www.inkthinkerblog.com — I’ll be blogging my notes for the WIW 2008 Annual Conference and posting them between sessions throughout the day. I’ll be fixing typos later! (These people talk fast, so this is FULL of typos.)
Moderator
Joseph Barbato, Barbato Associates
Panelists
Beth Duris, Trout Magazine
Chuck Anderson, National Parks Conservation association
Marjorie Lightman, QED Associates, LLC
(Note to self: Stop being so darn helpful and mising the begining of sessions.)
JB: Find out who needs fundraising writing? Who’s running a capital campaign? You can go to various sources like the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Websites, professional organizations (Assoc. of Fundraisng Profs — can join as a writer), find and meet the people running development offices around town and learn early on who’s planning what. Any writer with strong writing skills can do this kind of material. It’s the difference between writing about Harvard for New York Magazine and writing a brochure FOR Harvard. Different tone, different angle. Bring a lot of patience to the table — you’ll be writing smeone who may or may not have a very good editorial sense.
(There is a guy in front of me playing solitaire on his laptop. Dude, what is WRONG with you?)
JB: You must always look for a deep pocket. The storefront agency might well ask you to write for little or nothing. If you’re in a position to do that, do it. But places like Harvard University are used to paying market rates for everything they buy, including writing. Some places will start playing the charity card immediately, and I would recommend that you avoid those places like the plague. Some agencies devote a certain amount of time to pro bono work, and that is a favor those agencies are doing for the organizations. If they want YOU to do the work, you should expect them to pay a competitive price and you should meet their schedule.
(apparently everyone’s speaking their say and then it moves down the line, so no back and forth right now)
JB: Each year, the Chronicle of Philanthropy rates the top 100 nonprofits. Safe bet, those are well-run organziations used to paying the coin of the realm for the things they do, and chances are that they’re willing to pay for what they want you to do.
BD: Previous staff writer at Nature Consevancy, currently editor of Trout Unlimited’s magazine, and freelance conservation development work. First of all, there’s a huge range of nonprofits that you might potentially be working with as clients. The Nature Conservancy is much, much bigger than any other conservancy organization out there, and Trout is very small. In a smaller place, tehre’s a different level of expectation and sophistication for the writer there. In bigger places, you spend a lot of time talkign to all of these experts and listening to their point of view and trying to really synthesize that.
BD: You come in with a fresh persoective to help them get away from their corporate point of view and combine individual perspectives into something will resonate with an outside person. The bigger an organization is, the more bureaucratic it is. As an outside person, that’s something you can really offer them: You’re not drinking the Kool Aid every day. You’re the one who’s thinking about the reader’s point of view, someone who ust wants to be interested and inspired. You’re not steeped in the jargon.
BD: you have to realize when you’re hearing them, that’s just too much information. You’re coming in as an expert, so you have some leverage there and you need to exercise it because that’s part of what they’re paying for. In a big group, it’s a lot of saving them from themselves. In a smaller group, it’s an opportunit to direct them and help them understand what they need. You can come in wiht a little bit of knowledge and look real smart. You are there kind of tyring to educate them and give them ideas and helping them to see themselves in a larger context.
BD: For instance, when you get really into wriitng about an organization’s campaign, it may be more or less well developed internally. It’s up to you as a writer to help an organiztion flesh out the oportunites and initiative in a way that will be compelling, figure out the context in which they’re working, and convey that as well. What really is so special about this? You have to challenge people to say, let’s get down to brass tacks here. How does this compare? You need to spend itme up front before you start writing knowing all the information you can about hw this initiative fits into the larger context — and where the landmines are.
BD: A lot of times you’re dealing with people who don’t quite understand what a writer needs. THey want to be helpful, but you need to know the questions. Know clearly in your own mind what information you need to get out of people. It can be frustrating, too. You have to be aware that sometimes what you’re doing is helping people think through what they want and put it down in writing. The rubber meets the road when you start writing about something. There’s an element of the process that you’re helping the organization along to some point, and you have to be patient. There’s a lot of writing by committee, and the process is different. Know that going in.
(one of the panelist’s cell phones is ringing. Whoops!)
BD: THere’s a tremendous opprotunity for freelancers who approach this kind of writing with creativity and seriousness. I see a lot of schlocky writing, people who don’t do the research and just kind of phone it in. If you really DO it, you’re going to stand out. To the extent that you’re willign to dig in and see this asa process with people and bring enthusiasm, there’s a tremendous opportunity to really stand out from the crowd.
