There aren't enough.

In fact, you'll be hard-pressed to find an undergraduate program in grant writing. There are programs in nonprofit management, English, technical writing, but not grant writing, which is worthy of its own major. There is only one graduate program in grant writing in the U.S., as of the writing of this.

There are programs and certificates in nonprofit management offered by institutes of higher education, but grant writing is only a small, and inadequate, portion of their training. (I know this because I've talked to the professors and even been a guest lecturer for these courses because they don't have robust grant writing components.)

The courses that exist are prohibitively expensive for your average grant writer.

You probably found one-hour online trainings on a very narrow topic within grant writing for $200. You might have found a 2-day workshop for $750-$1,000. Maybe you even lucked out and found a 6-month program for $750. Or perhaps you stumbled upon a fundraising certificate program at a university with classes that start at $3,500 a piece. (They won't tell you the cost on the site; you have to request info first, but that's the average fee for a university course.)

Most people who need to learn grant writing for the financial sustainability of their nonprofit can't afford large tuitions and financial commitments like these. Even the $200 1-hour courses aren't affordable because you need to take dozens of them to get the full education you need to be successful with grants.

And here's the really big one: The courses that are affordable aren't taught by professional writing educators.

There could be some amazing instructors out there. I'm not knocking all the other grant writing teachers. But here's what I know for sure: To teach writing exceptionally well, you need to be educated in the teaching of writing.

Many of the courses you'll find are taught by professionals in the field who have decades of experience in grant writing, but no professional training in the teaching of writing. Just because you can do it well, doesn't mean you can teach someone else to do it well.

What you'll learn in a lot of these programs is generalized rules and principles of grant writing rather than true writing instruction, feedback, and guidance.

I have a Ph.D. in the teaching of writing (Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies). I spent years, studying, practicing, researching, and writing about this topic professionally with the topic scholars in the field.

I designed my course using the theory and pedagogy I learned and practiced in my Ph.D. program. We don't just teach the principles of grant writing. We show you how to write, help you practice writing, give you feedback on your writing, and even help you revise your writing.

That's why our course has both the go-at-your-own-pace evergreen content AND the live, twice monthly writing workshops. And the way I teach in both of those formats is based on my doctoral work and experience.

If you're ready to learn grant writing with us, get started with one of our free resources below.