Becoming a Grant Writing Consultant (Self-Guided)

Lesson 1

What Does a Grant Consultant Do?

In this lesson, you'll learn about the credentials and skills needed to become a successful grant writing consultant. You'll also learn how to use your grant writing skills in both the nonprofit and for-profit sectors to generate cash flow for your new business. Step-by-step, this first lesson teaches you what business structures and services to consider as you develop your grant writing consulting business.

Finding the Resources You Need to Succeed

This lesson will talk about how to choose the office resources you need to succeed as a grant writing consultant. You'll learn how to find training to sharpen your skills and explore top reference materials used by leading grant writing consultants. You'll also learn how to keep your new business afloat by carefully allocating your funds for the right tools of the trade.

Setting up an Efficient Home Office

In this lesson, you'll learn how to set up an efficient work area and plan your first day as a paid grant writing consultant. You'll also learn how to turn a living or storage area of your home into productive workspace. It's important to have an organized area where you can manage your revenue-producing projects from start to finish, and this lesson will show you how to get it set up.

Linking Your Experience With Grant Writing Projects

In this lesson, you'll begin to assess your grant writing experience, knowledge, and skills. You'll learn how to use your job experience to target clients and how to expand your services beyond writing proposals. This lesson is about linking your experience with paying projects-making money for what you love to do, day after day.

Setting up Client Fees

This is perhaps the most important lesson. You are well on your way to becoming a successful grant writing consultant-managing your own business. This lesson will teach you how to set marketable fees for each of the services you offer so you'll make money as a grant writing consultant-regardless of where you live or the state of the economy. You'll learn how to set your fees based on your costs, expertise, and project type and learn when to adjust your fees so you still make a profit. Most importantly, you'll see where to draw the line and just say no to a prospective client.

Marketing Your Consulting Services

In this lesson, you'll learn how to market and promote your grant writing consulting business. You'll also learn how to take some critical pre-marketing steps, including writing a marketing plan.

Developing Consulting Opportunities

This lesson will teach you how to search for and develop consulting opportunities. You'll learn how to use the Internet and newspapers to find new clients, and how to present your services so effectively that clients will hire you sight unseen.

Writing Contractual Agreements

In this lesson, you'll learn how to write contractual agreements. You'll review basic contract language and the different types of contractual agreements to help you understand the purpose and limitations of a written contract. Most importantly, you'll learn how to create a contract template so you can quickly draft a contractual services agreement ready for signatories.

Projects That Bring in Quick Money

This lesson will show you how to make cash start flowing into your new business within the first 90 days. It'll talk about how to differentiate between piece of cake projects and "like pulling teeth" projects. You'll learn which types of projects bring in quick money and how to discern between projects that are best for novices to take on at business start-up and those best handled by veteran grant writers.

Building an Expert Reputation

In this lesson, you'll learn how to build a reputation as an expert grant writing consultant. You'll explore Internet resources that will help you keep abreast of emerging trends. Most importantly, you'll learn how to implement a three-step plan that will help you to (1) expand your knowledge, (2) exceed your clients' expectations, and (3) make your skills and services visible.

Managing Multiple Projects

At this point, you are nearing the finish line for Becoming a Grant Writing Consultant. In this lesson, you'll learn how to manage more than one project at a time so you can become more profitable. This lesson covers it all: How to ask yourself the right questions to accurately calculate project timeframes; how to organize and prioritize your projects; even how to develop work habits that will help you meet deadlines when you're working on multiple projects.

How and When to Expand Your Business

This last lesson will teach you how to recognize the signs of business growth and the steps to take before planning for business expansion. You'll learn some strategic planning steps that will help you stay on top of small business trends, as well as stay on top of your competitors.