BD: It’s an awful lot of fun to come into a process that’s a team process. It’s not feature writing. It’s like opinion writing, but it’s not your opinion — you’re channeling the organization’s message. If you really ARE an opinion writer, if you can’t get out of your own head, this is a kind of frustrating field for you. You need to channel their intensity. It’s fun because usually you’re the only person on the team who has the ability to write. You’re the one who knows how to marry programming, etc, into persuasive prose, so your role on the team is clear and your ablity to help the organization is huge.
BD: I believe that people don’t give huge gifts based on writtenmaterials, but you can LOSE a huge gift based on poor or sloppy or unenthusiastic materials and can really undermine the organization over time. And when the checks come in, you get to feel really good about it. With magazine writing, there’s not really that sort of payoff.
CA: GOod wirting is a precious commodity in the nonprofit world, and grant funding is so much the lifeblood of nonprofits taht they are willing to outsource the job to make sure it’s done right. Foundation grant writing is continuous, unlike capital campaigns that only come along like very two years. There’s a relentless pressure to get grants out the door for foundations. In this corner of the market is money and power, but no fame because it’s completely anonymous and only about a dozen people will read what you’re writing anyway.
CA: 5 things you probably don’t know and 4 tips for succeeding.
Little knowns…
- Relentless pressure of foundation deadlines means that the foundation relations team are the first to hire freelancers to fill staff vacancies.
- Some nonprofits get a lot more foundaiton money than others. If a nonprof has dues-paying members rather than institutional members, they are likely gettigna lot of revenue from that source. People represent a lot of money. Nat. Conserv. is a good example, whereas Brookings Institution is 60-80% foundation money.
- Even when all positions are filled in foundations relations staff, still a good market because the writing is difficult, the team is overworked, and senior management will do whatever it takes to keep them happy which often means agreeing to outside help.
- There is no such thing as proposal writing — proposals and writing. The kind of work you’d be doing is less writing and more recycling. Reporting on grants that have been won OR securing the grant in the first place. Reall, you’re ediitng the first draft by the people who wrote the report or updating an old proposal. Bottom line: Collaboration between you and the staff — they provide the substance, you provide the style. If you’re doing the first draft, it’s because you got the assignment from someone who doesnt’ know what they’re doing.
- Thre’s no secret, but some things worth noting: (a) tell a good and compelling story, (b) exactly what you’ll do to make the world better, (c) undersand diff between activity, objective, and outcome, (d) at the end of the day, it’s al about demonstrating impact of investments.
Tips
- You can find out who has staff shortages by going to Chronicle of Phil. job board and the Assoc of Fund Profs (afpnet.org) to get daily e-mails alerting you to staff vacancies based on keywords like “grant writers” and “foundation relations” and send a LOI to Dir. of Dev. or Dir. of Found. Relat.
- READ: Joel Fleischman’s The Foundation: A Great American Secret to make you conversant enough to write a convincing cover letter offering your services if you’re new. Impres upon them that ou get the needs in #5 above and that you understand the collaboration (#4) Above.
- When you get the job, be fearless as an editor. The people you’re collaborating with are no more likely to write well than the general population and will be generally grateful for your help as they see their jargony and sometimes incoherent draft become compelling prose and start to see dollar signs. “Look, you’re a policy wonk in need of a journalist” and go to town on the draft without hurting feelings. Clear distinction between substance and style.
- How to charge: Fan of pricing by the hour (versus project) because small grants can often be just as much work as the big ones. Your monthly invoice will be easy for the client to relate to if you assign a certain number of hours to a certain project.
ML: Ben Johnson described himself as an elegant hack, and that’s what a proposal writer is. Fundraising is alwasy being written in someone else’s voice, some more sympathetic to your own vocie than others. you must find those sympathetic voices to be able to write with authenticity. You must be simpatico with what you’re writing about. if you don’t care about the environment, don’t write for the Nature Conservancy. If you’re passionate about trafficking in women, find and organization that deal with that and your passion will help you.
ML: An elegant hack is the most valuable person an organization can have. The written word is what makes the world flow in nonprofit life. The alchemy of nonprofits begins wiht spoken words and dieas and then takes a written form. it’s the communication of the written form that produces money in the end. it’s almost like creating money out of whole cloth. it’s the closest thing I know to alchemy.
