Grant Writing & Funding · 074: 4 Proven Ways To Get Nonprofit Clients

4 Proven Ways to Get Clients as a Grant Writer

Are you a freelance grant writer or nonprofit consultant?

If you are then you know that one thing you want to know is how to get nonprofit clients! Sure, in the beginning you may have gotten a lot of people asking you to write grants, but how do you know if they will be a good-fit nonprofit client?

In order to secure nonprofit clients, freelance grant writers need to understand and do the following:

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1) Understand the different types of nonprofits

You first need to really identify what types of nonprofits you want to target and to know that you need to understand the different types of nonprofit organizations.

Are they the cash cow, the expanding monkey, or the pups?

2) Be aware of funding priority shifts

This means, pay attention to trends and make your mark as an expert! Maybe you have nonprofit organizations asking about:

your grant writing success, or
if you can write grants and get paid on commission

Be prepared to answer those questions! But also know what is going on in the grant writing arena.

3) Do you want to be a generalist or specialist?

These are all things for you to consider as a grant writer. What type of clients do you want to work with?

Generalist: Maybe you love working with nonprofits that are varied, in different states, and have a variety of projects. You love a challenge! You love learning about the latest trends and projects going on all over the world and are at your best when you can learn about new projects.
Specialist: You might be a specialist if you absolutely are passionate about working for a specific cause. Maybe you were in a nonprofit that served at-risk youth and you want to continue to serve other nonprofits that have this same specific cause. You want to focus most of your grant writing on writing to specific federal and founding funding sources that fund at-risk youth projects. You start an Instagram page on at-risk youth facts and statistics, create posts when grants are available, and follow the hashtag #nonprofityouth. Maybe your passion stems from being an at-risk youth yourself and you want to become part of that movement. This is a topic that you never get tired of talking about.

4) Write grants!

Get really good at first increasing the number of grants that you write. Just by doing this you will get experience! Sometimes you may have to start off as a volunteer, or working more as a generalist, but other things you can do are to take a grant writing course and show that you have some sort of experience.

So to sum up how to identify and get nonprofit clients as a grant writer are the following:

Understand the different types of nonprofits (and know which ones you want to work with)
Be aware of funding priorities shifting
Identify if you want (or need to be) a generalist or specialist grant writer
Write Grants

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