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Grant Writer

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When it comes to grant proposal writing, Richard Thill is one of the originals.

They say necessity is the mother of invention. That's how this retired archivist learned to fund his university research in the '60s and '70s. Throughout his career, Thill wrote several successful grant proposals to generate thousands of dollars in research revenue.

His efforts paid for the development of his brainchild, a computerized archiving system for German and American folklore.

Thill left his work to go into grant writing and consulting full time. His Omaha, Nebraska-based company draws from Thill's long experience of reeling in over $450 million in grants for both his work and his clients' programs. Thill calls grant writing a labor of love.

"I more than enjoy it," he says. "It's an incredible adrenaline rush to create opportunities where none existed before -- to help people who have fine ideas for services like medical care or aid to the homeless or people recovering from addictions, to be able to keep dreams alive. And to be paid for doing something that you would do for free if you could afford to -- it's incredibly rewarding."

Katherine Kubarski runs a grant writing company in Los Angeles. She began writing grants at age 14, when she set out to find funding for her schooling and travels. In addition to educational scholarships, Kubarski scored grants for student exchanges to India and Spain, as well as experiences working abroad with the American Field Service.

"I managed to back myself quite easily, just by writing proposals asking for money," she says. "After college, I became a social worker for a nonprofit agency and applied my grant writing experience to writing proposals for them. Now I work independently and get most of my business through the Internet."

Kubarski charges an hourly rate and works with a small staff. She also gives workshops on effective grant proposal writing. One of the things she tells students is to learn that success is sometimes out of a grant writer's hands.

"Sometimes even the best written proposals don't get funded, and it's not because of anything the writer was negligent in. It's just a matter of there not being enough funding to go around or political influences being what they are," says Kubarski.

Colleen Miron is the grant writer for the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse. She says she has enjoyed a string of success lately because of recent increases to government spending on education.

"So far, we're pretty successful," says Miron. "Not all that many have turned around since I started, but we've definitely had a pretty high success rate. There's been a big push with Washington putting a lot of money into education-based programming and things like that."

Miron says she likes her job because it combines all her professional skills and interests.

"I like to write and I like to research different topics," she says. "I think it's the combination between writing, researching, working independently and collaborating with others. It's a nice balance.

"I like that because I'm not the one who's actually doing the project. I get to jump around with a lot of different things. One month I may be working on an after-school science program and the next month I may be working on a violence prevention program. So you get to switch gears a lot. You get to immerse yourself in totally different topics from month to month."

Leah Eustace is the director of development at a wilderness society. She's responsible for coordinating the group's fund-raising campaigns. Grant writing is part of her job description in a field where, according to Eustace, there aren't enough grant writers to go around. Eustace says there's a high demand for all jobs in the fund-raising industry.

"Competition is fierce and the demand for good fund-raising staff far exceeds the supply," says Eustace. "My guess is that over the next two to three years, salaries for fund-raisers will rise as demand continues to increase.

"I and most of my colleagues get calls from headhunters a few times a year. Most organizations are absolutely desperate for good fund-raisers. One colleague in particular left his job and was immediately offered positions at three other organizations. It's pretty amazing, really. I liken it to the demand for high-tech workers."