Grant Writing is a (usually) formal procedure which organizes and presents the information necessary from those seeking grants to be considered by those awarding grants. Seekers may be governments, organizations, or individuals. Grant applications may also be called grant proposals or grant submissions.

If you want to write your own grant proposal, check out the Elements of a Good Proposal along with some recommended reading to help get you started, at Writing a Good Grant Proposal.

Also consider the pros and cons of writing your proposal yourself vs. hiring a professional:

Your decision here depends on your own capabilities and they types of resources available to you.

Doing It Yourself (DIY) isn't “free” - it does require at least a little money for things like a basic subscription to an online directory. Most of your time will be spent going through the available grants, trusts and foundations (about 88000 of them…), and thousands of government grants, found on web sites like grants.gov.

If you have time and dedication and excellent writing skills, then DIY is an excellent approach. Many resources are out there and free on the internet at sites such as “Non- Profit Guides”. And if you end up changing your mind and deciding you need help, you can bring in a professional grant writer to assist you.

Hiring a professional is of course more expensive in terms of your financial outlay. Plus you will need to spend time providing all the information about you, your organization and your project so that they can wrie an accurate, well-informed grant proposal.

If you can afford it, using professional help to do some or all of your grant writing is in the end most likely the easiest, fastest and most effective approach to take. Grant writing is very competitive and you should be able to find a number of likely candidates at reasonable prices. If you are a non-profit that simply lacks the necessary funds, you may be able to find a professional who will donate some part of his or her services for your cause.

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Grant writing".