Trusts, foundations, the Lottery, core costs and council contracts
Your charity's funding applications, written for you
2, 4 or 6 applications a month, to funds picked because they fit what you do, from £950 a month. A draft of your own, checked before it goes in, is £400 to £750.
A month of applications, from £950 a month
Retained bid support is a rolling monthly arrangement from £950 a month, with no minimum term. We write the applications from your own evidence, look for the funds and tenders that fit what you do, and come back to you only for what is missing.
You have three ways to get a funding application written. A paid funder list does not write anything. So you end the month holding a list. A consultancy month is a document, or two.
Buy a month here and what arrives is the applications themselves. They are written out of your own evidence, at a price fixed before the month starts. Which funds are worth the effort is part of what you are paying for.
| What the month includes | Each one | In a year | |
|---|---|---|---|
| £950 a month | 2 applications that fit | £475 each | 24 in a year |
| £1,450 a month | 4 applications that fit | £363 each | 48 in a year |
| £2,400 a month | 6 applications that fit | £400 each | 72 in a year |
2 applications a month is 24, 4 a month is 48, and 6 a month is 72 in a year. Write down how many your own team sent last year, and the gap between the two numbers is what a band buys.
The founding offer
The entry band is a founding offer, and four things come with it at no extra charge.
- The funder watch, running all month on the funds that fit what you do.
- A monthly shortlist, scored for fit, so you see what was found and what was let go.
- The answer library, built out of your own evidence and kept current, and yours to keep.
- Your first review free, on a draft your own team has written.
The founding rate is £950 a month and it holds for your first three months. What follows it is written into your agreement before you sign anything.
The payment on an award
On an award there is one more payment, a flat £500 on any award over £10,000. It is agreed in writing before the work starts, and it is the same amount whatever the award comes to.
What sits outside a band, how it ends and whether there is a place open are on the retained support page.
What happens after I send the guidance?
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You get the fee and a yes or no on bidding
Send the funder's guidance, your deadline and anything you've drafted. The reply carries the fee and the dates. If the answer is don't bid, you have paid nothing.
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About an hour of your time
One call, recorded if you agree, where we ask for what you already hold: monitoring spreadsheets, last year's evaluation, accounts, the application that got turned down. The application gets built out of those.
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The application comes back and you send it
Every change is explained. The decisions that are yours, how much to ask for above all, come back as a short list. You read the finished application, make those calls, and it goes in as yours.
Charity bid writing from your evidence, £500 to £2,500
Bid writing here means the application or the tender written from your evidence against the criteria it's marked on. Yours is built out of your own monitoring, last year's evaluation and an hour of your words, so your own records can produce the source for every fact in it.
The finished application is yours on delivery, every draft and every piece of research with it.
Where the evidence is missing you get a named gap and, where there's time, a way to fill it before the deadline.
If you paid a consultant last time and got a template back, that is the difference, and it is one you can check line by line. The finished application is yours on delivery, every draft and every piece of research with it.
A review of the draft you've written, £400 to £750
A bid review is an independent read of a funding application or tender response you've already written, held line by line against the funder's or the buyer's published criteria. The funder's assessor works down those criteria one at a time and marks what is in front of them.
A review covers one read against the published criteria. Your budget or your pricing schedule is checked line by line, and the weakest answers come back named with the fix for each. One round of the changes you pick is made for you inside the fee, and anything wanted after that is quoted first.
One UK charity bought a £5,000 engagement and has kept us on a monthly retainer since. The whole engagement, and what the first read of their papers caught, is on the case study page.
The questions charity leaders ask before they hire a bid writer
Isn't hiring a freelancer going to cost a lot of money?
A review of a draft you've written is £400 to £750, and that's the smallest thing to buy first.
Could we write it ourselves?
If the guidance is short and you've written a winning one to this funder before, you probably should, and sending it here to be told that is free.
Do you guarantee to raise funds?
No, the funder decides that and no writer can.
My trustees are unconvinced. Now what?
Start with the review at £400 to £750. It's small enough to sign off and leaves you holding a marked-up draft whatever you buy next.
Will you submit the application for us?
You do that yourselves, because your logins stay with you.
Whether AI is used, and what happens to your material, are answered on the FAQ page in a sentence each.
What does it cost?
Every fee is for the finished piece of work.
| What it is | Fee |
|---|---|
| Bid reviewThe bid you've written, checked against the criteria before it goes in, with one round of the changes you choose made inside the fee. | £400 to £750 |
| Grant application or small tender, writtenWritten from your evidence against the funder's criteria and ready to submit, with the decisions that are yours listed at the end. | £500 to £2,500 |
| Full tender, writtenQuality answers, method statements and social value written against the criteria and weightings, with the compliance list. | £2,500 to £5,000 |
| Retained bid supportThe funds and tenders that fit you, found every month, with a set number of applications written from your evidence. | from £950 a month |
| A free read on whether to bidSend the guidance or the tender pack with the deadline, and you get a price and a plain yes or no on bidding. | Free |
The fee is fixed first. You pay when the application is delivered, and on a first job there's nothing to pay before that. The fees here are what you pay, and there is no VAT to add.
Every fee is on the pricing page, and if yours is a tender the company page carries the same three steps.
Send the guidance and get a fixed fee back
Link the funder's guidance or paste it in, put in the deadline, add whatever you've written so far, and the fee comes back with a straight answer on whether to bid.