ML: You make it happen. you are a HANDMAIDEN to making it happen. THere’s nothing more astonishing than a world-class reseacher who speaks to you in langage that makes no sense whatsoever. An youre’ going to make it make sense ad make it compelling for the audience. you mist know who the audience is and part of the writer’s obligation isto be the reader’s ear. you have to hear what you’re writing and you ahve to ahve enough imagination to know what is is your readers need to nkow. You’re writing for a very few, very specific readers, and each of them speaks a different language. You become the prism, the intermediary who can take the language of one and make it the language of another.
ML: What you are writing over here in this nonprofit which answers those wuestions in the organization also must be aware of the conditions of the RECIPIENT of the proposal. What are they hearing? you’re engaged in a dialogue at all times. This is a dialogue among a very few people. And by and large, they know each other. By and large, the researcher whose work youa re working withi sknown to the foundation where you are submitting the proposal, etc. They both know each other but what the reasearch writes will not be a proposal and wll not be cceptable to the same people,who fund the researcher because they know him.
ML: youre’ a midwife. And you write differentl for the different places. You have to know the agency as well as the researcher knows the agency. Know the person and listen to them. You can alwasy go on the phone and listen to them. this is a world where words are money, so words are exchanced all the time.
ML: There are some things about writing porposals that are contrary to writing in other worlds. A proposal starts at the end, what ouw ant to get done in the ftuure, not what happened in the apst aht made this happen. You want the imagination. What is it hat you’re offering? youa re alwasys offering entry to a new world, and the new world is exdtly the world that the funding agency wanted to get into — not the world that the angecy you’re working for wants to do, but the FUNDING agency. The amterial you use to convince them with comes out of your own organization, but your imagination is theirs. And THEN you have to describe a project with the appearance of reasonableness. SOmebody has to lok at it and say, that’s the way it could work.
ML: And it’s veyr hard to take a researcher through the process. They’re very impatient as you say carefull, what are you going to do next? what’s the first thing that you’re oging to do? enver mind that you’re going to redo the world. HOW are you going to redo the world? you have to take the person throgh that proces step by step so ou can write it and create a plan that has a semblance of reasonablenes — and it must be reasonable ot you to be reasonable to the reader. Authenticity comes through.
ML: Its’ easy to write workmanlike proposals. it’s ahrd to write PASSIONATE workmanlike propoals. Techniques for writing controlled passion:
- Never use -ing words.
- Nix short, declarative sentences. Use statements with subordinate clauses, which reveal deep thought because associated with conditionality ad thinking things through. Reader needs both signposts, and it needs to feel thoughtful. Balance the two like music in a paragraph. Read it aloud because that wll tell you whether you have music.
- Be colorful but not too colorful. bea ble to describe somehting in a way, a phrase, that someone will remember that isn’t a cliche and at the same time is not so original that the researcher is going to spend the next three days asking you why you said that. Find delicate ground. Can lead your researchesr to say interesting things; take them down and repeat them
ML: At the end the prop is as much about you, and the reasearcher and the organization yu’re wriitng from as the organization you’rewriitng too. If ou’ve done it successflly — and success is a very low percentage in terms of thegging the money — you’ve got a piece of art that’s a peculiar piece of artthat only you and a small group of oher poeple will see that answer a set of conditions that are contradictory every step of the way.
(time for audience questions) (they’re either basic or REALLY specific to individuals, so I think I’m done.) (just kidding, someone’s asking about rates.)
CA: FWIW, if I were suddenly on the other side of hte table, my rule of thumb in targeting a nonprofit with a budget of under $10M/year, I would probably try to get a little more than $100/hour but I woldn’t have high hopes of success. If the budget is biger, I’d ask $150/hour for services. If I were trying to get moeny from the likes of a Harvard, I might even go higher.
ML: I usually base it on the size of the orgnization. In the district, there are a lot of nonprofits at under $5M.year, but many where $100/hour will still stand, and anywhere you should get $75/hour at least. (ML prefers project versus hourly.) Face to face contact makes the process move faster and improves understanding.
BD: You have to be a darn good interviewer to get the same information from people through e-mail and the phone taht you would siting across the table with them. It’s harder to bond.
CA: Recycling, tweaing, adn updating work, all that matters si that you have some feel from the organizaiton os it’s not too abstract. Once that’s taken care of, all you need is the Internet.
ML: Idealist.org also posts job offers.
Tags: freelance writing blog, freelance writing, freelance, writing, washington independent writers, WIW, nonprofit writing, proposal writing, grant writing, foundation writing, joseph barbato, beth duris, chuck anderson, marjorie lightman, inkthinker, kristen king
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