THE DOLLARS AND SENSE OF HIRING A GRANT WRITER…
How To Hire a Qualified Grant Professional (and When), What It Costs, and How To Find the Right Match…
Originally posted in August 2022, this post was updated 29, October 2025
Getting valuable support from a skilled grant professional can be a great investment, when the time is right!
While nonprofits large and small often develop multiple types of fundraising channels, many nonprofits, public entities, and even businesses commonly look to GRANTS as an important source of regular or periodic revenue to fund PROGRAMS, OPERATING COSTS, or, CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS…
However, when you need a grant to achieve your organization’s goals, it can seem counterintuitive to spend extra money upfront to hire a grant professional to help you apply for a grant that may…or may not…get funded.
This is why some leaders struggle to decide when it makes sense to pay for the services of a grant services professional.
1. How much do grant professionals charge, and is it worth the cost?
Let’s face it, the grant world can be very competitive, and for every winning proposal, many other proposals don’t make the cut…or, worse, get disqualified from the outset, due to an eligibility exclusion that the applicant overlooked, or due to a disqualifying oversight in proposal preparation.
That said, with the right strategy and the services of a qualified grant professional to help, money spent to prepare grant proposals usually pays off over time.
This is why smart organizational leaders see these costs as a wise investment and not just an added expense.
Put another way, when weighing the cost/benefit advantages of submitting grants, it makes sense to focus on the following factors:
Potential opportunity costs — such as the revenue you never see as a result of submitting a flawed or less competitive proposals…
The inverse of lost opportunities — which include a range of benefits, beyond any short-term funding win, such as increasing organizational capacity and promoting organizational sustainability and credibility — in essence positioning your organization to win both new donors and new grants down the road as well.
The costs associated with paying a professional grant professional are typically, over time, truly fractional in proportion to the potential revenues and collateral benefits.
And, the positive returns on investment over the long term, often hold true when paying larger fees as well — the kinds of fees typically required for getting professional help with longer, more complex grants proposals, such as federal grant applications, for example. These proposals are typically far more time consuming and complex, but once your organization is positioned to win them, the upfront costs are offset by the size of the awards, which can fund larger operating budgets and more high visibility and high impact projects and initiatives.
Let’s be clear, while hiring a grant professional to prepare a longer, more technically complex federal grant proposal can cost several thousand dollars, winning just one federal grant can in many cases deliver tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars, in organizational funding — often resulting in a hundred fold return on investment!
2. What to do when your organization doesn’t have an in-house grant writer or development lead.
The largest nonprofits typically rely on significant and continuous grant-making and grant-management efforts. For this reason, larger enterprises will usually have their own fundraising staff, including one or more full-time or part-time in-house grant writers.
While having your own grant writers on payroll can be effective, it can be an inefficient solution for organizations or businesses that don’t engage in full-time, ongoing grant development efforts to meet their present objectives…
Paying professional salaries and benefits for even one part-time IN-HOUSE grant writer can be an EXPENSIVE proposition over time!
From this perspective, it’s easier to see why partnering with a freelance grant professional makes sense.
Many organizations and for-profit entities actually save a lot of money by hiring consultants to support their grant funding efforts, investing wisely in growth opportunities by benefitting from professional grant proposal support only when they most need it, and only when the most compelling grant opportunities present themselves.
But wait… Doesn’t it make more sense to simply ask my own staff, board members, and volunteers to write the organization’s grant proposals?…
While the temptation to use existing in-house staff or lean on the professional expertise of board members is understandable, even organizations with very limited resources should consider the cost vs. benefit analysis at hand.
Do you want to risk burning out staff or driving talented people off of your board by asking them to do too much work outside what’s expected?
And again, it’s important to weigh the fees you’ll pay for a grant professional’s services against the opportunity costs — the grant monies you forfeited because you didn’t submit the most competitive proposal possible. Remember, a qualified and ethical grant professional will not only help you apply for grants, but they’ll also help guide your organization’s internal conversations around grant readiness and when it makes sense to invest time and money in pursuing a specific funding opportunity (or not).
