About · Brooklyn, NY

meet the desk that argues for you.

Fairweather & Quill is a grant writing desk in Brooklyn with one stubborn belief: small organizations doing real work deserve applications as sharp as the ones written by institutions with a whole grants department.

We research funders, write narratives, defend budgets line by line, and stay on the phone through submission. One fixed fee per package. Quoted in writing before we write a word.

Book a 30-minute call Call (347) 574-6615
Hands holding a brass fountain pen over a grant draft covered in copper red-pen marks
The red pen, mid-sentence
What we’re against

three things we refuse to write.

  1. the plea.

    “Please consider our humble request” loses to a clear argument every time. We write the case: need, approach, outcome, proof.

  2. the boilerplate.

    Reviewers have read your funder’s favorite paragraph four hundred times. We build the need statement from your numbers and your neighborhood.

  3. the open meter.

    No hourly clock ticking while you wonder what it’s costing. One fee, one number, on paper, before the first draft.

How the desk started

a kitchen table, a rejection letter, and a better draft.

The desk began on a Sunday night in Brooklyn, at a kitchen table covered in somebody else’s rejection letter. A three-person nonprofit had done everything right except the one thing the reviewers scored: they never made the argument.

We rewrote it. The next cycle, it went back in with a logic model that held, a budget justification that survived the red pen, and a need statement built from their own intake data. That rewrite is why this desk exists.

a rejection is the funder’s free consultation.
A kitchen table with a rejection letter, index cards and a fountain pen under lamplight

Today the work is the same, at a larger scale: foundation applications, city and state RFPs, and federal proposals for small nonprofits and community health organizations. The same two habits hold: read the funder’s rubric first, and read every page out loud before it leaves.

House style, marked up

the red pen’s standing orders.

Every draft that leaves the desk has been through these edits first. Here is what the pen strikes, and what goes in its place.

Opening“We are a small organization in need of support.”“412 households used the pantry last winter. We turned away 61.”
Budget“Miscellaneous program costs.”every line has a name, a unit, and a reason.
Outcomes“Improve community wellbeing.”“Screen 300 adults for hypertension by month nine.”
Finish“Thank you for your consideration.”end on the ask, the amount, and the date the work begins.

Illustrative edits, rewritten for this page. Your numbers always come from your own records.

How we work

the ledger of promises.

  • one writer on your file

    The person who interviews your program lead drafts the narrative and the budget side by side, so the two agree with each other.

  • quoted before drafted

    A fixed fee in writing. Half to start, half on submission. Say yes and the number never moves.

  • honest about fit

    If a funder isn’t worth your spring, we’ll say so on the first call, before you spend a dollar.

  • no guarantees on the win

    We promise a complete, compliant, well-argued submission, in on time. Funding is the funder’s call.

  • the files are yours

    Once the final payment clears, every word is yours to reuse for the next funder.

Give us the due date See the fee schedule
Book a call

tell us the due date.

Thirty minutes, free, by appointment. Give us the funder, the deadline and one line about the work, and we’ll answer within one business day.

Call(347) 574-6615
Writecontact@fairweatherquill.com
HoursBy appointment — book a call
The desk
255 79Th St. Apt D4
Brooklyn, NY 11209Find our door on the map →