Author: Ilija Stojanović – Grant Writer.

From Awesome to Totally Absolutely Awesome

Said no kid ever. Including me.

My wishes ranged from firefighter to president, with a small universe of professions in between (among others: gas station worker, battlefield journalist/reporter, football pundit). None of them was a grant writer.

It was a mix of necessity and coincidence that set my path. But now that I am here – I really genuinely enjoy it.

Why?

They want you

Grant writers are always in short supply. Good ones at least. Not many people find it exciting to deal with mountains of paper and write paragraphs where short sentences can do just fine. It means that outside of big non-profits with an army of grant writers living in their offices, you are an absolute master of your world. In that particular little world – you always know better. Some really smart folks, authors of great project ideas, must follow your lead when it comes to transforming their own ideas into project proposals. Those are their great ideas, but still you know better. Ego likes it.

Stealing the craft left and right

Most of the time you engage with the very elite, people and projects alike, from many different fields of work. One day you write for a fintech start-up looking to break into the global market. Next day you write for local online media trying to diversify their production and introduce new content formats. Then you write for a grassroots community center that provides training to young entrepreneurs. It is likely that none of those things are your expertise, but you learn a great deal about all of them anyways. You constantly meet creative people with relentless drives to push their own limits, and you learn from them while researching and preparing their proposals. In addition to this diversity, which I enjoy as a benefit per se, there is always an opportunity to discover something new that can become a challenge or even your new career path.

Not skipping your band’s rehearsals

The nature of your work in most cases allows flexible working hours. Occasionally, a Monday-submission-deadline-situation will occur, so the weekend will have to cope without you, but more often than not you are able to work at your own pace and even sneak out for a quick jam session with your band in the early afternoon, knowing that you can make up for it later.

Wizarding around effortlessly

You routinely make people’s dreams come true. It is your writing that drives the transformation of big dreams into real, fully funded projects that enable great people to do great things and make an impact. I find it very fulfilling when I provide a final push for a noble intention to become a game-changing reality. Doing that kind of wizardry for living has been very rewarding for me so far.

Writing’s on the roll

So much writing day after day inevitably keeps you on top of your game all the time. A need for writing, in general, is something that pops up quite often, and whenever it does – you are ready to routinely accomplish the mission. If nothing else, most of the time you don’t have to think about hiring a writer.