Guides

Grant writing help for small nonprofits: every option compared

If your organization runs on less than $5 million a year, a full-time grant writer is usually out of reach, and the work lands on whoever can least spare the hours. These are the realistic options, what each one costs, and who each one actually fits. We sell one of them, and we have tried to be straight about the others.

Do it in-house

Cost: staff hours. A simple foundation application takes around 10 hours; complex or first-time ones take 20 to 30. In-house makes sense when someone on staff writes well, knows the programs deeply, and can protect the time. It stops making sense the month those hours start coming out of program delivery, which is the usual story. The fastest fix if you stay in-house: keep a standing document set and reusable answers, covered in how long a grant takes to write.

Hire a freelance grant writer

Cost: $25 to $250 an hour depending on experience, or $2,500 to $6,000 for a full proposal to a new funder (full fee breakdown here). The right call when a single large application justifies real investment: a federal grant, a major multi-year foundation ask. A good specialist earns their fee on those. It is a poor fit for a steady stream of small and mid-size applications, where the fees quickly pass what the awards are worth.

Retain a grants consultant

Cost: an ongoing monthly retainer, quoted per engagement. Consultants bring strategy and funder relationships as well as writing, and for organizations big enough to afford a sustained engagement they can be worth it. For most small nonprofits the retainer competes directly with program spending, and that argument usually ends it.

Subscribe to a grant database

Cost: generally over $2,000 a year for the established commercial options. A database solves discovery only: it shows you deadlines and funder profiles, and every hour of eligibility checking and writing is still yours. Worth it when you have writing capacity and lack leads. Before paying, check whether your public library offers free Foundation Directory access, and see the free sources in how to find grants for your nonprofit.

Use a managed service like Grant Current

Cost: for Grant Current, $1,000 once for onboarding, then a flat $250 a month or $2,500 a year. The software finds grants weekly, checks the eligibility fine print, and writes each first draft from your own documents; your team reviews, edits, and submits. This is the option we built, for one specific situation: organizations under $5 million whose eligible grants go unpursued because nobody has the hours. If AI drafting worries you, that concern is fair and we address it directly here.

Which one should you pick?

One big application a year: hire the specialist freelancer. Real writing capacity but no leads: the database, or the free sources plus a library card. Neither hours nor budget to spare and a list of grants you never get to: that is the gap a managed service exists to close.