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Pivoting from private sector bidding to grant writing for the third sector

Hi Rita,

I am considering a move from private sector bid management to grant writing – perhaps with a focus on securing funds for ‘small fish’ environmental restoration projects or similar. I wonder what your thoughts are on the cross functional skills I may be able to utilise in this transition versus what new skills specific to grant writing I may need to acquire – and from where. Many thanks!

Tyler Buckley

Hi Tyler,

Your experience in bid management means you are already skilled in writing proposals which is a critical aspect of grant writing.There will be some skills that you may want to develop and acquire to help you transition:

  1. Researching funding sources and understanding funders’ priorities (similar to researching clients’ needs)
  2. Project management is an important skill too because a lot of grant funding privileges consortia bids, so you will need to be very organised especially if you have to manage co-bidders
  3. Budgeting – this is very different from bids.  You will need to be able to budget accurately for your project because often grants are outcome based which means that they pay you for what you said you will deliver. For example let’s say that you will deliver a certain number of certifications for an environmental restoration training course. There may be an outcome payment for number of people recruited on your course, an outcome payment for people registered on the course, and an outcome payment for people passing their certification exam.  All would be priced accordingly, but the final payment you will get may not be sufficient to pay for your costs if you do not meet those outputs (for example because not all participants graduate).  Hence, it’s very important that you budget realistically for your project allowing an element of risk to be calculated to ensure you can still meet your targets while submitting a competitive grant application.
  4. Grant dynamics: you will have to familiarise yourself with the type of grants and grant-making organisations as they operate differently, so you need to understand their funding cycles etc.
  5. Once you win a grant, unlike bidding in the private/public sector, you will still be involved with the reporting after you won the grant. In other sectors, the bid team do a hand over to the mobilisation team.

My recommendation would be to become familiar with associations like the https://ciof.org.uk/ or the https://afc.org.uk/aboutus/  but also with trade associations that deal with environmental restoration. They will have events and courses that may be useful to you as you enter the field and also to network with environmental charities or other similar organisations. Also routinely there will be courses on grant writing and non profit funding strategies organised by universities or colleges some of which can be free or reasonably priced.

I also thought you may benefit from mentoring from someone already working in the sector.  I used to be a mentor for the Small Charity Coalition but that closed in 2022.  Their work has been taken over by NCVO, you may want to check them out too.

https://www.ncvo.org.uk/about-us/our-services/support-small-charities-voluntary-organisations/#/

Finally, I thought of a book that you could look at. Most books are US focused.  This one is UK focused.  https://www.dsc.org.uk/publication/writing-better-fundraising-applications/

Good luck! I am sure your skills will transfer smoothly.

Rita

Answered by Rita Mascia

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