A grant coordinator is an important member of staff for a variety of nonprofit and community organizations that rely on grant funding for at least part of their operating budget. The grant coordinator’s job is to oversee all grant applications from beginning to end; this would begin with simply researching the various types of grants available and the requirements that applicants must meet. The next step is to discuss the application with any other employees who require the data, collect all of the requested data, and then write and submit the grant application. To succeed in this position, you must be extremely organized and have a thorough understanding of the grant writing process.
One of the most important aspects of being a grant coordinator is to conduct initial research on grants. This could entail spending many hours searching through various grant databases for grants that are relevant to the organization or nonprofit and for which the organization or nonprofit is a qualified applicant. After that, the grant coordinator will choose the grant or grants for which he or she will write the application and begin gathering the necessary information.
Many grant applications will ask applicants for very specific information, such as the type of work they do, the specific project for which the funds will be used, or the number of volunteer hours they log each week or month. Pay scales for specific employees, as well as any other information specific to the grant and the nature of the organization, may be required. Because some grant applications can be quite lengthy, the grant coordinator must be very organized and meticulous when filling them out to ensure that all of the requested information is provided. Meetings with other employees to discuss the application and what they can contribute are frequently required.
The next step in working as a grant coordinator is writing the grant and submitting it on time. Grant writing necessitates some specific knowledge of how to phrase certain things most effectively, or knowing what topics to discuss to increase the likelihood of the grant being awarded. Because there is certainly enough work in the process to make it a full-time job, some larger organizations will have one grant coordinator overseeing the process and a number of junior grant writers participating in the ongoing research and writing tasks.