Travel Grants For Writers And Reporters!

This grant program is open to all journalists, writers, photographers, radio producers or filmmakers; staff journalists as well as free-lancers of any nationality!

There is an organization that provides travel grants to cover hard costs associated with upcoming travel for an international reporting project.

According to the website, the "ideal" project offers print, photography, radio, and video.

Travel grants are also being offered to non-native, English-speaking journalists.

The organization is currently seeking proposals for projects on under-reported population issues.

The amount of individual travel grants will depend on the specific project and detailed budget planning. Most awards fall in the range of $2,000 to $10,000 but depending on project specifics may be as much as $20,000!

Once your project has been approved half of the grant amount is generally paid just before travel and the remainder on submission of the principal material for publication or broadcast. (Specific grant terms are negotiated during the application process.)

Proposed projects must include a credible plan for broad dissemination of the resulting work in U.S. media (print and/or broadcast). Applicants should be able to demonstrate interest from editors and/or producers working in wide-reaching U.S. media outlets. The credibility of a distribution plan is generally most evident in an applicant's track-record working with the listed outlets. Please do not have editors send letters simply stating they would consider the work. Letters from editors and/or producers who have worked with you in the past, and are interested in working with you again, are encouraged.

The organization is increasingly seeking multi-media projects that combine print/photography and video to explore the issues. Applicants are encouraged to create partnerships with others and propose a complementary suite of deliverables.

If you are only working in one medium, you may still apply.

Hiring A GrantWriter - Here is an excerpt

It is common for grant writers to charge a thousand dollars or more for a grant proposal. This is often due in part to the time and research needed to create a winning document. Some grant writers charge varying fees depending on the type of individual or organization seeking the grant, as well as the type of grant. Although this seems like a large cost, it does improve ones chances of receiving funding. When gauging fees, be sure to take the number of grants available, as well as the funding allotted. It may be in your best interest to research grant writing and do it yourself if the grant is for $5,000 or less or if a limited number of grants are available.

Thinking About Grantwriting As A Career?

I came across your Working From Home blog while searching for information on grant writing. I recently left a counseling job after being in social services/non-profit industry for around 10 years. I am looking for a more family-friendly career change, or at least a new slant on what I can do with my experience in social services, and have been thinking of looking into grantwriting. However, I have no idea how to get started or where to find more information on typical requirements to become a grantwriter or prospects for employment. If you have any basic advice or can point me to some good websites or contacts I would really appreciate it! Congratulations on all you have accomplished, it looks like you are juggling a lot of different roles in your professional life!

~M

Well since grantwriting is going to involve a LOT of research I can think of no better way to get yourself acquainted with research than by going to your local library and finding out as much as you can about the subject of grantwriting.

Even online you can get a lot of research done as well!

Also too I have notices that there have been grantwriting courses being made available by very legitimate learning places - so you may want to check and see if there are any available in your area.

Prospects for employment? If you are able to find grant funding for a program that will help to grow your reputation and judging by the amount of email I get prospects in this career area are very good.

Personally though I would advise you to work on a freelance basis.

"We Can't Pay You Now But........................"

Some very insightful words from another grantwriter on how one should (or should not) handle the business of being paid as a grant writer:

Rather than preach against contingent pay as unethical behavior, I prefer to share with contingent-pay seekers (and providers) some real-life consequences of such arrangements which mainly puts the livelihood of the grant writer at risk. I believe grant writers should never agree to contingency pay. It is simply not fair for hard working grant writers to receive little or no pay for their efforts due to many reasons beyond their control. I'll list several of those reasons which I have seen crop up time and time again, resulting in rejected proposals. In those instances, a grant writer's time and effort were wasted and she or he received no compensation for their good faith professional services:

• Say an organization wants someone to write a grant proposal for a project costing $118,000 and that the grant writer was to be paid a 5% commission if the grant is approved. It is almost always a requirement by funders that every dollar to be raised for and spent on projects be accounted for on a line-item basis. For many funders, the line item in the budget showing $5,900 for grant-acquisition services, would be reason enough to deny the grant. It would make no difference what the commission size or even if the contingency-pay were a flat fee. Grant-writing expenses are seen as part of an organizations operating budget. Few if any foundations, corporations, or governmental organizations are willing to make a grant when a portion of the money granted is to be used to pay a grantwriting fee. Remember, the grant is being requested for a specific project, not to offset operating expenses nor to disguise a professional fee. A non-profit or a grant writer that fails to take the possibility of such a caveat into consideration may be facing a rude awakening. Discerning and experienced program officers can readily see right through, and will reject, poorly delineated projects, "soft" and questionable budgets, and a host of other weaknesses which cannot be overcome by well-crafted grant proposals. An ineffective and failing "selling" job might be made during a presentation meeting by an organization's officials. You do not know in advance the foundations which are over committed to funding other organizations, have limited resources, thus they will not have funds available for you at the time, nor possibly for some time to come.
  
  
• What if the grant was to be paid out over a number of months---or even years? Would an organization be willing to pay the grant writer for the services rendered in full at the moment of grant approval? Should the grant writer be willing to accept a compensation payment schedule in sync with that of the grant award which could be spread out over several years?
  
