A grant writer is most often a writer with a specialty, though she may also do fundraising. A fundraiser may write grants as part of his job. But most often, a fundraiser is a person on staff who is assigned to general fundraising duties.

Fundraising duties can include nurturing long-term donors, developing candidates and plans for bequests, planning and executing fundraising events or speaker series, managing a database of donors, developing year-end and mid-year letter campaigns, and other similar responsibilities. Larger organizations usually have someone on staff assigned to fundraising, and often that person is called a development director.

While many development directors can and have written grants, they become so busy with the other requirements of their jobs that grant writing becomes a sideline for them or something they seek from an outside source, such as a professional grant writer.