Hiring a grant writer for multi-million dollar proposal

[AJ_Katz]

Has anyone worked with a grant writer for a large institutional grant before?  Recommendations?  We're looking for someone or a company that would understand the USDA system.

[Ruralguy]

Usually there are staff who do this, even at a small school like mine. Does yours have any? (does staff have grant writers)

[AJ_Katz]

My experience with the grants office is that they are not writers, they are editors that help prepare the documents without input on the content or flow of ideas, etc.  So, essentially, they are broadly serving the university and would not equip us with guidance specifically geared to our program.

I can look into it further to see what is offered.  My experience is based on engaging their office for in put on grants that do not break $1M in value, so it might be a different story if we are talking about a larger grant.

[mamselle]

There are free-lance writers who do this work, at the scale you're discussing, on contract.

I know 3 personally; check the Editorial Freelance Network, the Cambridge Academic Editors'Network, and the Writers' Guild.

PM me if you want the names of my contacts; one was a former forumite, as I recall.

M.

[Kron3007]

I worked with one fairly recently on a large institutional grant.  We identified them through our university, who provided a list of potential writers.  We contacted several and found one that had a good background in our area and experience with this specific granting agency.  Many of them were already booked up, so expect to contact a few.  Based on that, and the rate they charge, it seems like a pretty good gig....

[theteacher]

I'm surprised by the comments here.
The research team at my university will help check the compliance with the rules of major grant schemes (they won't write anything but provide some general feedback).

[lightning]

When our grants office interferes gets involved, it is usually regarding budget, compliance, filling out useless forms, making sure they and the admins (F&A) get their cut along with shielding it from pass-through, coming up with time-sucking & asinine internal mini-grant competitions, and making announcements and newsletters that no one reads.

I would consider myself a lucky person, if our grants office actually did something helpful like editing, writing, and/or getting stakeholders connected with the people & programs that matter.

[mamselle]

I've experienced the gamut, from a RSO that helped me get my own grants shepherded past an obstructive, ill-informed (deliberately ignorant, at times, I'd have to say...) EA in one school, to being the EA who had to know all the ropes because the resident RSO guy there did nothing but (apparently) make tea all day for the myriad EAs like myself who were sent by our respective PI-bosses to try to get him to sign off on stuff delivered months before and due in that week (often with 2 more signatures still needed before submission.)

These were happening at the same time--talk about parallax--so I was not only learning to write and submit grant requests, I was learning all the ways they could be internally derailed in 4 dimensions.

Fortunately, good will prevailed, I got both my humanities grant--and its renewal, a year later--and my bosses' grants shepherded through to award status.

But, brother, it was a Moebius learning curve.

M.

[Ruralguy]

For the type of school I am at, the grants people are pretty good; however, they can only help with editing technical grants, since they are mostly used to writing foundation and state level or corporate grants for programs related to the liberal arts.
Anyway, overall, they are pleasant and have a good track record.