Author: Ilija Stojanović – Grant Writer.

Predictably – no translation. There is a possibility that the deadlock is of a linguistic nature. But that possibility is exclusively a narrative counterweight that balances the tone of the text, so that this and that do not come out. Fluff as it were. The deadlock is not of a linguistic nature.

I have worked as a Grant Writer my entire career. Occasionally I would add a secondary role to it, but the basic one was always the same. On the list of employers I have worked for in the past, I have a university research center, a city and municipal administration, a cultural center and two associations. I currently have two employers, one electronic media and one consulting firm. At some I am officially a project manager and at others I am a project development coordinator. In the past, I was officially a researcher (researcher), project manager and coordinator for administration and finance.

In reality, I was always and everywhere a Grant Writer.

In every agreement with the employers, I had an explicit condition that my basic job description should not include anything other than the preparation of project proposals and building relationships with donors on a strategic and operational level. I only worked with employers who accepted it and understood why it was important. Anyway, I always had some funky job title, more or less far from the point.

Why wasn’t I officially a Grant Writer? I do not know.

The most obvious answer would be – because there is no adequate translation for the term Grant Writer in the Serbian (and Slovenian) language. But that answer for me opens more than closes this topic.

Why don’t we have a translation for the term Grant Writer?

A literal translation would not resemble anything, but we don’t even have a term that would conceptually match the content of the term Grant Writer in the spirit of the language. With all correctness and diplomatic moderation, after a full decade in that business, I claim that this is no coincidence, nor is it a linguistic stoppage.

The fact that Grant Writer as a profession does not have its own translation is a direct consequence of the fact that this profession is generally not recognized in our business environment.

The development of project applications in the CSO world is generally considered part of the project cycle, and the authors of project proposals are expected to later take on some role in implementation. Outside of the CSO world, where donor projects are somewhat less important, it is rare to see a company that has its own in-house Grant Writer. Where creating project applications is perceived as something that everyone can do but no one wants to, writing usually falls on the shoulders of employees who do it as a secondary thing and something that is imposed on them even though it is not in their job description. They write ineptly and seething with anger for something more credible. In companies where there is a certain level of awareness about the skills necessary for this job, ad hoc consultants are hired for one-time assistance.

However, in all these modes, one loses sight of the essential fact that in more developed business environments, the job of a Grant Writer is defined as such for a reason. Contrary to one-time ad hoc interventions, when an all-too-obvious opportunity for external funding pops up and cannot be overlooked, the reality is that Grant Writing is a job that, like most others, can and should be done strategically and in synergy with other business segments. This applies primarily to for-profit companies whose primary activity is by definition commercial and market-oriented, although it is equally applicable to CSOs.

At the moment when a company or organization has a person who devotes full time to market research, strategic development of internal capacities and long-term performance towards the donor community – there are conditions for external financing to be integrated into the business model. Soon the company begins to enjoy the benefits. I know that from my own experience.

For example, in the Novina Vranjska portal, I made an agreement with the editorial commander that I would be freed from all tasks in implementation and operations in general. This allowed us to strategically position ourselves, and from several carefully combined external sources, secure funds for the construction and equipment of the Media Shelter (we built and equipped the entire building for conference events!), for the establishment of a recording studio, for the expansion of the team and the first year of production several different formats of media content. With this, the editorial office achieved complete financial viability and a platform for growth that is in the service of their primary goal – preserving a suicidally independent editorial policy in an environment where such a thing is simply not done nor is it generally accepted as a value per se.

These days, the team from Vranje recorded and published the first episode of their podcast (if I’m not mistaken, the only such production south of Niš), which symbolically marked the beginning of a new era in their work. What the public generally does not see, but we know very well, is many months of effort and tactics that made this breakthrough possible. It took several successful project applications (with inevitably a few unsuccessful ones) to close the financial structure and reach the goals we set at the beginning. That would not have happened if I, as the leader of the tactical fundraising unit, had to start dealing with its implementation after the first approved project. It probably wouldn’t have happened even if Vranjske hired an agency and applied for a large grant (of the kind that are actually on offer) for the implementation of which they don’t have the capacity.

A Grant Writer makes the greatest contribution when he does only Grant Writing, and not a bunch of other things that come along. When phrased like that, it doesn’t sound revolutionary in the least.

Why, apart from the translation for the term Grant Writer, we don’t even have an essential concept that should stand behind that term?

The answer to that would have to be much more complex. It is partly due to the bad reputation that competitions have in general in Serbia. Part of the fault lies in not understanding the mechanism by which project work rewards those who do it well.

What bothers me the most, because I always start from myself when I see a problem, is the total absence of interest in educating and building the market as well as own branding among the Grant Writers themselves. Ok, there are few of us and most of our time is filled… But consistent with our own assertion that our work, like most others, is best done when it is strategically placed, I have to wonder – when did we once manage to focus only on our primary work , (I admit that I was very lucky with my employers) what is the next step in the strategy?

We can start with the translation that will correspond to the term Grant Writer in Serbian. You don’t go into battle without a flag.