Spark the Fire
Grant Writing Blog
Skills, ideas, and sometimes contrarian views for grant writers and freelance consultants who want to get better at the work, not just get through it. Centering purpose, not hustle.
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How to Forecast Grant Revenue
Every grant writer eventually gets asked the question. Maybe it's a board member, maybe it's an executive director, maybe it's a client three weeks into a contract: "How much do you think we'll actually raise?"
How to Write a Letter of Interest for Grant Funding: Complete Guide
After more than two decades of writing grants, and sitting on the other side of the table as a reviewer, I can tell you the letter of interest is where many strong programs quietly get filtered out. It rarely comes down to the work itself. It comes down to whether the letter respects the reader's time and makes alignment obvious in the first few sentences. This guide walks through what a letter of interest is, what to include, and how to write one that earns an invitation to submit a full proposal.
The Metrics Question: How Do We Measure Real Success in Grant Writing Education?
A while back, I asked a hard question out loud: how do you actually measure whether a grant writing course works?
I put four possible approaches on the table and asked for feedback. Then I did the part that matters more than asking: I listened. What follows is what I heard, what I changed because of it, and where I've landed. It's not finished, good measurement never is, but it's real, it's built, and it's running in the course right now.
When 100% Should Have Said 100%: What a Box Truck Full of Furniture Taught Me About Participatory Evaluation
I was doing my initial research for a new client, an organization that provides an entire houseful of furniture to families experiencing hardship, when I found something that didn't add up.
The "Of Course" Factor: What It Is and How to Write Proposals That Earn It
You're trying hard not to skim. You're really paying attention to each one. And then, without quite noticing the shift, you find yourself hanging on every word of one proposal. The room around you has disappeared. You're not reviewing anymore, you're just reading.
A Resource Every Grant Writer Should Know, or Be Reminded Of: GrantAdvisor.org
There's a resource every working grant writer should know about, and if you've heard of it before, consider this your reminder to actually use it: GrantAdvisor.org.
How to Hire a Grant Writer (And What to Look For Once You Do)
Most articles about hiring a grant writer are written for the people doing the hiring. This one starts with a confession: if you're a grant professional reading it, it's not for you, it's for the executive director Googling "how to hire a grant writer" at 11 p.m. with an empty pipeline and three months left in the fiscal year. Inside: the credentials that actually matter, how to read a writing sample if you've never written one, interview questions that reveal real red flags, and why win rate is the wrong way to measure performance.
The Two Jobs of an Executive Summary
Pull up USAspending.gov, type in your city, and you'll see every federal award going to organizations in your area. Click any one of them. The first thing you'll see is the funded project abstract. That's the executive summary, and once your federal grant proposal is funded, yours will live there as the public record of the work you committed to do.
Where Logic Models Quietly Lie
Because here is the catch that trips up even experienced writers: understanding the logic model and building an honest one are not the same thing. A model can be filled in correctly and still quietly lie. The lies are almost always in the same five places, and once you know where to look, you cannot unsee them in your own work.
The Proposal Move That Brought In an Extra $5,000
That check taught me something I have been teaching ever since: your ask is not a fixed point. It is a starting position. The proposals that get funded well, whether the award lands above or below the request, are the ones that tell the funder in advance how the work flexes.
You Don't Have to Apply for Every Grant. Here's How to Know Which Ones to Walk Away From.
Most everyone in this field will tell you to apply for more grants. This post makes the opposite case. Sometimes the most valuable move you can make on a grant is the decision not to write it, and almost nobody teaches you how to tell the difference. Below, I'll walk you through how I decide which grants are worth pursuing, which ones to walk away from, and how to say no without burning a single bridge.
Ethics Questions Grant Writers Are Afraid to Ask Out Loud
Your Budget Equals the Grant Maximum. Here's Why That's a Red Flag.
That alone is a yellow flag. What made it red was the inside of the budget. Personnel rounded to the nearest thousand. A line for "office equipment" with no detail. Marketing costs that looked suspiciously like whatever number was needed to close the gap to the ceiling.
The organization had built the budget to fit the grant. And every experienced reviewer can tell when that's what happened.
Finding Freelance Grant Writing Clients Through Cold Outreach
Here's the thing about freelance grant writing that nobody tells you upfront: having the skills is only half the equation. The other half is finding the organizations that need those skills and don't yet know you exist.
Evidence-Based Practices in Grant Writing: How to Find, Align, and Use Them
The term "evidence-based" gets thrown around a lot — often loosely. Before you can use it effectively in a grant proposal, it helps to understand what it actually means and where your program falls on the spectrum.
Grant Writing for Pass-Through Entities: The Mindset Shift That Makes It Click
've worked with a lot of students and clients over the years who find themselves writing grants for organizations that don't run programs themselves — they fund other people who do. And almost universally, the first thing I hear is some version of: "I don't even know where to start. Do I describe what our organization does, or what the groups we fund do?"
Can You Include In-Kind in Your Grant Budget? Here's What I Tell My Clients
Beyond the Survey: 16 Evaluation Tools Every Grant Writer Should Have in Their Back Pocket
There are at least sixteen well-established evaluation tools in the grant writer's toolkit, and choosing the right combination can transform a forgettable evaluation plan into one that makes a reviewer sit up and pay attention. This article walks through sixteen of them, organized by what they actually help you measure, so you can pick the right tool for the job — without overcomplicating things for the organization you're writing for.
The Art of the Grant Letter of Support (And Why You Should Write It Yourself)
If you've ever submitted a grant proposal, you've probably seen the line buried somewhere in the application guidelines: "Please include letters of support from partnering organizations." Sometimes it's required. Sometimes it's listed as optional. And sometimes there's no mention of it at all — which is exactly when a well-placed letter of support can set your proposal apart from the stack.
Grant Writing Advice You Should Ignore
I've been writing grants for more than twenty-five years. I remember going to the library and flipping through a massive research book called the Foundation Databook to find grant opportunities. I remember submitting applications on several reams of paper, stuffing them into boxes, not envelopes, and mailing them off with a prayer. I remember the days before cloud collaboration—when you'd send a draft to your team and get five completely different revised versions back, then somehow had to piece them together like a jigsaw puzzle.
So take it from me, someone who has been in this field a long, long time: there are no shortcuts to learning grant writing.