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.
What difference will you make?
How Will This Role Help Your Organisation?
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 creating 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 organizations 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 creating 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 organizations 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 organizations 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.
What are we looking for?
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.
Essential Qualities
Proven Grant Writing Success This is our core requirement. You should have a track record of winning grants, ideally for charities, nonprofits, or community organizations. Experience with UK funders (National Lottery, local foundations, trusts) is extremely valuable. You understand funder psychology, know how to structure proposals, can write persuasively without hyperbole, and know the difference between what works for corporate funders versus community foundations versus lottery funds. If you’ve secured £10,000+ in grants before, you’ll excel here.
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 prioritizing opportunities. You understand our charity’s unique positioning (AI + environment + bereavement) and can identify funders whose priorities align. Experience developing funding strategies or creating grant calendars is valuable.
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. Strong writing skills are essential—clear, concise, engaging prose that follows funder guidelines while maintaining authentic voice. Experience with case study development, impact measurement, and evidence-based writing is helpful.
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. You should understand concepts like cost-per-beneficiary, value for money, and budget narratives. Experience with charity finance, project budgeting, or funding applications requiring detailed financial breakdowns is valuable.
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 Familiarity with local funding landscape
• Outcome Measurement Creating logic models, theories of change, evaluation frameworks
• Relationship Fundraising Building donor relationships beyond transactions
• Charity Governance Understanding what funders look for in organizational structure
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. If you view “no” as “not yet” and treat rejections as learning opportunities, you’ll thrive.
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. Your passion for our mission will shine through applications and make the work meaningful rather than merely technical.
If you love the challenge of unlocking funding, telling compelling stories, and knowing your words directly enable life-changing services, this role is perfect for you.
Remote
What will you be doing?
What You’ll Do
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 (done with guidance from CEO)
• Research grant opportunities from trusts, foundations, lottery funders, corporate donors, and government programs
• Identify funders aligned with our mission children’s welfare, bereavement support, mental health, creative arts, or community cohesion
• Prioritize opportunities using our three-tier approach micro grants (£500-£2,500), small grants (£2,500-£20,000), and major grants (£20,000-£100,000+)
• Create a grant calendar with deadlines, requirements, and application timelines
• Track Liverpool/Merseyside-specific funding (Communities Together Grant, 23 Foundation, Pilkington Charities, Community Foundation Merseyside)
Application Development (done with guidance from CEO)
• Write compelling case statements that articulate our unique approach
• Develop strong project proposals showing clear outcomes, beneficiaries, and impact measurement
• Create detailed budgets breaking down costs
• Gather supporting evidence volunteer testimonials, family impact stories, case studies, partnership letters
• Tailor applications to each funder’s priorities and language while maintaining our authentic voice
Specific Grant Targets (Year 1)
• URGENT Liverpool Communities Together Grant (£2,500, deadline Feb 14, 2025)
• National Lottery Awards for All (£10,000-£15,000) – our primary target
• Liverpool ONE Foundation (£15,000/year for children’s mental health)
• Community Foundation Merseyside funds (various amounts)
• Church and faith community grants (£500-£2,000 each)
• Pilkington Charities Fund (up to £20,000)
Impact Measurement and Reporting (done with guidance from CEO)
• Work with our team to define measurable outcomes families served, books created, grief improvement indicators, volunteer hours, community partnerships
• Create systems for tracking and documenting impact (spreadsheets, photo permissions, testimonial collection)
• Develop case studies of 3-5 families whose lives were changed by memorial books
• Write interim and final reports for funders (most grants require 6-month and annual reporting)
• Gather data proving our model’s effectiveness for future applications
Relationship Management (done with guidance from CEO)
• Build relationships with grant officers at key funders through introductory calls and meetings
• Attend funder information sessions and workshops
• Communicate with Liverpool CVS (offers free bid-writing support at 0151 227 5177)
• Network with other Liverpool bereavement charities to learn from their funding success (e.g., Paul’s Place received £338,000 from National Lottery)
• Maintain funder database with contacts, preferences, past interactions, and outcomes
Organizational Capacity Building (ongoing)
• Help leadership understand what funders look for (governance, track record, evaluation plans, sustainability)
• Identify gaps in our organizational readiness (policies needed, partnerships to establish, data to collect)
• Support development of materials that strengthen all applications annual reports, impact statements, financial transparency, volunteer testimonials
Our Team Structure
You’ll work directly with our founder to understand our vision, costs, and impact. You’ll collaborate with our Volunteer Coordinator (for volunteer statistics and testimonials), Memorial Book Creators (for family impact stories), and Training Program Manager (to demonstrate organizational maturity). You’ll have autonomy to develop our funding strategy while receiving all the program information and support you need.
Location: , ,
LinkedIn: Apply Here