Experienced Grant Funding Bid Writer - Volunteer

Write compelling grant applications that fund memorial children's books for bereaved families. Use your bid‑writing expertise to unlock £50k‑£100k+ from funders like National Lottery, securing resources to help thousands of grieving children across the UK remember their loved ones.

The Grant/Bid Writer role is perhaps our most critical volunteer position as it literally determines whether our charity survives and thrives.

Unlocking Transformational Funding
Right now, we're limited to what families can afford and small church donations. With professional grant writing, we could secure similar funding annually which would enable us to help more bereaved families, employ part‑time staff, and offer completely free services to families in financial hardship. Your applications directly convert into memorial books for grieving children.

Creating Financial Sustainability
Currently, we operate projects without predictable income. Your work building a diverse funding portfolio by mixing small local grants, medium regional funds, and large national awards creates stability. Multi‑year grants allow us to plan ahead, invest in quality, and commit to families long‑term. You're building the financial foundation that transforms us from a pilot project into a sustainable service.

Demonstrating Credibility and Professionalism
Every successful grant application strengthens our credibility for the next one by proving we meet rigorous standards. Securing funding support demonstrates local recognition. These wins create momentum and funders trust organisations that other funders have already vetted. Your early successes make future applications exponentially easier and unlock previously inaccessible funding tiers.

Enabling Evidence‑Based Improvement
Grant applications force us to articulate our theory of change, define measurable outcomes, and commit to evaluation. This discipline makes us better. Your work establishing impact measurement systems creates valuable data that improves our service and strengthens every future application. You're building our evidence base.

Freeing Leadership for Program Delivery
Our founder has passion and vision but limited grant‑writing experience. Your expertise means applications are stronger, faster, and more successful. You enable leadership to focus on delivering excellent service rather than struggling with unfamiliar fundraising tasks.

Scaling Our National Impact
Our training videos will enable bereavement organisations UK‑wide to adopt our model. But we can only share this if we're funded to develop it. Your grant writing will fund the infrastructure that multiplies our impact.

Creating Competitive Advantage
Most small bereavement charities lack professional grant‑writing capacity. Your expertise gives us a significant competitive advantage when multiple organisations apply for the same funding. Well‑researched, compelling, evidence‑based applications stand out.

Building Long‑Term Funder Relationships
Great grant writers build relationships. Your networking with grant officers, attendance at funder events and professional reporting creates goodwill that leads to repeat funding, larger awards, and insider knowledge of upcoming opportunities.

The Ideal Grant/Bid Writer Qualities And Experience
We're seeking an experienced grant writer who can translate our grassroots bereavement service into compelling funding proposals that resonate with diverse funders. You'll need both the writing craft to tell our story powerfully and the strategic thinking to build a sustainable funding pipeline.

• Proven Grant Writing Success: This is our core requirement. You should have a track record of winning grants, ideally for charities, nonprofit, or community organisations. Experience with UK funders (National Lottery, local foundations, trusts) is extremely valuable.
• Research and Strategic Thinking: Great grant writers don’t just respond to opportunities—they proactively find them. You should be skilled at funder research, comfortable navigating databases (Funds Online, Grant Finder, Turn2us), and strategic about prioritising opportunities.
• Storytelling and Persuasive Writing: Grants are won through compelling narratives, not just data. You should be able to transform "we help bereaved families" into vivid, emotional stories that demonstrate urgent need and meaningful impact.
• Budget Development and Financial Literacy: You’ll be creating detailed budgets showing how funds will be spent. Comfort with spreadsheets, financial planning, and cost justification is important.

Helpful Experience (But Not Required)
Bereavement/Mental Health Sector – Understanding grief services and mental health funding priorities. Children’s Charities – Experience with funders focused on children’s welfare. Liverpool/Merseyside – Knowledge and familiarity with local funding landscape.

The Persistent Optimist
Grant writing requires resilience—most applications are rejected. You need the persistence to keep applying despite setbacks, the analytical skills to learn from rejections, and the optimism to believe the next application will succeed.

Mission Alignment
The best grant writers believe in the cause. You should be genuinely moved by helping bereaved children, excited about our innovative AI approach, and aligned with our environmental stewardship values.

What will you be doing?
Transform our innovative bereavement storytelling service into winning grant applications that secure sustainable funding. You’ll research funders, craft compelling narratives, and build the funding pipeline that enables us to offer free or low‑cost memorial books to bereaved families across the UK.

Key Responsibilities

• Funder Research and Strategy: Research grant opportunities from trusts, foundations, lottery funders, corporate donors, and government programmes.
• Application Development: Write compelling case statements that articulate our unique approach.
• Impact Measurement and Reporting: Work with our team to define measurable outcomes.
• Relationship Management: Build relationships with grant officers at key funders through introductory calls and meetings.
• Organisational Capacity Building: Help leadership understand what funders look for.

You’ll work directly with our founder to understand our vision, costs and impact. You’ll collaborate with our Volunteer Coordinator, Memorial Book Creators, and Training Program Manager.