As published online by the Association of Fundraising Professionals:
https://afpglobal.org/news/janine-perron-advice-novice-grant-writer
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Congratulations, new grant writer, you have lucked out. You’ve joined an honorable guild … probably by accident. 

Typically, a grant writer “falls into” the role as opposed to entering the profession to fulfill a career ambition. They volunteer for causes close to their heart or take a position as an entry-level nonprofit development associate. The unplanned route reflects the profession’s lack of visibility. Although grant writers’ work is vital, it is unheralded, as evidenced by the fact that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics does not track “grant writer” as a distinct occupation.

Upon hire, you inherit a host of deadlines and must get up to speed rapidly, mastering your institution’s programs and history with funders as well as numerous application processes. You may find yourself in an adrenaline-fueled reactive state, churning out reports, letters of inquiry, and proposals with mechanistic efficiency. Although you will earn compliments for your volume and speed, there are good reasons to resist the tendency to fill the pipeline with proposals that cobble together boilerplate language.

Approach your body of grants as an evolving product. 

You will (1) achieve greater personal satisfaction and (2) write stronger proposals when you take this approach to your work. Your understanding of your nonprofit’s areas of expertise, standing relative to peer organizations, and internal culture will become more nuanced over time. An adept writer will take the extra time to reframe concepts and rewrite sections rather than tack on sentences here and there.

Make trust, curiosity, and active listening your daily practice. 

Great grant writers are not entrenched 24/7 in their offices, firing out emails with frantic information requests. They cultivate authentic connections with employees, clients, and volunteers. They are genuinely interested in the smallest details of prospective projects and current operations, as well as the people who manage them. 
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Treat your grant proposal as a form of brand enhancement.

When you craft a request with passion and specificity, you will not only increase its fundability but also build your organization’s brand. External leaders’ perceptions of your organization are based in part on its established reputation, in part on individual relationships, and in part on your writing. When you offer your proposal readers a thought-provoking and authentic lens through which to view your nonprofit, it reflects positively on the whole organization. The next time your executive director makes heavy edits to your draft, remember why: Your proposal is an important external-facing document. 
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In short, remain in a continual state of openness to maximize your creative impact. 

As published online by the Association of Fundraising Professionals:
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Too often, organizations sell themselves short in proposals. Here are some tips so that you “don’t hide your light under a bushel,” as the age-old proverb goes.    

​The Danger: Just as there are only so many variations on an apple pie recipe, there are only so many ways to deliver quality cultural or clinical programs. It is all too easy for a proposal to sound generic to a seasoned reader. Genericism is the enemy in a competitive grants process. 

Go Beyond the Prerequisite: Strong writing is a prerequisite for a strong proposal, but it is only part of the equation. Yes, you will have your reader’s attention when you describe your apple pie in an intriguing and savory way—a “molten apple tart,” “Pink Lady apple galette,” or “warm apple crostata.” The other vital element is a strategic presentation of facts about your organization. Even an innovative project suffers when the ground has been poorly prepared for it.  
Preparing the Ground: Your organizational background section is your key to success. Too often, organizations waste this opportunity by throwing together a “laundry list” of achievements. A better way to go is to consider the background section your “thesis” about your agency. It represents your interpretation of your nonprofit’s activities over time. Aim for a vivid, comprehensive assessment that accomplishes the following:

• Fleshes out your nonprofit’s origins
• Reveals the value system that defines decisions
• Teases out unifying themes across various programs
• Traces significance relative to larger societal developments
• Makes substantiated claims to uniqueness
• Shares meaningful milestones
• Points to future directions

Your job is to package your organization’s history and choices as a compelling narrative that brings its full range of assets into play.   

