Is Your Grant Writer Also Working for Your Competition?
Updated: Oct 7
Author: Melissa Waine | BSc (Hons 1), BCom | University of New South Wales / Garvan Institute of Medical Research | Member, Australasian Medical Writers Association | 20 years of experience in NHMRC, MRFF, government and philanthropy grant strategy | melissawaine.com
"Are you working with anyone else applying for this grant?" It's one of the best questions a client can ask me. While my answer is almost always "NO," more people should be asking.
Grant writing is competitive by design. When you engage a grant consultant and writer, you need to know they are fully in your corner. That means not quietly working for the application yours is up against.
Why I Don't Work on Competing Grant Applications
Not every grant in the same round is a competitor. A cancer research team applying for an NHMRC Ideas Grant isn't competing with a community health not-for-profit applying for a state government program. Different schemes, different funders, different assessors.
Two applications compete when they:
Go after the same pot of funding in the same round. Only so many applications get funded, and one team's success can come at the other's expense.
Cover similar ground within the same round. That might be a similar research area, patient population, program model or community.
Are likely to be assessed side by side. If an assessor could reasonably be choosing between the two, they are competing.
When an enquiry ticks those boxes, I don't take it on.
Your Strategy is Your Competitive Advantage
The most valuable part of my work isn't the writing. It's finding what makes your project stand out: the unmet need you're uniquely placed to address, the strengths your team undersells and the angle assessors haven't seen before. Sharpening one application's competitive edge by definition seeks to be beats the others. I'm not willing to do that work for both sides of the same contest.
Applications for the same round share the same deadline. That's when the most strategic decisions get made and the most rewriting happens. You deserve my full attention in those final weeks, not divided attention while I juggle a rival submission due the same day.
Confidentiality is More Than a Signed NDA
Grant applications can hold some of the most sensitive material an organisation has: unpublished data, pilot results, partnerships still being negotiated, budgets and plans that haven't been announced. My confidentiality commitment is that client information is used only to deliver the agreed work.
But confidentiality isn't only about not forwarding documents. Once I've read your strategy, I can't unread it. The only way to make sure your ideas never shape someone else's application, even unintentionally, is not to work on a competing one.
How I Check for Conflicts
Checking for conflicts is part of the first conversation, before any confidential material changes hands. When we scope your project, I'll ask which funder, scheme and round you're applying to and the broad area your project covers, such as research field, population, program type or region.
I check this against my current commitments. If there's a potential conflict, I tell you straight away. I won't say who the other client is or what their project involves, just as I would never tell anyone about yours.
Rare Exceptions Can Occur
Very occasionally, two clients apply to the same large scheme that is awarding multiple grantees with projects that have almost nothing in common.
In that situation, I will only work on both applications if:
The projects are clearly and substantially different. They don't overlap in research areas, aims, population, methods or outcomes.
The clients involved agree. I explain the situation (without identifying anyone) and go ahead only with approval confirmed in writing.
The work stays completely separate. Separate files, separate conversations and no crossover of content or strategy.
In practice this is very rare; in fact, it has only ever happened once.
In contrast, I am working on a grant round at the moment and have turned down two competing clients alone in the past fortight. In this case, all parties are working to deliver almost identical projects with very specific deliverables and outcomes: a bulk-billing GP clinic in a designated local health district to the local population.
What This Means For Clients I Support
Because I limit the applications I take on in each round, I'm often booked well ahead of major deadlines. If you're planning an NHMRC, MRFF, government or philanthropic application, getting in touch early secures your place, and gives us time for strategy rather than last-minute editing.
It also means that when you work with me, my focus is on one thing: making your application the strongest it can be. As I've written before, grant funding success is strategy, not lottery. That strategy only works when it belongs to you alone.
Planning a grant application?
If you're preparing an NHMRC, MRFF, government or philanthropic grant application, I offer a free 30-minute strategy call to talk through your project and check for conflicts upfront.
Melissa Waine is a Sydney-based health and medical communication consultant with 20 years' experience across grant writing, medical writing and health communication strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will you tell me who your other clients are? No. I won't name other clients or share anything about their projects, just as I won't share anything about yours. If I can't take on your application because of a conflict, I'll tell you that there is a conflict, but not who or what it involves.
What happens if a conflict comes up after we've started working together? Your application comes first. If a new enquiry would compete with a project I've already committed to, I decline the new one. My existing clients never lose their place because someone else asked later.
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