3. Important factors to consider when weighing the pros and cons of investing in grant development and writing services.
Key Factor 1: Writing a “satisfactory” proposal is not the same as writing a highly competitive one…
While having a great mission that is well aligned with a funder’s area of interest is a key part of a successful grant strategy, it’s worth keeping in mind that most grant proposals will be scored by reviewers with diverse professional and agency credentials. These professionals will quickly identify any gaps or flaws in the development of your proposal and be drawn, in most cases, to assign more review points to proposals that are well-researched and data-informed; professional in presentation and formatting; crafted to be highly persuasive and compelling.
These skilled reviewers will also be scoring for technical factors related to statutory funding guidelines or based on alignment between project goals, activities, and designs and a framework of funding-side goals informed by prevailing research-based practices or even prevailing ideological frameworks.
Key Factor 2: Knowing the most about your organization isn’t always the best qualification for writing a successful grant proposal…
When organizational leaders take on time-consuming grant proposal writing tasks, this is not necessarily a winning strategy. First, leaders are likely to best serve their organizations by leveraging their leadership skills, not by exhausting themselves or by short-changing their staff and programs by devoting their time to writing lengthy grant proposals. And, even if it seems counterintuitive, the person closest to the action, so to speak, may actually lack some of the objective, fresh, and outside perspectives that a skilled, well-educated grant professional can bring to the table.
In most cases, the best outcome will result from an effective collaboration between staff on the inside of the organization and an external grants professional with a more objective perspective.
A professional, freelance grant consultant can quickly see your organization objectively and strategically from the outside — and that’s an advantage, because the people reviewing and scoring your organization’s grant proposal — alongside many other deserving proposals — will also be viewing your organization and its proposal from the outside.
Key Factor 3: Professional grant writers can quickly gain the information and understanding they need to provide their clients with highly competitive grant proposals…
Most experienced and professional grant consultants will have effective onboarding systems with efficient mechanisms and practices for learning about the mission, goals, values, programs, and data points required to portray client organizations in the best light possible.
And, by collaborating consistently with the same contracted grant professional over time, you’ll obviously reduce the time needed for this kind of coordination.
Key Factor 4: Newer nonprofit organizations may also find it advantageous to pay for a grant professional…
Sometimes newer organizations fall into the trap of trying to do everything with the smallest budget possible, which really amounts to doing very little, because they have such a small budget…
When organizations are perceived as “fragile” by potential funders simply because the organization is new and under-funded, it can make it even harder to win grants. It’s critical for young nonprofits to break out of this Catch-22 and improve their odds for success by getting professional help when it comes to choosing which grant opportunities to pursue in the short-term (and which opportunities to pass over). And, when pursuing the most promising funding opportunities, young organizations can sometimes benefit immensely from the skills and insights of a trained grant writing professional.
An experienced grant professional can provide insights from working with a wide range of clients and help young organizations identify what are often easy-to-overlook strategies for highlighting their organizational credibility, leadership capacity, and their organization’s potential to make meaningful impacts — all of which, together, can improve your organization’s profile and grant proposals.
While collaborating with an independent grant writer may seem like a costly proposition at first, this kind of partnership is likely to help you reduce stress, save time, and, ultimately, increase the odds for success. And…an advantage of this professional collaboration is that your organization can get just the amount of expertise it needs and pay for it ONLY when most needed…
4. Choosing the right funding opportunities is an essential FIRST STEP in the process of submitting a winning grant proposal!
If there is one thing that even the best grant professional in the world can’t fix — it’s bad grant-making strategies!
If your organization doesn’t fully understand how to identify, vet, and pursue the right grant opportunities, spending money to hire a grant writing professional will likely prove a waste of money.
If your organization is pursuing a grant but doesn’t satisfy a specified eligibility requirement, or some aspect of your proposed programs are not technically compliant or not fully aligned with the goals and priorities of the funding opportunity, then even if Shakespeare or Toni Morrison writes your proposal, chances are it won’t win funding!
Smart organizations make the necessary upfront investments in order to submit the most compelling and competitive grant proposals possible, but it’s crucial to start with an effective process to screen all potential funding opportunities before deciding whether or not to spend time and money developing a proposal.
