Jami F wrote:
Hi, I'm fairly new to Upwork as a freelancer.
A client recently hired me to help him write a federal grant proposal for his nonprofit organization. We previously interviewed about 6 weeks prior but he had to get zoning approval before he could move forward in applying for the grant.
He asked me to help him with only one week to pull the information together and submit the application. I communicated my concern about meeting the deadlin and said that he would need to provide information about the budget, the mission, program design, staffing plan, resumes, and letters of support or it would not be feasible to meet the deadline. He also agreed to be "on call" so I could ask him questions, check on status of documents, etc.
I modified the milestones for the contract so that the work was broken down into concrete deliverables. I prepared several sections, formatted the content of the proposal, and added his content into the application. In the last two days leading up to the deadline, it seems things went off the rails, so to speak. I told him my time was limited since it was a work day and I have a regular job. I kept asking him for sections and then informed him I would be out for several hours for a school event for my son. I worked about 15+ hours to prepare this application. He would not return my calls or messages and even edited an earlier document version I spent hours on. At this point, I felt like I was just spinning my wheels.
I submitted the first milestone and will wait the 15 days to have him review, approve, and release payment. However, I am very concerned that he will leave a scathing review and ruin my success rate and I do not think he will pay me what the contract specified. At this point, I am tempted to do something to avoid getting a terrible review. Please advise me what my best options are for this situation. Thank you.
Is your background in federal grant writing? It takes 3-6 months to prepare a federal grant proposal. You got in over your head. Clients will always get busy, and you have to factor that in when you are telling them whether or not something can be accomplished. They usually have no clue how much work they will have to do to prepare a federal grant proposal as well.
One week to submit a federal grant proposal is a fool's dream. You gave him an unrealistic expectation that this could be done. Did you actually meet the submission deadline? Or are you now requesting payment for an incomplete proposal?
If it were me, as a professional grant writer with extensive federal experience, and I were in this position, I would apologize for my miscalculation and negotiate either a partial or full refund.
I know the client seemed to go MIA, but if you have any experience grant writing you would know that one week for a federal grant proposal is unfeasible. Especially since it sounds like you made that promise not knowing what material they had and didn't have, since you were requesting it AFTER the start of the contract.
In the future, fully vet what the client has prepared (by seeing it) and doesn't have prepared beforehand. If you want to get into federal grant writing as a profession, then you need to read all the guidelines from the different agencies and their guidance on how much time it takes to prepare a successful grant. NIH can range from a minimum of 80 hours on the grant writer side (the client usually has to devote around 50 themselves) to 120, in my experience. So how were you going to fit 80 hours of work or even 40 hours of work, if it were like NEA, into one week when you also work a job?
You set yourself up for a scathing review, in my opinion. In the future be clearer about setting up client expectations and my advice as someone who is highly successful in this and as a member of the Grants Professionals Association: last minute never works out.
