Grant Writer Application

Find Your Next Grant Writing Professional with This Comprehensive Application Template

Hiring a skilled grant writer can transform your nonprofit's fundraising capacity. This Grant Writer Application template is designed to help nonprofit organizations, foundations, and mission-driven enterprises identify candidates who bring not only strong writing skills, but also proven experience in foundation research, budget development, compliance reporting, and deep sector knowledge.

Why This Template Works for Nonprofit Hiring

Grant writing is a specialized skill that blends storytelling, research, financial acumen, and regulatory compliance. Unlike general writing positions, grant writers need to understand the philanthropic landscape, build relationships with funders, and communicate impact in compelling, data-driven ways.

This template captures all the essential elements you need to assess:

• Proven track record through successful proposal samples and win rates
• Foundation research capabilities that demonstrate due diligence and strategic targeting
• Budget development proficiency for creating realistic, fundable project budgets
• Compliance and reporting experience to ensure stewardship and accountability
• Sector focus and expertise across health, education, environment, social justice, arts, and beyond

By using Paperform's flexible form builder, you can create an application experience that reflects your organization's values while efficiently collecting the information you need to make confident hiring decisions.

Designed for Development Directors, HR Teams, and Nonprofit Leaders

Whether you're a Development Director building your grants team, an HR Manager supporting nonprofit hiring, or an Executive Director bringing fundraising capacity in-house, this template streamlines your recruitment process. Instead of sifting through generic resumes and cover letters, you'll receive structured responses that allow for direct comparison across candidates.

The form is intentionally comprehensive, asking candidates to:

• Share portfolio samples of successful grant proposals
• Describe their foundation research methodology
• Outline their budget development process
• Detail compliance and reporting workflows
• Identify their nonprofit sector focus areas and subject matter expertise

This level of detail helps you quickly identify candidates who understand the full grant lifecycle—from prospect research and proposal development to award management and funder stewardship.

Seamless Integration with Your Hiring Workflow

Paperform makes it easy to embed this application directly into your careers page, share it via social media and nonprofit job boards, or send it to referred candidates. You can customize the design to match your brand, add your logo and mission statement, and create a welcoming experience that attracts mission-aligned talent.

Once applications start flowing in, Paperform's AI Insights can help you quickly summarize candidate responses, identify common themes, and spot standout qualifications. Integrate with your Applicant Tracking System (ATS), Google Sheets, Airtable, or Notion to keep all applications organized in one place.

You can also use Stepper (stepper.io) to automate your hiring workflow—trigger confirmation emails, route strong candidates to your review panel, schedule interviews automatically, and keep your team updated at every stage. This means less administrative work and more time evaluating the talent that will drive your mission forward.

Collect Portfolio Samples and Work Examples Securely

Grant writing is a results-driven profession, so seeing actual work samples is critical. This template includes file upload fields where candidates can submit successful proposals, letters of inquiry, case statements, and budgets. Paperform supports secure file uploads with generous storage, so you can collect and review portfolios without relying on external file-sharing services.

You can request work samples in various formats—PDFs, Word documents, or links to online portfolios—and review them directly within the Paperform submission interface or your integrated project management tool.

Built for Compliance and Professionalism

Nonprofit hiring often involves considerations around equity, transparency, and compliance. Paperform is SOC 2 Type II and GDPR compliant, ensuring that candidate data is collected, stored, and managed securely. You can add optional demographic questions to support diversity tracking (while keeping them non-required and clearly optional), include equal opportunity statements, and maintain a professional, trustworthy candidate experience from start to finish.

Who This Template Is For

This Grant Writer Application template is ideal for:

• Nonprofit organizations hiring in-house grant writers or development staff
• Foundations and philanthropic institutions seeking program officers or grants managers
• Consulting firms building teams of freelance or contract grant writers
• Universities and research institutions recruiting sponsored programs professionals
• Social enterprises and mission-driven startups expanding their fundraising capabilities

Across health, education, environment, social justice, arts, international development, and community-based sectors, this template adapts to your specific focus area while maintaining the rigor needed to identify top talent.

Customize, Collaborate, and Convert

Because Paperform works like editing a document, you can easily adapt this template to reflect your organization's unique needs. Add questions about specific funding priorities (federal vs. foundation, local vs. national, capital campaigns vs. program support), include requests for references or writing samples on particular topics, or adjust the tone to match your culture.

For organizations that use Papersign (papersign.com), you can even follow up with shortlisted candidates by sending offer letters, confidentiality agreements, or freelance contracts for eSignature—keeping your entire hiring process connected and professional.

Get Started Today

With over 500,000 teams worldwide trusting Paperform for recruitment, client onboarding, and operational workflows, this Grant Writer Application template gives you a head start on building a stronger development team. Start attracting mission-aligned talent today with a form that's as professional and thoughtful as the candidates you're seeking.

Whether you're filling your first grant writing role or expanding an established team, Paperform helps you find the right fit faster—so you can get back to the work that matters: funding your mission and creating lasting impact.