I’m a great believer in the idea that how you begin a relationship sets the tone for how it will continue. Be sure to get off on the right foot by presenting yourself as confident and professional. Be on time for all meetings, dress professionally, and always check and recheck your work before sending it to a potential client. Keep in mind that when you interview for a grant-writing assignment, you’re there to judge the nonprofit’s grant-worthiness as much as they’re assessing your qualifications.

Do your homework before the interview. Go to GuideStar (guidestar.org) and study everything it has on the charity, including looking over its last few years of 990 forms. (These also tell you what they pay their top people and help you judge how much you can charge them.) Use your favorite Internet search engine to see if the charity has been in the news lately, and go over the charity’s website carefully. Come prepared with several questions about the charity’s programs. Listen carefully to the answers, and take notes.

Most of your clients will be thankful to have your help, supply you with the information you need, and pay you on time. Some clients, however, you’d best avoid.

Charity cases: They expect you to postpone payment until after the grant money arrives. That’s not much different from working on commission (or maybe for free, if the grant doesn’t come in).

Stealth clients: They want you to work on a grant without access to other people in their organization. Both staff and board should be aware you’re preparing grant proposals for the nonprofit and be prepared to cooperate with you as needed.

High hopes: The worst kind of client is looking for a miracle worker whose grant-writing skills will create a sudden shower of money for their cause. You’ll chiefly find these clients among those with little or no fundraising background. Run the other way when you suspect the client’s expectations far exceed reality.

Managing clients’ expectations is an important part of the grant writer’s job, and one you’d be wise not to ignore. Overpromising is the number one worst thing you can do. You’ll only disappoint your client, and they’ll only blame you. As you know by now, your skills at grant writing, while important, are only one of several factors in whether a grant will be made.

Don’t promise the client that three out of four or even one out of six proposals you create will be funded. You have absolutely no way of predicting that, no matter how many years of experience you have. (Which is why I am immediately suspicious of fundraisers who boast of their success rate, and you should be, too.)

Even though you cannot predict the results of the grant proposals you create, you will be expected to give your client your honest estimation of the likely success of the grant proposals you prepare. This is not a contradiction. This is an evaluation of the client’s program’s readiness for funding and an evaluation of the types of funding available in your area. For example:

I once interviewed with a potential client that had a terrific music education program. It was very small in scale but had global ambitions. I loved what they were doing, but because I knew the many restrictions of the local education funders, I could not come up with a single strong prospect for them. I had to decline them as a client, even though I thought I could have written a passionate proposal describing their work.

It is also important that you be sure your client understands the outside factors influencing the decision about grant applications: