Real-Life Math
When mapping a major proposal for a grant, writers have to be very detailed in their research. The more comprehensive their descriptions of programs are, the more likely grant sources are to throw money at them. Any good description will account for details like statistics, budgets and forecast charts.
"I'd say 70 percent of the errors that would disqualify an applicant from funding occur because of lack of basic math skills in adding and subtracting when writing out a program's budget," says Richard Thill. "Math is absolutely essential. Not only math, but a sense of how economics work. A very basic sense of what money can do and what it can't."
"Math skills are fairly important," says Katherine Kubarski. "It's important to be able to look at statistics and figure out what it is that they need and to express that in a narrative form. There are times we get involved in helping the organization construct the budget."
If you're working independently, you will also have to grapple with your own budget.
You run your own grant writing company. You have a roster of 4 consultants who work for you. You pay them $75 per hour when you need them.
You've just wrapped a month where you've used each of their services for 80 hours. You also owe them 20 percent of their fee for overhead expenses (things like travel and phone calls). Figure out how much you'll pay them, and use your answer to decide how much you'll charge your client. You charge your own fee of $100 per hour. You've worked for 160 hours. You take a 20 percent overhead as well.
How much will you have to charge your client?