The question of charging non-profits came up yesterday while I was in a course on grant and proposal writing (an excellent course, by the way). You may recall that I posted about working for free or volunteering two weeks ago.

A woman who is new to freelancing asked a fairly common question for freelance writers: should she charge for grant writing based on the amount her client receives as a result of her grant application. For example, should she charge 10 percent of the amount the non-profit receives from her grant application?

Now, I understand that this thinking makes sense. If you write the grant application and the goal of the application is to make money, it makes sense that you don’t get paid unless the application is successful. Similar to lawyers who don’t get paid unless their clients win at trial.

Oskar

Oskar contemplates charging non-profits, while I do the actual work.

Agreeing to not be paid until after the non-profit secures funding might make you appear a better choice than writers who charge up front with no guarantee their application will be successful. If you have no experience in grant writing, this might seem a good way to convince non-profits to take a chance on you.

These are logical thoughts for someone who doesn’t have experience in grant writing or working for non-profits. But they will do you more harm than good in the long run.

First, to use the example of the lawyers: these lawyers pick and choose which clients they work with. If they’re not going to get paid unless their clients win, they’re unlikely to take a client with a case is not guaranteed to win—unless they are likely to get a lot of publicity from that case (you are not likely to get publicity for your grant writing. Think about it: how many famous grant writers can you name off the top of your head?)

If their client does win, the lawyers aren’t just getting 10 percent; they’re getting up to 35 percent of what their client wins, plus expenses. I don’t know of a non-profit that would agree to pay 35 percent of their grant money to a writer. I can’t imagine that a foundation would be okay with the non-profit saying, “We need $10,000, $3,500 of which is to pay our writer.”

Second, although you might have control over the actual grant application, you have no control over the approval process. You can’t guarantee there isn’t a better candidate for the grant or that someone on the foundation’s board doesn’t like the work your client does, or really wants to support a different cause.

Grants are given out by people, and people sometimes make decisions based on emotion or some other reason not rooted in the actual grant application. You can’t control that process and if your grant application isn’t successful, you’ve just done a lot of work for free. Furthermore, some foundations take a long time to make decisions about grants. If you’re not paid until the non-profit is awarded money, you could be waiting a very long time for your cheque.

Third, non-profits want to hire people who have experience and are professional. Offering to work for very low rates—or to not get paid unless their grant application is accepted—can appear unprofessional. You have to treat yourself like a professional to get others to treat you the same way.

Fourth, if you start off this way writing for a non-profit, you’ll have a hard time changing how you charge them later. It can be very difficult to change either your rates or your method of charging clients once they become used to one way of doing things. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it’s difficult to do. This is also why you shouldn’t start your career charging rock-bottom prices.

The instructor at the grant writing course recommended volunteering for an organization and helping with their grant applications to build some experience. This is a good way to start. It’s how I got involved in grant writing. Taking a course on grant writing is another way to build your confidence.

The thing to remember is this: I don’t know any writer who makes a living SOLELY as a grant writer. Usually, grant writing is offered along with other writing services. Taking your time to break into grant writing—by volunteering with an organization and helping with grants—isn’t a bad thing, if you’re making money somewhere else.

Volunteering in this way is not working for free, as long as you’re volunteering with an organization you like, not using your business time to help them and are going to use your grant writing experience at one organization to build the confidence to charge other non-profits for grant writing.