Examining Proposal Writing Courses to Bolster Student Skills that Apply to All Fundraising Rhetorical Situations

Proposal writing is an important skill in professional communication as many nonprofits and academic institutions rely on funding from external organizations to carryout out their activities and research. An overview of recent literature suggests that there is a gap between how proposal writing is taught and how rhetorical strategies are used in real-world practice. While technical communication courses have begun including grant writing as a component, they have yet to fully account for the variety of fundraising writing that professional communicators are likely to encounter in the industry. With a growing number of philanthropic funding sources, technical communication students need to be well-versed in how to address this unique population. This paper provides an overview of current literature related to how proposal writing is taught. It further seeks to begin the conversation on how fundraising proposal writing can be incorporated into the academic environment to ensure that technical communicators have the skills and rhetorical strategies needed to succeed in the changing economic landscape.