The more you include, the higher your site will show up in Google, Bing, and other searchers.

But not all backlinks work wonders. The most valuable ones are quality backlinks.

“A detailed and well-worked link building campaign will help you reach Top 10 in Google, Bing, Yahoo, AOL, and 500+ other search engines. A smart link building strategy can easily bring in +30,000 visitors/mo within the first 3-6 months”

– assures Ben Poitras, a Quality assurance Manager at Linksmanagement Backlink Service.

Proper backlinks can assist anyone in drawing in more organic traffic to a website, upscale, and boost earnings.

So the best tips for better writing are based on simple principles. It’s important to follow each step in the process of editing very carefully. The main idea here is to double-check everything and work with different tools that ease the process.

While grant applications may differ in format, they take a similar structure regarding the information you are to provide. Regardless of the type of grant you are applying for, either for your charity organization or project collaboration, grant writing is a skill you need. You should be able to define the project and deliverables for the money sought clearly. Therefore, your grant writing process needs to be carefully prepared, planned, and packaged to succeed.

So in this guide, we’ll look at the necessary grant writing steps you’ll require to achieve a convincing and winning grant application. 

Step 1: Go through the Grant and Research a bit on Your Grantor

Once you have found a grant that aligns with your proposed project, you must take an in-depth look at the grant to understand what your grantor needs. It also allows you to get all the questions you need to provide answers for and the necessary documents you may be required to add to support your grant application. It would help if you likewise took note of all the keywords or phrases you might need to keep on referring to in your application.

Also, do a little research on others who your proposed grantors have given to in the past. It will provide you with an idea of whether or not the application is fit for your mission. And then carry out an honest inventory of your organization’s grant-readiness before you write out your application. 

Step 2: Proposal Title Page and Document Collation 

The next phase of your grant writing process is to prepare a title page for your grant application. It can also be in the form of an abstract. The purpose is to give your grantors brief but sufficient and specific details about your application at a glance. Make sure that your title page is appropriately coached. Since it is the initial impression your potential grantors will have of your brand, you should put to have a well-designed, very informative, and error-free write up.

It should carry information such as the title of your proposed project, business name, proposal objectives and outcomes, name, and tile of your company representative, legal business information, and contact. This information will quip their attention to read the proposal further and make them take you seriously. It will also help you organize your thinking on how to write the main body of your application.

Additionally, now is the time to have a checklist of all the documents required and collate them together. It is advisable to do this to avoid last-minute scampering. Documents such as a list of board members, your IRS determination letter, financial reports, a statement about the organization’s history, etc. should all be up to date. When you fail to provide a requested document, no matter how incredible your concept may be, the funder will likely dismiss your application immediately.

Step 3: Writing the Body of Your Grant Application 

Writing the body of your proposal is the most critical step, and it should contain the following parts:

• The executive summary helps to give the grantor a brief insight of what your project is about. It should be short and straightforward, providing all the vital information. The executive summary provides the grantor with a glimpse of your proposal and what they should expect.
• Needs Statement: is the essential aspect of your grant proposal. Therefore it needs to convince your grantor that your proposed project is crucial. Also, write on your organization’s capability in handling the project and the impact the grant money can make. Your needs statement should be detailed, so whatever information the reviewer fails to pick in your summary, they can easily find it here.
• Goals and Objective: provides information on how you will handle the project and what you aim to accomplish at the end of the project. Thus, the goals are the projects’ overall outcomes, and the objectives are the steps that you will follow to achieve these outcomes. For instance, if you need the grant to set up an essay writing service review site like Best Writers Online. Your goals can be delivering 1000 quality essays daily, while your objectives will be the procedures you will take to write out quality essays.
• Program Design: This is the part of your application where you give your grantor a detailed approach to your project’s objectives. It should contain information such as the step by step model approach and timelines.
• Evaluation Section: This section shows how you are going to assess the success or failure of your project. It gives you room to explain to the grantor that their money accomplishes a purpose. Therefore, you should explicitly state your evaluation plan and the records you intend to use in the evaluation process. If you plan to use an internal or external firm for auditing the project, also state so.
• Project’s budget: here, you will need to give details on the cost of your project. You should evaluate your budget correctly to avoid the estimation of the cost.
• Visual Data & Social Proof Matter: Enhance your textual content with adequate visuals such as your company’s infographics and other visualized data. Getting the perfect balance between written and visual content makes your partnership professional, well-curated, and highly informative. You can also include testimonials from your clients, existing social media data, and other stakeholder data to increase your grant application’s approval.
• Table of Content: providing a table of content makes it easy for anyone to locate paragraphs and data points in your proposal. Your table of content should be informative and straightforward. Do not include additional details that aren’t in the grant application.
• Cover Letter: it is best practice to attach a cover letter to your grant application. It can also serve as an introduction and summary of your request, so make sure it contains information that will make your grantor look forward to reading your application.

Step 4: Review and Submit Your Proposal

Finally, once you are done with compiling everything, ensure that you crosscheck the full application and documents in case of possible errors. You can use the following checklist to review your application before submitting: 

• Ensure that all of the questions in the grant application have all been addressed
• Crosscheck your budget figures and justification
• Match you written request against the grant format guidelines if any 
• Edit and review for any typographic errors. If your application needs a paper writing service review, sites like Online Writers Rating provide such services.
• Be mindful of the deadline.
• Ensure that every required document is attached and according to the required number of copies 
• Send the application in the manner requested by the grantor, either by submitting an electronic copy online or sending a hard copy. 