  
• The grant writer should be ready to accept the fact that she or he will receive little pay for a major work, should a much lesser amount be granted than was originally requested. A grant writer could conduct the best possible research, make the most helpful recommendations, and even voice strong protests and caution when called for--- but project directors and executive directors will prevail should they insist that the grant request be written in spite of flaws and concerns. They will say to the grant writer: "We'll send it anyway, what have we got to lose?" They should ask the grant writer that question who stands to lose a great deal. Most grantors have greater vision than grant-proposal-submitting organizations. Grantors routinely look for assurance from the organizations that what they fund will be reasonably evaluated and measured in the longer term for effective and efficient use of their money, and that the organizations have future financial sustainability plans in place, or pending---especially that there are well developed long-range, strategic plans in place or being planned. A grant writer's best efforts expended in the writing of a given proposal simply cannot be extended or expected to meet such governance and policy-making requirements and expectations. Grant proposals, even the best of them, are all too often prepared and presented to potential grantors when the organizations have no, or few, other important sources of contributions to show, especially from their boards of trustees. Chances are slim to none for grant awards when there are no other visible and viable sources of support available to the organization. The hope for grants to be awarded to ensure payment for the grant writer's efforts is even more uncertain, and most unlikely, when proposals are stretched beyond practical and common sense limits, and they are presented to new, potentially uninterested, prospects---some even to distant, uncaring potential benefactors---as is often the case.

In the end, grant writers should be paid for their time and efforts by the hour or project, whether or not the grant is received. I question whether an organization unable to pay a fair fee for work done is likely to survive. Few non-profits forced to operate in ways not fully in accord with accepted professional standards flourish and grow.

I believe in the standards that have resulted from thousands of grant writing professionals working to help raise billions of dollars over decades of time. For me, not everything should be a matter of personal opinion; codes of ethics are established through collective wisdom because we do need absolutes by which to work and live. When I see all the wrong that can befall an organization or a grant writer in contingent-pay schemes, I cannot imagine for the life of me why either would want to go that route.

"Get Me The Grant First, Then I'll Pay You"

Of course it is inevitable that I would get an email like this. Here is an excerpt from my Payment Information Page

How to Hire a Freelance Grantwriter

Count on having to pay a freelancer before you get any grants. Very few professionals will accept a percentage or commission or deferred payment. If you don't have the cash needed, collect enough from your board, staff and volunteers to pay for an hour or two with a freelancer. He or she can clarify some initial steps you could take on your own and suggest some potential grantors for you to research and cultivate. Don't ask a freelance grantwriter to volunteer their services. Seasoned grantseekers get asked constantly to work for free. If they do volunteer, it's usually for organizations or individuals they already have a relationship with. The fact that you're a non-profit carries no weight – that's all they work with!

As I have said many, many times before - A grant is not guarenteed! You have to apply for the grant. Your application will be reviewed along with all the other grant applications that have been submitted. Theoretically speaking the grant application that best fits the needs of the program offering the grant will be the application that gets the grant.

If any grantwriter guarentees that you will get the grant you should be suspicious right there! You have to understand the process involved in getting a grant. Not every grant program is the same. They all have their different requirements for submission. Some are complicated, some are not and some are in-between. That is why I give all of my clients the grant information first! That way they can decide whether or not they want to apply for the grant program themself or whether or not they want to hire a grantwriter - be it me or someone else - to write the grant for them.

So if you are looking for me to guarentee that you will get the grant then you are going to have to look for someone else.

I work with the rules - not against them!

"A Grantwriter" by Rose

While a grantwriter does what the title says - write grants - what is often mistaken about the term is that 95% of the time the person wanting the services of a grantwriter doesn't have any idea of the kind of grant they want to apply for. That increases the duties of a grantwriter to not only include writing the grant but FINDING the grant programs as well. I have seen posts by other grantwriters about how someone wants to hire (or want the services of) a grantwriter but they fail to
mention (at least at first) that they don't have any specific grant program in mind. Their response is "Oh I thought you would have some grant programs for me." I have
even heard one grantwriter refer to these kind of people as "flakes" - someone that doesn't have ANY idea as to the process of finding applicable grant programs - and I stress the word applicable because unlike a magician a grantwriter can pull a grant out of his or her's "hat"! Time and time again (and I suspect that it will be an ongoing time and time again thing)people have posted about wanting a grant (which by the way shows they need more basic information because one is not automatically guarenteed a grant and if anyone says that they can guarentee a grant you had better think twice (plus it also shows that one does not know the
process of the "grant-making machine"!

Time and time I will get an email that says "I need a grant to start a daycare". First of all this lets me know that the person has not taken the time to read my daycare page where I have posted a LOT of information about the various day-care related grant program. It also lets me know that they are not familiar with the "grant" process. There is NO grant programs for someone that wants to "start a day-care".

• I have since come to realize that there are actually grant programs out there for people that want to start a for-profit daycare and it's not just limited to starting a daycare business but includes people that want to start a business of their own - period!

You can't decide that you want to start a daycare and expect to get a grant for it
and THEN decide the details later! It doesn't work that way! Sure there are day-care grant recipients that have received as much as $250,000.00 in grant money to start a
daycare but you can't honestly believe that they were awarded the grant simply because they just said "I want to start a daycare" - and nothing else!

Do you know what a grantwriter does? It can be comparable to what researchers and technical engineers do! Why? Because it involves finding information, deciphering it so that it makes sense. It's hours and hours of reading "fine print", mounds and mounds of papers (or disks - whatever the case may be), databases, searching and finding and searching some more, keeping up with the current programs and finding out about the new ones (and yes there are new ones being created). As a point for my own curiosity I'm wondering how many grantwriters out there wear glasses - you know all that fine print and all - because I am one of them! - LOL!

It is a LOT of work finding these programs and I will repeat that again because it bears repeating - IT IS A LOT OF WORK FINDING THESE PROGRAMS!