When it comes to grant proposal writing, Richard Thill is one of the originals.
They say necessity is the mother of invention. That's how this retired
archivist learned to fund his university research in the '60s and '70s. Throughout
his career, Thill wrote several successful grant proposals to generate thousands
of dollars in research revenue.
His efforts paid for the development of his brainchild, a computerized
archiving system for German and American folklore.
Thill left his work to go into grant writing and consulting full time.
His Omaha, Nebraska-based company draws from Thill's long experience of reeling
in over $450 million in grants for both his work and his clients' programs.
Thill calls grant writing a labor of love.
"I more than enjoy it," he says. "It's an incredible adrenaline rush to
create opportunities where none existed before -- to help people who have
fine ideas for services like medical care or aid to the homeless or people
recovering from addictions, to be able to keep dreams alive. And to be paid
for doing something that you would do for free if you could afford to -- it's
incredibly rewarding."
Katherine Kubarski runs a grant writing company in Los Angeles. She began
writing grants at age 14, when she set out to find funding for her schooling
and travels. In addition to educational scholarships, Kubarski scored grants
for student exchanges to India and Spain, as well as experiences working abroad
with the American Field Service.
"I managed to back myself quite easily, just by writing proposals asking
for money," she says. "After college, I became a social worker for a nonprofit
agency and applied my grant writing experience to writing proposals for them.
Now I work independently and get most of my business through the Internet."
Kubarski charges an hourly rate and works with a small staff. She also
gives workshops on effective grant proposal writing. One of the things she
tells students is to learn that success is sometimes out of a grant writer's
hands.
"Sometimes even the best written proposals don't get funded, and it's not
because of anything the writer was negligent in. It's just a matter of there
not being enough funding to go around or political influences being what they
are," says Kubarski.
Colleen Miron is the grant writer for the University of Wisconsin at La
Crosse. She says she has enjoyed a string of success lately because of recent
increases to government spending on education.
"So far, we're pretty successful," says Miron. "Not all that many have
turned around since I started, but we've definitely had a pretty high success
rate. There's been a big push with Washington putting a lot of money into
education-based programming and things like that."
Miron says she likes her job because it combines all her professional
skills and interests.
"I like to write and I like to research different topics," she says. "I
think it's the combination between writing, researching, working independently
and collaborating with others. It's a nice balance.
"I like that because I'm not the one who's actually doing the project.
I get to jump around with a lot of different things. One month I may be working
on an after-school science program and the next month I may be working on
a violence prevention program. So you get to switch gears a lot. You get to
immerse yourself in totally different topics from month to month."
Leah Eustace is the director of development at a wilderness society. She's
responsible for coordinating the group's fund-raising campaigns. Grant writing
is part of her job description in a field where, according to Eustace, there
aren't enough grant writers to go around. Eustace says there's a high demand
for all jobs in the fund-raising industry.
"Competition is fierce and the demand for good fund-raising staff far exceeds
the supply," says Eustace. "My guess is that over the next two to three years,
salaries for fund-raisers will rise as demand continues to increase.
"I and most of my colleagues get calls from headhunters a few times a year.
Most organizations are absolutely desperate for good fund-raisers. One colleague
in particular left his job and was immediately offered positions at three
other organizations. It's pretty amazing, really. I liken it to the demand
for high-tech workers."