I Should Have Hired a Grant Writer From the Get-Go

How rich will you be if you are given 100 dollars for all the mistakes that you have made since your very first mistake? Don’t answer that; my guess is that you’ll be very rich. For me, my name may very well be the top name on the 2019 Forbes list, before Jeff Bezos.

Perhaps you are wondering what moved me to ask this question. Well, it’s because I have spent the last few weeks working on something that clearly required professional expertise, without the help of a professional. Before you jump to conclusions and blame me for my actions or tell me that I had no business doing what I did, listen to my side of the story first. This insight can be valuable and save you from sighing, “argh, I should have hired a grant writer”.

Here’s what happened

A few weeks ago, I had a meeting with my team on how to write a proposal for a grant to help us achieve our organizational goals, and objectives. As I am the director of the Pet and Animal Welfare Organization, the leadership roles automatically fall on my shoulders. So, I gave a short speech on how we need to write the best proposal for the grant. This is what I said.

“From the get-go fundraising techniques and trends have been the driving force behind any successful nonprofit organization. Since we are a nonprofit organization, we must depend on grants and fundraisers to carry out our projects and tasks. For this reason, we must write the best proposal for this grant; this is not a choice; it’s a necessity.

” Great speech, right? It felt good too. One of my teammates, Tom, gave a suggestion that we should hire a professional grant writer to help us draft the grant proposal. I was like; “Hey guys, we don’t need to use a pro to do this. I mean, how hard can it be?”. Thinking of it now, I wished I had listened to Tom. But being the hothead that I am, I politely refused Tom’s offer. With my mind made up, I decided to write the proposal by myself.

Big mistake

It turns out I didn’t know anything about proposal writing. No problem, I have the internet. So, I went online to educate myself on the matter. As expected, I found some useful materials on the subject. But then again, 85% of these materials referred me back to a pro. 

My research on the subject spanned for three days, and by the time I was done with the last piece, four days had breezed by. If not for Susan, my secretary and personal assistant, who came by my office to remind me about a meeting that I thought was scheduled for next week but was to be held that very day. I wouldn’t have known that I was missing out on other important events. In the bid to write the best proposal for the grant, I have abandoned other projects and tasks.

The truth of the matter is that I didn’t consider the amount of time that I would need to invest in the grant proposal. I guess I had it coming from the start and I had set myself up to fail. I took a minute to reminisce on my current predicament looking for a way out. Knowing for a fact that, I would have been better off hiring a professional grant writer for the job, so I did. As expected, everything went back to normal when we hired a grant writer to help us draft the proposal. I was able to focus on other important projects and tasks while the grant writer took care of the grant proposal for me.