Whether you have in-house systems in place to achieve this or prefer to rely on the help of an experienced grant professional, it’s wise to screen all grant opportunities carefully to ensure that your organization’s profile and its proposed goals and activities will:
satisfy all specified eligibility and compliance requirements…
align in a substantive way with the funder’s goals and interests…
match the kinds of funding objectives permitted by the grant opportunity (such as program implementation vs. operating expenses vs. capital improvements…and other more specific alignments as well)…
The good news is that a grant professional can typically assist clients by efficiently and effectively RESEARCHING, ANALYZING, and SCREENING potential funding opportunities, helping clients make informed decisions about which opportunities to pursue. If you’re new to grant prospecting, check out our tips for evaluating prospective grant opportunities.
But that’s not all…
The other essential components of a winning grant strategy include:
crafting the most compelling Narratives possible
developing persuasive and evidence-based Need Statements
anticipating the Reviewers’ questions and expectations, and crafting a proposal that is responsive to Scoring Rubrics
ensuring clear alignments between proposed activities and proposed budgets
conforming to all prescribed length, formatting, and submission specifications
meeting the submission deadline
ensuring inclusion of necessary addendums, appendices, M.O.U.s, letters of agreement, policy compliance verifications…
Even though a collaborative team effort is typically needed to develop a really competitive grant proposal, having a qualified in-house grant writer or a remote, external grant professional on your team, could meaningfully increase the odds of winning more grants!
5. Grant writer rates and fees…
We’ve helped you figure out why, and also when, paying professional fees for a grant writer can be a wise use of organizational funds…but we still need to talk about the fees that grant professionals charge.
Rates and fees do vary significantly.
A less experienced grant professional, or one with exceptionally competitive rates, may charge as little as $40.00 to $60.00 an hour, while most qualified grant professionals will support organizations by charging a flat professional services fee for specific projects. As service professionals, grant consultants and writers will typically expect to earn (if calculated hourly) between $80 to $120 hourly. Those with exceptional expertise and experience developing highly complex federal grants, such as for medical research, large civic or rural development projects, or comprehensive and multi-layered social service programming, are likely to earn between $100 to $200 hour and work on monthly retainers for organizations with established track records and million-dollar plus budgets.
For most organizations the best strategy is arguably not simply striving to pay the lowest fee advertised, but contracting with a grant writing professional who possesses outstanding educational credentials and offers the kinds of expertise you need, at competitive rates…
6. Finding Your Grant Professional
The following questions may help you determine both the kind of grant professional profile to look for, and the right fee range, based on your organization’s present grant writing needs:
What credentials, educational experience, and professional affiliations does the grants professional have?
Do they have a positive track record when it comes to winning grants for past clients?
What kinds of grants has the grant professional submitted successfully — such as smaller foundation grants, or larger and more complex state and/or federal grant proposals?
If relevant, will the prospective contractor help you with finding and evaluating potential grant opportunities?
Does the professional have, if needed, pertinent expertise or professional insights into the sector your organization operates in (such as social justice…health services…international relief services…education…environmental conservation…legal services…)?
Does the grant consultant have excellent qualifications when it comes to organizing and subordinating information and the proficient use of language — usage, grammar, and spelling…?
Deciding who to work with and what rates to pay is typically about determining the kinds of grant development qualifications you need (or don’t need) for current grant strategy and objectives and focusing on candidates whose fees reasonably reflect their education, knowledge, qualifications, and relevant professional experiences.
7. Common Fee Structures for Grant Professionals
It may seem that a grant professional’s hourly rate provides a good guide for evaluating the costs of getting professional help with grant writing.
But it’s not usually as simple as that…
Hourly Rates — Pros and Cons…
Even if your organization prefers hiring a grants expert at a set hourly rate, you and your organizational team may be left wondering how much you really need to budget for the work needed — that will require an accurate estimate of the total number of hours required for writing a specific grant proposal…
And, even if relying on rough estimates is not a problem, you may still have concerns about transparency.
