Here are 15 questions to ask a grant professional you’re considering for a job:

1) What is your grant writing success rate? The best way to determine a success rate is to divide the number of approved grants by the number of submissions.

2) What are some examples of grants you have received?

3) How much money have you received in grants?

4) What is your primary area of ​​grant writing expertise?

5) What is the main type of funders you have approached? For example, have you primarily targeted private corporations and foundations or public government agencies at the federal, state, or local level?

6) What has been the primary focus of your grants…such as education, health, human services, arts and culture, environment?

7) What kinds of expenses have you funded…such as start-up capital, curriculum development, and travel?

8) What experience do you have in the area of ​​grant seeking? What experience do you have in researching and finding funders to meet the needs of our agency?

9) What experience do you have in program design and development? What kinds of strategies would you use to design and develop programs at our agency? What ideas do you have for getting stakeholder input and building partnerships?

10) What experience do you have in writing proposals? What training or experience do you have to develop an effective grant application and write a compelling case for funding? What training or experience do you have in analyzing Requests for Proposals (RFPs), including standard proposal elements (eg, problem statements, action plans, timelines, evaluation, etc.), and crafting a persuasive argument?

11) What experience do you have in managing grants? What experience do you have completing reports in an accurate and timely manner, ensuring regulatory compliance, and facilitating the completion of activities outlined in the activity schedule and grant evaluation plan?

12) What is your preferred mode of communication? Find out how they prefer to communicate (ie, by phone, email, text messaging, instant messaging, social media, etc.).

13) What is your response rate for emails or phone calls? Find out up front how quickly they’ll respond to emails or phone calls (my response rate is usually 20 minutes. I do mention up front though that I have a 24-hour response policy), how often they’ll update you on the status , deadlines for completion and deadlines.

14) How do you deal with problems that may arise? Asking this question up front will give you an idea of ​​how the candidate will approach problem solving. Ask for a specific example of how they have addressed a problem in the past.

15) What are your expectations?