Whether you’re considering a career as a grant writer or think you might write some grants as part of your job, the Grant Writing course being offered next semester teaches you specialized ways of writing that empower you to advocate for causes that matter to you. All students on campus benefit from learning to write grant proposals that fund organizations and projects and create positive change all over the United States.
When I last taught Grant Writing to undergraduate and graduate students at YSU, I loved learning about the community problems my students wanted to solve. A few weeks into the semester, I asked students what local issues and problems mattered to them, and they came to class brimming with ideas. Many expressed concern about vulnerable groups in our community: abused women without financial stability, low-income youth seeking funds for college, financially insecure pet owners struggling with veterinary bills, lonely college students searching for community.
Eagerly, my students immersed themselves in studying these societal problems. They searched for local and national data showing problematic trends. They researched options and costs for solutions. They crafted proposals to local, national, or governmental funders.
By the end of the semester, my students presented a range of projects, including…
My students worked on their grant proposal projects all semester. They analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of real grant proposals to understand proposal conventions and common missteps made by grant writers. They sketched plans for their projects in
Letters of Inquiry (LOI). Then, they tackled the grant proposal itself: they found real requests for proposals (RFPs) in our university grant databases, searched for data to build credible narratives, and wrote sections of their proposals to workshop in class. What a journey!
You might be wondering what organizations need grant writers and whether a career in grant writing can be rewarding. Grant writers serve a wide range of institutions and organizations: nonprofits, schools, government agencies, hospitals, environmental and arts groups, museums, think tanks, and more. About $1.5 trillion in grant funds circulate in our economy each year. And grant writers make that happen.
Over the last few years, some organizations have been turning to AI to research and write their grant proposals. However, many find that automating the tasks traditionally completed by grant writers brings serious risks—from producing bland-sounding proposals that fail to capture the human-centered mission of an organization to allowing AI-generated errors to damage an organization’s credibility. Grant writers do so much more than simply gather and synthesize information. They critically analyze data, develop creative solutions, and collaborate with people within an organization. They foster relationships with funders and plan unique ways to raise money. There’s more good news! Grant writers earn an average salary of $79,577 in the United States. Grant writers’ salaries range from about $60,000 for entry-level positions to more than $90,000 for top earners.
Even if you don’t want a career as a grant writer, you may find yourself in a job that involves grant writing. In one recent article, grant writing is called “the most profitable writing niche you’ve ever considered.” People who do not specialize in grant writing often write grant proposals as part of their jobs. Many types of professionals write grants: teachers, school administrators, nonprofit specialists, academic researchers, scientists, city planners, public administrators, librarians, and museum curators.
Former students from my Grant Writing classes have shared what they learned in the course and how the course prepared them for their professional jobs:
Hopefully, I’ve sparked your curiosity about the Grant Writing course (ENGL 4845 or ENGL 6945), which I am teaching next semester. While the course can be taken for any undergraduate or graduate program, it fulfills requirements for the following majors, minors, and certificates:
I hope to see you in my Grant Writing class next semester. Please reach out to me with any questions. I can’t wait to hear about the community causes and social issues that concern you. I hope I can help you learn to solve them.
— Diana Awad Scrocco, Professor of English and Coordinator for Professional Writing, Youngstown State University
Whether you’re considering a career as a grant writer or think you might write some grants as part of your job, the Grant Writing course
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