To be more confident when engaging a grant professional on an hourly-rate basis, one partial solution is to make sure they’re happy to provide a good-faith estimate of how many hours (roughly) will be required for the project scope, along with some insights into why…
For example:
what critical tasks and challenges are anticipated?
how does the assessment reflect the effort needed to deliver a compelling and competitive proposal?
Reviewing these kinds of questions with your prospective grant consultant could help you feel more confident in moving forward and in terms of budgeting…
In terms of further transparency…Don’t hesitate to ask them how they bill and what detail they provide on their invoices.
Finally, consider asking for references…
When you ascertain that other clients have had positive experiences with the same professional, that can provide your organization with comforting assurances that make it easier to move forward and commit to a collaboration!
Get It In Writing
Whatever fee structure you agree to, it’s always in your interest to make sure the grant professional provides you a clear outline in writing of:
the understood scope of the project
the professional services and activities to be provided (and those excluded if relevant)
service and project completion timeline
how fees will be calculated
And, you should expect them to give you ample time to review the written proposal, terms, and conditions, ask clarifying questions, and request reasonable amendments or opportunities to discuss and negotiate any key terms.
Proposal Pricing (Flat Fee Structure)…
Some organizations may prefer a proposal pricing structure.
As opposed to an hourly rate, a proposal structure means you and the grant professional agree on a clearly defined scope of work and other related expectations about the work to be done — all for a predetermined project fee.
Agreements in the “Services Proposal” that are related to the scope of work will typically include the professsional’s outline of the key steps of the process (such as researching…drafting…revision cycles…proofreading, etc.), and time estimates for various steps, along with some details about key deliverables, project timeline milestones and deadlines, file formats and file management, etc.
With this pricing structure, the grant professional will typically require you to pay an initiation fee or services “deposit” (upfront payment) of 30% to 50% of the total proposal fee — due before work commences — with the balance due upon completion of the project.
Retainers…
In some form or another, a “retainer” typically means paying a recurring fee to the independent professional, or grant consultancy, or grant management firm.
Some professionals think caution is required, especially when publicly or charitably funded organizations pay retainers…A good way for an organization to proceed when entering into retainer agreements is typically to ensure transparency, good stewardship of funds, and avoid any real or perceived conflict of interest any time the organization agrees to pay a retainer for professional services.
Typically, however, the primary advantage of a retainer arrangement is that is it:
streamlines the contracting process
ensures predictability about revenue and collaborative commitments for both parties
can still be structured with terms that allow for significant flexibility for add-on services or for down-time (if both parties agree to such terms)
As for professional ethics many professional organizations have codes of ethics with codes that refer specifically to compensation practices.
If you want to know more about how some codes of ethics in the grantmaking sector, you could begin by checking out the following online resources:
Note: Engaging an independent contractor could entail specific tax- or payroll-related requirements for your organization. Be sure to check with relevant and qualified HR, legal, and tax and accounting professionals or advisors as needed.
8. Final Thoughts
In the end, each organization will need to figure out what level of professional grant services make sense for their own budget, needs, and interests…
Remember to be sure you’re working with a grant professional who has:
college- or graduate-level educational achievement
excellent verbal analysis and evidence-based research and writing skills
strong narrative writing skills and abilities to write to diverse readers and audiences
competitive rates based on the kinds of specialized talent and insights you need
professional references to share with you
In addition, be sure to consider what kind of professional collaboration experience, supervisory experience, or training skills you want to look for in a independent grant professional or agency, and what kinds of pricing structures make sense…
The “right” grant professional for your organization will likely be one that is competitively priced, delivers a quality product on time, and who provides the exceptional transparency, communication, and flexibility — at the level needed to ensure trust, positive collaboration, and efficient workflow…
EdPro Communications hopes you found this post informative.
Please feel free to share comments below, including your own thoughts, experiences, or insights for finding the right grant professional.
EdPro Communications serves its clients with professional communication services.
We help our clients submit clear, persuasive, and compelling grant proposals and also help nonprofit organizations improve website messaging and develop engaging white papers, case studies, research articles, and blog posts in line with tailored promotional or organizational strategies and goals.
Get in touch today to learn more, and find out why our clients come back for more!
