I am as well pleased that you agree with my strong argument against any form of contingent-pay compensation, in any shape of form, for any staff of a non-profit organization. While the for-the-profession associations, and grant writers in general, do cite such agreements as being unethical, I prefer to list the true and serious consequences which could befall the professional and the organization when they enter into such contingent-pay agreements.

Along with my admonitions in the grant writer/grant writing article above, I expand those consequences in another of my articles, geared to other development personnel:
– The Argument Against Paying Development Professionals Based Upon The Amount Of Funds Raised For Non-Profit Organizations
http://www.raise-funds.com/1998/the-argument-against-paying-development-professionals-based-upon-the-amount-of-funds-raised/

The consequences cited work better than simply citing the ethics issue. I have found that most writers engaged in contingent-pay practices, or seeking to be so engaged, were not unethical, as much as they were unenlightened, or needed employment even at the risk of not being paid.

Organizations mostly claimed they had no money upfront to pay for services rendered. They needed a grant proposal writer to do the work, then to roll the dice to see if they obtained the grant, to pay for its organizational use, and to pay the grant writer.

But I do have a totally opposing view regarding what you wrote about the grant proposal writers’ position relative to the Director of Development.

The Director of Development is responsible for all the contributed income an non-profit organization needs to carry out its mission and to balance the budget. The grant proposal writer should not be engaging in fund-raising on her or his own. What they do is work a process to seek funding based on the attractiveness and fit to a prospective grantor of what the organization has to offer as it works to fulfill its mission. That’s what the D of D’s associate development professionals do as well.

Those decisions to award grants come from either the owners of the funds (family foundations), or stewards of other people’s money. It is strictly contributed income, and falls in exactly with the responsibility of the D of D.

The grant proposal writer cannot, and should not, be unsupervised by the D of D. Even if the grant writer worked only on government grants, working to fulfill requirements for appropriated tax-sourced money, or responding to government RFPs, nonetheless, the office of the D of D must keep up its usual cultivation and relationship-building with the government officials important to the winning of those grants. And all of the donor relations, cultivation, retention, etc., activities must be led by the D of D.

Perhaps some believe that grants somehow emanate from impersonal entities when we come to think of “foundations.” But, foundations are operated by, and the decisions are made by, individuals. And those individuals are just as much a part of the development donor cultivation and retention process as are individuals.

As a matter of fact, with granting foundations, we know that only about 13% of the total funds given to non-profits annually comes from foundations, and about half of that 13% is from small foundations that are essentially giving mechanisms for individual donors. Think family foundations and those set up by individuals to further the causes in which they believe. So that makes about 7% of annual charitable giving coming from independent, grant-making foundations. Thus, there is no need, nor use, to have the grant proposal writer considered to be dealing with a special, fixed, source of contributed income, somehow alienated from all other such activity.

Being equal, will not work. Crossed purposes and crossed lines, would result. The grant proposal writer is a valued and essential professional in a staff of professionals, all led by the D of D, who is responsible, and accountable, for all sources of contributed income.

Everyone should think about getting their GPC!

Thanks for your comments.I’ve followed you for many years, and most of what you teach and the suggestions you offer I use often.

Several of the larger non-profit hospitals in my geographical area have had staff grant writers in the past. One I can think of in particular dropped the position, and after several attempts to migrate the duties to someone else in the organization and then to a local firm in their town, started prospecting for grantwriters out of the area. I’m sure that is not true everywhere though.

My comment re: who should do the final and interim reporting was meant to be slanted at the actual financial part of the process (sorry, it’s my bookkeeping background coming out), but I concur completely with you regarding what should happen and who should do it within the organization. Have I seen a little gilding of the lily? Yes, not from an organization with which I was personally involved but two that approached me to help them get funding after it happened. It was more a case of inexperience with one, and a lazy and disinterested CEO on the other, than an actual attempt to cover up anything, but it does come out, and it does destroy credibility. That is the only reason I would suggest a set of external, but related eyes on the project. It should definitely be someone who knows, understands and supports the mission, whether internal or external. Just a subset of internal controls, really.