Extra Step: Follow Up

Your work is not complete just because you have sent out your application. You can still reach out to your grantor to engage them and convince them further. However, please don’t rush the follow-up, wait a few days before reaching out to the grantor. Also, don’t wait for the investor to reach out to you first. Truth is they might not. Additionally, you can keep the conversation going with calls, texts, and emails. Consistent and well-timed follow up will increase the odds of raising the funds you need.

Conclusion 

The grant writing process may not always be easy, but it is usually straightforward. But hopefully, with these steps and good practice, you should be able to write put successful grant applications with more ease. Bear in mind that the writing process is about selling your project as it is about convincing the grantor about your competency and capacity to use the funds and perform successfully.

Aaron Swain is a writing specialist. He is passionate about marketing and SEO. He expands and improves his skills throughout the writing process to help and inspire people.

Are you a creative individual? Do you like to express yourself through writing? Is playing with words and composing compelling sentences your skill? These are the characteristics that help people identify the writer that lives within. Getting a job as a writer allows such individuals to live in a world of creativity and challenging ideas while getting paid for it.

There are plentiful reasons why writing is a good career to pursue. While you may have heard the opposite, the writing industry has changed. Now, the endless opportunities make this career even more tempting. Need more convincing? The following list of reasons will show you why writing is the most awesome job ever.

1. You Can Do It from Anywhere in the World

One of the most incredible parts of being a writer is that you aren’t tied to one place. There isn’t a cubicle where you practically have to live. You don’t have to be endlessly chained to the same place. The only necessity in writing is a laptop. As long as you’ve got that, you’ll good to go wherever you please.

Imagine sitting by the beach surrounded by palm trees, drinking ice coffee, and calling it office space. Yes, you can do that. Not every writing job has this possibility but you can choose the one that has.

2. There Are Plenty of Job Options

When you say that you are a writer that can mean a lot of things. Writing can come in different forms and it is up to you to pick a way of expression that works best for you. Here are the types of writing jobs you can look forward to:

• Technical writer
• Grant writer
• Magazine writer
• Copywriter
• Blogger
• Novelist
• Screenwriter
• News reporter
• Travel writer
• Social media specialist
• Ghostwriter
• Web content writer

As you can tell, the options are numerous and they vary in requirements and necessary skills. The digital age has changed the face of writing and now their talent with words is a much-needed skill in various fields and industries. While it is recommendable that you build your expertise in a specific career, you can always try out different types of writing jobs to see which one fits you best.

3. It Allows You to Get Creative

Writing spurs your creativity and evokes the hidden exceptional thoughts. If you are the type of person who is filled with creativity, having a way to let it out is necessary. While you’re at it, why not make some money along the way? That what writing does for you. It combines expressing yourself creatively and monetary compensation.

Having a talent with words and not using it would be a huge shame. Doing a job that inspires you and unleashes your creativity will make you more productive and overall, happier. Isn’t that what we all aim for in life?

4. The Dynamic is Ever-present

Are boring and repetitive jobs your worst nightmare? Well, you don’t have to worry about that if you are a writer. Writing is unpredictable and your work habits will change consistently.

Most writers don’t have 9 to 5 jobs. They work from home, write whenever they please, and wear their pajamas instead of work clothes. One day you can be swamped with work and the other day you can contemplate life and mysteries of the universe the whole day. You never know what the next project will bring.

You also never know how inspired you’ll be. That’s another reason why this job isn’t for everyone. Some people couldn’t handle the creative mess in which writers live in. But if you are the person who thrives in such an environment…then you’ll be living the life of your dreams.

5. You Always Learn Something New

Writing challenges you consistently as it demands exploring. No matter what type of writing job attracts you, research and learning are the foundation of it. You’ll be exposed to new and exciting information on a daily basis. That’s exactly what some writers love the most, including Diana Adjadj. “Do you know what I like about my job the most? Learning. Every day I learn something new. I have to if I want to stay on top of my game and that’s why this job is never boring,” said Diana, a contributing writer at Studicus.

Besides broadening your mindset with a consistent intake of information, you’ll brain will get regular exercise. The brain is a muscle and the more you exercise it the more efficient it gets.

6. Make an Impact on Other People’s Lives

If you always wanted to help people and make some changes in the world, writing can be your means for achieving that. People don’t quite understand how impactful writing is. That endless string of words can change someone’s life.

Take grant writers for example. Their work can keep organizations who do meaningful work stay active. They help nonprofits to secure funding and consequently, help all those people who benefit from that organization.

No matter what type of writing you are dedicated to, it will affect people one way or another. It will provide them useful information, entertain them, help them achieve a goal, and so on. Writing allows you to put your words in action and make a lasting change in people.

7. It’s a Good Excuse for Trying New Things

Go out and explore new places and situations and call it a job. Every new experience can give you some insight you can use in your writing. That’s why trying out new things can be a writer’s source of inspiration.

Visit Greece and call it research. Talk to unknown people and have a reason for it. Or, motivate yourself to experiment with cuisine and don’t feel guilty if you eat too much. Writing will push you out of your comfort zone and the fact that you are doing it for a job will be a reason you can’t undermine.

Final Thoughts

By now you have probably understood why writing is the best job in the world. Despite its unpredictability, it is a career that is worth pursuing. Doing what you love is the most incredible feeling in the world. If you love writing, there is nothing more to think about. Give your roaming thoughts a safe place to land.

Kristin Savage nourishes, sparks, and empowers using the magic of a word. Along with pursuing her degree in Creative Writing, Kristin was gaining experience in the publishing industry, with expertise in marketing strategy for publishers and authors. Besides working as a freelance writer at GrabMyEssay she also does some editing work at TrustMyPaper and BestEssayEducation. In her free time, Kristin likes to travel and explore new countries around the world.