Grant Writers Are Not Magicians

Good grant writers can make a lot happen, but we're not magicians. I'm surprised  at how often I've been asked to step far beyond the grant writer role and work miracles within an organization. Here's a partial list of the things I've been asked to do:

• Make up a program design when none exists.
• Use language to make it look like an organization has been collaborating with other organizations for a long time when, in fact, it hasn't.
• Write letters of support for partners to sign that "say what we need them to say," rather than what the partner really plans on doing.
• Write about how the program will be integrated with other programs in the agency when the agency hasn't told me anything about other programs or how they plan to integrate them.
• Make up in-kind contributions.
• Put a budget together with no information about actual personnel costs or fringe benefits.
• "Fudge" needs data to exaggerate the agency's need for the grant.
• Read through thousands of pages of back up information with the expectation that I'll then have all I need to write a grant for the organization.
• Take one grant application and "re-purpose" it for other grants at no additional charge because "it's basically the same thing."

Some of these things are unethical. Some are fraudulent. Others are just unrealistic.

Yes, I am the Grant Goddess, and yes, I can make miracles happen.

But that doesn't mean I should, or that I should be expected to in every circumstance.

Have you been asked to do anything unreasonable in your grant writing journey?

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Four Grant Writing Ethical No-No's

There are actually many ethical issues involved in grant writing, many more than I expected when I first began my journey as a professional grant writer. Here are four of the most common ethical issues you need to avoid if you are a professional grant writer:

1. Lying in a proposal.  I have to admit that I have always assumed that everyone would know that lying in a grant proposal is ethically wrong, but you'd be surprised how many times I have heard people try to justify it. Don't try to exaggerate your need for the grant or include program activities that you don't intend on implementing. Just tell the truth.
2. Reusing narrative written for another client. It's very tempting, especially when you're overworked and tired, to just lift some narrative that you wrote for another client for the same grant last year to put in someone else's narrative this year. Don't do it.  If you get caught (especially by a reader scoring the grant), you risk not being funded, but it's just plain wrong anyway. If you are being paid for original narrative, write original narrative.  If you can't think of another way to say what you need to say, don't take the job.
3. Poaching funding sources.  I heard this horror story when I met with a local non-profit administrator last week. A private funding source had invited the non-profit to submit a proposal.  This particular funding source does not accept unsolicited proposals.  The non-profit asked its grant writer (an outside consultant) to write a proposal to this funding source.  The grant writer wrote a proposal and submitted it. A couple of weeks later, the non-profit administrator got a phone call from the funding source saying that the grant writer had actually submitted several proposals - the one the funding source had requested as well as proposals on behalf of several other organizations the grant writer worked with.  None of these other proposals were part of the solicitation.  The grant writer had just taken it on herself to try to squeeze in some of her other clients in competition with the client making the original request.  I'm sure she assumed they would not know or find out.  To make matters worse, the representative from the funding source told the non-profit administrator that of the several proposals submitted by that grant writer, the weakest one from from the original agency requesting the work. The non-profit organization that originally asked the grant writer to submit the proposal was ultimately not funded.
4. Telling a client that they can pay for grant writing services out of the grant when they can't. There is some debate in the field about whether charging a contingency fee for grant writing services is ethical or not.  Some people insist that contingency fees are unethical, but then call it a "bonus" for getting funded and call that ethical. The real issue, though, is not whether or not it's a contingency fee, but where that fee comes from. If you tell someone they can pay the fee out of the grant when they can't, you have essentially lied to them. Very few funding sources allow you to pay for grant writing services out of a grant itself (there are, however, some that do). 

The bottom line is that integrity matters. Trying to cut ethical corners may seem like a profitable decision at the time, but in the end it is not the way to build a successful grant writing career.

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Faux-Ethics Debate on Percentage Contingency Fees in Grant Writing

Non-profit consulant and expert grant writer, Derek Link, shares his thoughts on the controversial topic of grant writing contingency fees:

Paying grant writers a percentage of the grant funds is often presented as a black and white issue in the nonprofit world. Whether paying a contingency fee is ethical depends on whether the percentage represents a reasonable amount of money for the work involved; the same principle that applies to a flat fee for services. I argue that if a contract for services is negotiated ethically and it results in a reasonable level of payment, there is absolutely nothing unethical or sinister about the practice of percentage contingencies. I suggest to you that a contingency arrangement can actually increase grant writer accountability.


Fundamentally, paying a percentage fee would only be ethically wrong if it were ethically wrong to pay for a grant writer’s services. It is self-evident that the amount of money paid to a writer should be proportionate to the work involved. A flat fee would be unethical if a grant writer were to accept a guaranteed grant writing fee and then do a poor job of writing the grant. It would also be unethical for a grant writer to accept a flat grant writing fee for a grant that they were fairly certain the organization would not receive.

A reasonable contingency percentage is very ethical because the writer has to do the best job possible to get the grant funded. The writer is also not likely to accept a grant that has a low likelihood of funding because on a percentage, the writer takes all the risk! If the grant isn’t funded, they don’t get paid! What is more ethical on the part of a grant writer than that?

The bottom line in any contract for services is reasonableness. The reasonableness in consulting fees is based upon the market and upon the value of the work. Only a non-profit administrator gets to decide what’s reasonable and their Board should be reviewing these decisions. If a grant writing contract results in a fee of $5,000 being paid to the writer for say, a $95,000 proposal, would it be a more ethical fee just because it was guaranteed to be paid whether or not the grant was funded? I say absolutely not, there is no nexus between ethics and reasonableness, and a flat fee for services.

I once heard of contingency fees being charged in the field by a consultant that I felt were out of line and unreasonable. This consultant was not successful and the natural market forces drove her out of the business. Such abuse is probably where the ethics of the practice has come into question; however, to paint contingency fees with a broad brush as unethical is just silly and unfair.

Many grant writers work diligently with agencies to obtain funding for them on contingency arrangements. This is helpful to agencies with cash flow problems. It is up to each non-profit to establish contracts for grant writing services that are reasonable and representative of the market rates in their area no matter what the form of payment.

I’ll go one step further in my argument by suggesting that the entire debate is faux-ethical in nature. American Association of Grant Professionals (AAGP) member regulations state that, “Members may accept performance-based compensation, such as bonuses, provided such bonuses are in accordance with prevailing practices within the members’ own organizations and are not based on a percentage of grant monies.”

The AAGP regulation that approves bonus (which is a contingency) proves their regulation against contingencies as faux-ethical. AAGP means to argue that nobody involved in the process of giving a bonus is whipping out the calculator to determine the bonus amount as a percentage of the grant funds received to determine reasonableness? A bonus amount based on “prevailing practice” amounts must be calculated on something or how could it be supported as mathematically reasonable?! A percentage contingency fee and a bonus contingency are no different, they are both performance-based.

The AAGP needs to stop treating Executive Directors as mathematically-challenged greenhorns who need to be protected from city-slickers with unreasonable contingency contracts. Unethical fees can be charged in any format and I trust that ED's know what is exorbitant when they see it.

The issue of percentage fees simply can’t be painted as black or white; come on folks, I was born on a Sunday, but it wasn’t last Sunday.