About Gull & Ginger · Brooklyn, NY

You want a writer who reads the funder first. Meet the desk.

Gull & Ginger is a small writing studio with a narrow job: help community nonprofits say what they already do well, in the language a funding panel scores. This page is who we are, how we think, and what we decline to promise.

See what we write Send us the deadline

Founded onThe read before the write
HoursWeekdays 8am–7pm
Studio1 Boerum Place, Brooklyn, NY 11201

A writer’s desk by a Brooklyn window with a marked-up proposal, a binder clip and a cup of ginger tea

The short history

A gull, a root of ginger, and a Tuesday afternoon

The name came from a window. A gull on the Boerum Place ledge, and a jar of ginger tea going cold beside a funder’s 990. The first reads as freedom and the second as stubborn warmth. We wanted a studio that was both: unhurried with a reader’s eye, and persistent about a deadline.

Gull & Ginger exists because small Brooklyn nonprofits have the programs and the proof but rarely the spare afternoon. The people running a food pantry, a tenants’ association or an after-school choir write grants between everything else. Their applications read like it, and the panel can tell.

A proposal should sound like the best day of your organization, not the longest.

So we do the unglamorous part first: reading what a funder has actually paid for, then drafting toward that. The budget and the story are written side by side, because panels check one against the other, and so should we.

Read the fee sheet

House rules

Four convictions we write by

None of these are slogans. Each one changes what lands on your desk, and when.

The funder is the first reader
Before a sentence is drafted, we read the guidelines, the last two award lists and the 990. If a match is poor, we say so before you spend a dollar.
Numbers and story agree
Narrative, logic model and budget narrative are drafted together, so the arithmetic is checked against the prose before a reviewer does it.
The fee is fixed before we begin
One flat price per proposal, set in writing, with two rounds of revision inside it. Nothing here runs on an hourly clock.
The date belongs to us too
We count backward from the deadline, name an owner for every task, and send you the confirmation screen the day we file.

What a week at the desk looks like

The rituals behind a clean submission

Grant writing is mostly small habits repeated until they’re invisible. These are ours.

Monday

The award-list read

Every week begins with a funder’s recent awards laid out on the table: who got funded, at what size, for which neighborhood. It is the quickest way to learn what a panel really values.

Tuesday

Voice memos

Clients answer our question sheet out loud. We write from what you said, not from what you think a grant should sound like.

Thursday

The reviewer pass

Every draft is read once with a pencil, as a scorer would: where is the ask, where is the evidence.

Deadline eve

The attachment sweep

Board list, IRS determination letter, audit, signatures. We check each file opens, is named the way the portal wants, and is the latest version, before the upload begins.

Where we draw the line

What we won’t promise

A studio that guarantees funding is guessing, or worse. Here is what we’ll say instead.

A funded grant: Panels decide, and budgets run out. We can promise a proposal that answers every scoring criterion and reads cleanly; we can’t promise a check.
A percentage of the award: We don’t take success fees. They tempt writers to chase the biggest ask rather than the right one, and they aren’t permitted under many funders’ rules.
A proposal for a poor match: If the funder read says your program sits outside their giving pattern, you’ll hear it on day three, and the scan fee is credited toward the next proposal.
Words that aren’t yours: We structure, tighten and write toward the rubric, but your programs, your numbers and your voice stay at the center. Nothing goes in a proposal you haven’t read and approved.

Next step: Thirty minutes, no charge

Got a funder and a date? Bring both.

Ring (301) 908-2326 on a weekday between 8am and 7pm, or send the guidelines to info@gullginger.com. You’ll have a scope and a flat fee back within one business day.

Put a call on the calendar