Defining Your Assets: An asset is any strength that distinguishes your agency. Some of these assets are in plain view; others demand research. Below are some examples:
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• Vanguard activities: Your organization’s pioneering moments may be public knowledge or may have occurred behind the scenes. Use these to burnish your agency’s reputation and add to its “mystique.” One residential treatment center, for example, proudly notes that it was among the first in its state to allow young children to remain with their mothers in treatment (standard practice today).
• Organizational culture: Your organization’s culture is defined in part by its expectations of employees. In Los Angeles, for example, one organization with a suicide hotline requires every single employee—clinician, accountant, receptionist—to undergo suicide intervention training. A CEO at one primary care center believes that activism is important across the hierarchy, exhorting his executives to drop their work occasionally to attend rallies in support of patients’ rights. These expressions of value will be of interest to prospective supporters. 
• Engagement of visitors or clients: Perhaps your agency exceeds expectations when it comes to the visitor experience or standard of care. The lengths to which it will go to re-engage clients or its long period of follow-up with program participants could be a significant strength. 
• Financial prowess: Budget growth is just one measure of financial stability. You could note that your nonprofit has never had to draw on its line of credit, acts as a fiscal agent for community partners, or has launched new lines of business successfully.
• Original perspective: A CEO, board member, curator, outreach worker, or client may have perfectly captured your organization’s importance in a pithy comment. Find it!

Finding Your Assets: These examples just scratch the surface of the kinds of information you can surface about your nonprofit. There are troves of good material to find all around you—and online.   

ASSET HUNT CHECKLIST

• Employee handbooks
• Ephemera (old flyers, program brochures)
• Board meeting minutes
• Compiled materials for reaccreditation
• Transcripts of CEO speeches/interviews
• Financial filings (especially audit notes)
• Program tracking files
• Social media posts
• Annual reports
• Employee honors and recognition
• Award nominations
• Funder reports
• Permit/exemption documents
• Google book searches

Once you know the full story about your organization, you can write a compelling history and description of programs. Moreover, you will be better prepared to tailor a narrative to reflect achievements in a particular area, depending on the prospective funder. 

Time for your treasure hunt!

“Focus…on the walls of your own making that are blocking the light.  Of what purpose is it to build walls that block the light and then strive for enlightenment?”
                                                                --Michael A. Singer, The Untethered Soul

As grant writers, we strive to put our organizations in the best light.  The story we tell is like a Mesopotamian victory stele: the triumphs are writ large.  We talk about the legions served; the vanquishing of poverty, arts illiteracy, unemployment, or crooked smiles. One we have churned out our lists of accomplishments, we ask for more funds to achieve more of the same.  In essence, we construct a beautiful façade and tell a linear story.

Yet experience tells us that the flow of all that matters to us is decidedly non-linear.  As we travel through life, our relationships, recovery, and finances inch forward, retrench, dissipate, and reemerge.   

Program officers know that organizational behavior follows the same course.  They are excellent at “reading between the lines”—the product of years of site visits and final report-reading—and may derive the wrong conclusions with incomplete information. 

It follows that the “best light” in a proposal is one that is unsparing, revealing vulnerabilities and challenges—and shed well before an organization and its leadership are backed into a corner.  Don’t make the mistake of thinking that real reflection is something you save for final reports.  Position your agency as a “learning organization” and illuminate the experimentation and problem-solving that has taken place.  For instance, how did your organization re-organize, and perhaps flounder a little, after its founder’s retirement?  Or…how did the loss of an important contract influence your organization’s next steps?  Tackle the reasons for the middling success of your recent merger.

There are varied benefits to this kind of candor:

1. You tell a much more exciting and authentic story, one that stands out against the competition.
   
2. You control the narrative instead of your reader(s), guiding their interpretation of your activities and experiences.
   
3. Your open a space for deeper conversations with your current/prospective funder that could ultimately help resolve root problems.

In fundraising, the metaphor that is often used to describe the way that family members set direction for their small foundations is the deep conversations around the kitchen table.  It’s important to remember that every one of us could approach our philanthropy in the same style.  Just because many of us lack the resources to set up a formal foundation does not bar us from taking that same strategic approach.  In our families, typically, there are one or two obvious causes that get the greatest share of resources—a congregation, a hospital (made as a “grateful patient”), an alumni association—but the other gifts are made more haphazardly, made in response to direct mail/email solicitations or for other reasons. 
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As fundraisers, we have witnessed the satisfaction of families who take a planned approach and are the ones who ought to advocate for it in our communities.  Talk to your neighbors, friends, and family members.  Suggest a “kitchen table” conversation about personal values and aspirations for society, both for the family as a whole and for its individual members.  What do they represent as a family?  What are their priorities for a better world?  Urge them to be proactive in finding causes to support, to stick with a cause over time, and to increase giving as their resources allow.  Help them to find their “inner family foundation” and everyone benefits!